People, Locations, Episodes

Richard Aoki, Activist born

*Richard Aoki was born on this date in 1938. He was an Asian American civil rights activist.

Richard Masato Aoki was born in San Leandro, California to Japanese American parents. One of two sons, his father was from Oakland and his mother was from Berkley, CA. During World War II, He and his family were interned at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah from 1942 to 1945. They moved back to Oakland, California after World War II ended. Aoki spent eight years serving in the United States Army, first as a medic and later in the infantry and as a weapons expert.

Jonathan Daniels, Seminarian, and Activist born

*Jonathan Daniels was born on this date in1939. He was a white Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist.

Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Advocate born

Marian Wright Edelman was born on this date in 1939. She is an African American children’s rights advocate.

Mildred Loving, Marriage Advocate born

*Mildred Loving was born on this date in 1939. She was an African and Native American activist.

Born Mildred Delores Jeter, she was African American and Rappahannock Native American descent. She met Richard Loving a white man when she was 11 and he was 17. He was a family friend and years later they began dating. They lived in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where interracial marriage was banned by a 1924 statute. When she was 18 she became pregnant, and the couple decided to marry, traveling out of Virginia to do so.

Lawrence Guyot, Civil Rights Lawyer born

*Lawrence Guyot was born on this date in 1939. He was an African American, lawyer and Civil Rights activist. From Pass Christian, Mississippi after high school Guyot (pronounced GHEE-ott) enrolled at Tougaloo College where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry in 1963. It was during his undergrad college years that he became active in civil rights.

Claudette Colvin, Activist born

*Claudette Colvin was born on this date in 1939.  She is a retired African American nurse aide and activist who pioneered the 1950s American civil rights movement.   The daughter of Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin, she was born Claudette Austin. Her parents could not financially support her, so she was adopted by Mary Anne and Q.P. […]

Michael Schwerner, Activist born

*Michael Schwerner was born on this date in1939.  He was a Jewish American civil rights activist. 

Doris Derby, Activist, and Educator born

*Doris Derby was born on this date in 1939. She was a Black activist, documentary photographer, director, and adjunct associate professor. Doris Adelaide Derby’s parents met in New York and married in the mid-1930s. She was raised in Williamsbridge, the outskirts of the Bronx. While in a predominantly white elementary school, she noticed a lack […]

James Zwerg, Minister, and Activist born

*James Zwerg was born on this date in 1939.  He is a white-American retired minister and activist.   James Zwerg was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, with his parents and older brother, Charles. His father was a dentist who provided free dental care to the poor one day per month. He was involved in school and participated […]

Tom Hayden, Activist and State Politician born

*Tom Hayden was born on this date in 1939. He was a white-American social and political activist, author, and politician.  Thomas Emmet Hayden was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, to parents of Irish ancestry, Genevieve Isabelle (née Garity) and John Francis Hayden. His father was a former Marine who worked for Chrysler as an accountant […]

Julian Bond, Activist, Politician born

Julian Bond, an African American Civil rights activist and politician, was born on this date in 1940, in Nashville, TN.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is Formed

*On this date in 1940, we celebrate the founding of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF).  They are a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.   Created by Charles Hamilton Houston in the 1930s, the organization stems from the legal department of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  In 1940, Thurgood Marshall established LDF as a […]

Bernard Lafayette, Activist born

*Bernard Lafayette was born on this date in 1940.  He is a Black activist and organizer.   Bernard Lafayette Jr. was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. His parents were Bernard Lafayette, Sr., and Verdell Lafayette.  He was the eldest of eight children of a poor family, so Bernard started working odd jobs to gain […]

Dave Dennis, Activist, and Author born

*Dave Dennis was born on this date in 1940.  He is a Black civil rights activist, author, and educator.  David J. Dennis was born on a plantation of sharecroppers in Omega, Louisiana, into a life of Jim Crow segregation.  He is the son of Thomas Dennis and Tizzie Perry Dennis Shepperd.  His family grew up in the Shreveport […]

Thelma Mothershed, Arkansas Activist, and Educator born

*Thelma Mothershed was born on this date in 1940. She is an African American educator and community activist.