Marvel Cooke
Marvel Cooke was a pioneering journalist and political activist who spent her groundbreaking career in a world where she was often the only female African American.
Category Archives: Activism > Civil Rights
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Hilda Simms
Civil rights activist Hilda Simms became a national celebrity for her leading role in the first all-Black performance of the Broadway show Anna Lucasta. Frustrated by her struggling career and the lack of roles for Black actors, Simms worked as the creative director for the New York State Human Rights Commission to address racial discrimination in the entertainment industry.
Fannie Barrier Williams
Civil rights activist who helped found the National League of Colored Women in 1893
Franziska Boas
Pioneering dancer, percussionist, teacher, ethnologist, and therapist
Addie Waites Hunton
NAACP field organizer from 1921 to 1924, YMCA worker and writer
Irene Morgan
On July 16, 1944, Irene Morgan refused to surrender her seat to white passengers and move to the back of a Greyhound bus while traveling from Gloucester County, Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland. She was arrested and convicted in the Virginia courts for violating a state statute requiring racial segregation on all public vehicles. The NAACP appealed her case to the Supreme Court. On June 3, 1946, by a 6-to-1 decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia statute was unconstitutional when applied to interstate passengers on interstate motor vehicles because it put an undue burden on interstate commerce.
Jessie Redmon Fauset
As the literary editor of The Crisis (1919–1926) she introduced many Harlem Renaissance writers, including Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer, to the public, in addition to being a writer herself.
Juanita Jackson Mitchell
The NAACP’s first national youth director
Kathryn Magnolia Johnson
NAACP field organizer from 1921 to 1924, YMCA worker and writer
Margaret Bush Wilson
In 1958 she became president of the NAACP St. Louis Branch, and in 1962 headed the State Conference. Elected to the NAACP Board in 1963, she became the first black woman to chair it in 1975.