People, Locations, Episodes

Dick Gregory, Comedian, and Activist born

Dick Gregory was born on this date in 1932. He is an African American comedian and activist.

Walter Fauntroy, Pastor, and Activist born

*Walter Fauntroy was born on this date in 1933. He is a Black politician, pastor, and civil rights, activist. The fourth of seven children, Walter Edward Fauntroy, was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His mother, Ethel (Vines) Fauntroy, was a homemaker. His father, William Thomas Fauntroy, Sr., was a clerk in the U.S. Patent […]

Myrlie Evers-Williams, Administrative Activist born

*Myrlie Evers-Williams was born on this date in 1933.  She is a Black civil rights activist, journalist, and administrator.  She was born Myrlie Louise Beasley in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was the daughter of James Van Dyke Beasley, a delivery man, and Mildred Washington Beasley, who was 16 years old. Her parents separated when she was just a year […]

Norman Hill, Labor Activist born

Norman Hill was born on this date in 1933. He is an African American administrator, activist and labor leader.

James Meredith, Conservative Activist born

James Meredith was born on this date in 1933. He was an African American politician and activist.

Jean Childs Young, Educator born

*Jean Childs Young was born on this date in 1933.  She was a Black educator activist for racial justice and equitable education.   Jean Childs was born in Marion, Alabama. Her father, Norman Lorenzo Childs, worked at a family-owned grocery store and bakery in Marion, sometimes traveling around Alabama to sell the store’s homemade peanut brittle […]

William Gibson, Dentist, and Activist born

The birth in 1933 of Dr. William F. Gibson, an African American dentist and civil rights leader, is celebrated on this date.

He was born in Greenville, SC, the son of a brick mason and a schoolteacher. He became a dentist at Harlem Hospital in New York, returning to his hometown in 1959. While attending a voter registration meeting at Springfield Baptist Church in 1961, he decided to devote his life to civil rights. He organized the Black Council for Progress which helped get blacks into local and state political offices during the 1970s.

Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Activist, and Musician born

*The birth of Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick is celebrated on this date in 1933.  He was a Black Folk musician, activist, and minister. Named after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Kirkpatrick was born in Haynesville, northern Louisiana. His father, John L. Kirkpatrick, was a minister, and his mother died young. He had four sisters and a brother who […]

Donald Woods, South African Journalist born

The birth of Donald Woods in 1934 is marked on this date. He was a white South African journalist and activist.

A fifth-generation South African, he grew up the way most Whites of his generation did, as a believer in apartheid. Wood, from Transkei in remote South Africa, spoke English and Xhosa. In 1950, after hearing a parliamentary debate, his conservative views changed because of what he called “the great obscene lie of apartheid.” He was a law student, but he later turned to journalism.

Roy Innis, Public Policy Activist born

*Roy Innis was born on June 6, 1934.  He was a Black activist and politician.   Roy Emile Alfredo Innis was born in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1934.  In 1947, Innis moved with his mother to New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.  Innis joined the U.S. Army, […]

Michael de Freitas (Michael X), Activist, and Author born

*Michael X was born on this date in 1933. He was a Black self-styled black revolutionary and civil rights activist in 1960s London. Michael de Freitas was born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad, and Tobago, to an “Obeah-practicing black woman from Barbados and an absent white-Portuguese father from St Kitts .”Encouraged by his mother to pass for […]

Rev. Samuel Kyles, Minister, and Activist born

*The Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles was born on this date in 1934. He is an African American minister and Civil Rights activist.

Joseph Dorsey Jr., Boxer, and Activist born

*Joseph Dorsey was born on this date in 1935.  He was a Black professional boxer and activist.  The New Orleans-born Joseph “Joe” Dorsey Jr. began boxing at 16 and retired from the sport at age 31.  Boxing in New Orleans, a hotbed of enthusiasm for the sport, was segregated as early as 1892 when Black […]

Bob Moses, Activist, and Educator born

*On this date, in 1935, Bob Moses was born.  He was a Black educator and activist.  Robert Parris Moses grew up in Harlem, New York, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.   He received his B.A. from Hamilton College in 1956. He earned an M.A. in philosophy at Harvard; in 1958, he began teaching at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx of New York City.  Moses began working […]

Barbara Johns, Student Activist born

*Barbara Johns Powell was born on this date in 1935.  She was a Black librarian and civil rights activist.   Barbara Rose Johns was born in New York City, New York, in 1935. Her family had roots in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where they returned to live. Her mother worked in Washington D.C. for the […]