People, Locations, Episodes

Sylvia Drew Ivie, Public Health Advocate born

*Sylvia Drew Ivie was born on this date in 1944.  She is a Black Mental Health Advocate, Lawyer, and activist.  From Washington, DC. She is the youngest daughter of Dr. Charles Richard Drew and Minnie Lenora Robbins Drew.  She has two sisters and a younger brother.  She graduated from the Oakwood School in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.  […]

Judy Richardson, Media Producer, and Activist born

*Judy Richardson was born on this date in 1944.  She is a Black Film producer, author, educator, and activist.   Born in Tarrytown, New York, her father was autoworker William King Richardson, and her mother stated office worker Mae Louise Tucker Richardson. Richardson grew up in the “under the hill” section of Tarrytown. The town was […]

Cleveland Sellers, Activist, and Educator born

*Cleveland Sellers was born on this date in 1944. He is a Black educator, administrator, and activist. Cleveland “Cleve” Sellers Jr. was born to Cleveland Sellers (Sr.) and Pauline Sellers in Denmark, South Carolina. Denmark was a town of mostly black residents, so much so that, as a child, Sellers was often blind to the […]

The Nova Scotia Association For The Advancement of Colored People is Formed

*On this date in 1945, the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NSAACP) was formed. Led by minister William Pearly Oliver, the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Colored People worked from the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church. The organization was formerly the Colored Educational Centre and intended to improve the standard […]

Kathleen Cleaver, Black Panther Activist and Educator born

Kathleen Cleaver was born on this date in 1945. She is an African American educator, lawyer, writer, and activist.

Born in Dallas Texas, Kathleen Neal Cleaver’s father was a sociology professor at Wiley College and her mother held a degree in Mathematics. With her father’s work, the family spent many of her early years abroad in Liberia, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Cleaver completed high school at the Georgia School in Philadelphia in 1963.

Barney Pityana, African Policy Advocate born

*Barney Pityana was born on this date in 1945. He is a Black South African human rights lawyer, activist, and theologian. Nyameko Barney Pityana was born in Uitenhage and attended the University of Fort Hare. He was one of the founding members of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) of the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko […]

Marsha P. Johnson, LGBT Pioneer born

*Marsha P. Johnson was born on this date in 1945.  She was a Black LGBT liberation activist, entertainer, and self-identified drag queen.  Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She had six siblings, and her father, Malcolm Michaels Sr., was an assembly line worker at General Motors, while her mother, Alberta Claiborne, was a housekeeper. Johnson attended an African Methodist Episcopal Church as […]

Bruce Gordon, Business Executive born

*Bruce Gordon was born on this date in 1946. He is a Black business executive and civil rights administrator. Born in Camden, New Jersey, Bruce Scott Gordon’s parents were active in the civil rights movement. He was a 1968 graduate of Gettysburg College, a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, and a 1988 Master’s degree […]

The Women’s Political Council is Formed

*The Woman’s Political Council (WPC) was organized on this date in 1946. Founded in Montgomery, Alabama, it was an organization that was an early force active in the 20th-century American Civil Rights movement that was formed to address the racial issues in the city. WPC’s founding members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Irene West, Thelma Glass, […]

Bettie Mae Fikes, Singer and Activist born

*Bettie Mae Fikes was born on this date in 1946. She is a Black gospel singer and activist. She was born in Selma, Alabama, and began singing gospel alongside her mother at age 4. Bettie Mae fikes is a descendant of a long line of country gospel singers and preachers. At 16, she became a […]

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) is formed.

*The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was formed on this date in 1946. They were an American civil rights organization. The CRC began at a conference in Detroit with about 10,000 members at its peak. Around 1948, the CRC became involved in representing blacks sentenced to death and other highly prominent cases to highlight racial injustice […]

Stephen Biko, African Freedom Fighter born

Stephen Biko was born on this date in 1946. He was a nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s.

Afeni Shakur, Activist, and Author born

*Afeni Shakur was born on this date in 1947.  She was a Black political activist, author, and journalist.   She was born Alice Faye Williams in Lumberton, North Carolina, the daughter of Rosa Belle, a homemaker, and Walter Williams Jr., a trucker. She had a sister, Gloria Jean.  She had a troubled beginning and grew […]

Bernard Powell, Activist born

*Bernard Powell was born on this date in 1947. He was an African American Civil Rights Activist, from Kansas City.

Powell was born five minutes ahead of his twin brother, Burnele. He graduated from Central High School in 1965 and formed the school’s alumni association. He became interested in civil rights work at a young age joining the NAACP at age 13 and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the March to Selma, Alabama. In the mid-1960s, he became regional director of the Congress of Racial Equality.

LeRoy Gardner Jr., Community Activist born

*LeRoy Gardner Jr. was born on May 11, 1947. He was an African American educator, counselor and activist.

He was one of three children of Reverend LeRoy Gardner Sr. and Katherine Gardner, he had a sister, Sharon; a brother, Gordon. As young man, Gardner Jr. was a playground basketball legend. As the community lore goes that as a 14 year old, he Ralph Mitchell (19) and Tommy Miller (19) beat (then) University of Minnesota basketball players Lou Hudson, Don Yates and Archie Clark in a pickup game at St. Paul’s Oxford Park.