People, Locations, Episodes

Lee Lorch, Math Professor, and Activist born

*Lee Lorch was born on this date in 1915.  He was a white Jewish-American mathematician, American Civil Rights activist, professor, and communist.  Lee Alexander Lorch was born in New York City to Adolph Lorch and Florence Mayer Lorch. He graduated from Cornell University in 1935 and obtained his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati […]

Thelma Glass, Educator, and Activist born

*Thelma Glass was born on this date in 1916. She was a Black educator and activist. She was born Thelma McWilliams to a hotel cook and homemaker in Mobile, Alabama. She graduated from Dunbar High School (Mobile) and attended Alabama State University and Columbia University. She married Arthur Glass in 1942, and both taught geography at Alabama […]

Homer Jack, Minister and Activist born.

*Homer Jack was born on this date in 1916. He was a white-American Unitarian Universalist clergyman, pacifist, and social activist. From Rochester, NY., Homer A. Jack was an only child to active socialist parents. His grandparents had immigrated from central and eastern Europe to escape oppression and poverty. Like his parents, young Jack was a […]

George Houser, CORE Co-Founder born

*George Houser was born on this date in 1916. He was a white-American Methodist minister and civil rights activist.   George Mills Houser was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who were Methodist missionaries. As a child, he spent several years with them in the Far East, largely in the Philippines.  After studying at what is now the University of the Pacific in […]

Ardelia Dixon, Activist, and Educator born

*Ardelia Dixon was born on this date in 1916. She was an African American activist and educator.

Born in Atlantic City to Ardelia Jackson and Oscar Dixon, Mrs. Dixon grew up in Cleveland and graduated from John Hay High School. She attended Fenn College (later Cleveland State University) for a year and then began working for her degree part time at Cleveland College of Western Reserve University (later Case Western Reserve University). In 1945, she married a fellow civic volunteer, Henry George Dixon, but had no children.

Julius Winfield Robertson, Lawyer born

*Julius Winfield Robertson was born on this date in 1916.  He was a Black lawyer, author, and civil rights activist.    Born in rural Georgia to a family of farmers, they moved to Tennessee for better opportunities.  In the early 1920s, he moved to Washington, DC, to escape the harsh realities of being a black man living in […]

Spottswood Robinson III, Lawyer, and Judge born

*Spottswood Robinson was born on this date in 1916.  He was a Black lawyer, judge, and civil rights, activist.     Spottswood William Robinson, III, was from Richmond, Virginia.   As a young man, he had two heroes, his father and paternal grandfather; he idolized his grandfather because of his fearlessness and accomplishments. Spottswood W. Robinson, Sr. was born into […]

Bernice Fisher, Union Activist born

*On this date, in 1916, Elsie Bernice Fisher was born.  She was a white-American activist and union organizer.  From Rochester, N.Y., Fisher’s father was Jay Merritt Fisher; her mother was Annie Rosetta (Morrison) Fisher. She graduated from Monroe High School in Rochester in 1934. She studied at the Rochester Collegiate Center from 1935 to 1936.  Fisher attended Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, N.Y., from […]

The Rosenwald School Project in America Begins

*The Rosenwald School project in America is celebrated on this date in 1917. This Educational endeavor built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of Black children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the partnership between Julius Rosenwald and Booker […]

Igal Roodenko, Activist born

*Igal Roodenko was born on this date in 1917. He was a white Jewish, Ukrainian American printer, activist, and pacifist. Igal Roodenko was born in New York City. His parents, Morris (Moishe) and Ida were from Zhytomyr, near Kyiv, in present-day Ukraine. They fled persecution under the Russian Tsar and emigrated to Palestine in 1914, […]

Irene Kirkaldy, Educator, and Activist born

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy was born on this date in 1917. She was an African American educator and civil rights activist.

Esther S. Brown, Kansas City Activist born

Esther Swirk Brown’s birth in 1917 is celebrated on this date. She was a White American Civil Rights Activist.

Brown was from Kansas City, MO. She attended Paseo High School, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. After her marriage in 1943, she filled the role of a typical Johnson County suburbanite until she learned of the terrible conditions for Black students not far from her home. A comfortable white Jewish housewife, she was concerned with the choices that Black students had to attend school.

The American Friends Service Committee is Formed

*The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was founded on this date in 1917. They are a Quaker Religious Society of Friends, an established organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and worldwide. AFSC was founded as a combined effort by American members of the Religious Society of Friends to assist World […]

Nelson Edwards, Autoworker and Union Activist born

*The birth of Nelson Edwards is celebrated on this date in 1917. He was a Black autoworker and labor union advocate. Nelson ‘Jack’ Edwards was born on a Lowndes County, Alabama, farm. In 1937, he moved to Detroit and worked at the Chrysler plant, where he became active in the local union. Inspired by his […]

Esther Cooper Jackson, Social Worker born

*Esther Cooper Jackson was born on this date in 1917.  She is a Black civil rights activist and former social worker.  Born Esther Cooper in Arlington, Virginia, she came from a family active in their community. She once said, “Our parents always told us that if we got the grades, and passed the tests, that […]