Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She dedicated her life to community organizing and the fight for human and civil rights. Hamer was also the co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
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Brenda K. J. Crawley
Septima Poinsetta Clark (1898–1987) is well-known for her citizenship schools, literacy training, voting and civil rights activism, and community, political, and social services.
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Lou M. Beasley
Ralph David Abernathy (1926–1990) was a pastor who became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after the assassination of Martin Luther King. He was director of personnel, dean of men, and professor of social studies at Alabama State University.
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Larraine M. Edwards
Sophie Moses Robison (1888–1969) was a social worker, educator, and researcher who helped create social policy changes for juvenile delinquents. She held a PhD in sociology from Columbia University. Her research efforts and recommendations resulted in urban educational reform.
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Wilma Peebles-Wilkins
Roy Wilkins (1901–1981) was a writer and national civil rights spokesperson. He was assistant executive secretary and executive director of the NAACP for 46 years, during which time he struggled for justice and civil rights in all aspects of American life.
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Sadye L. M. Logan
Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1910–2008), a tireless advocate for human and civil rights, was a life-long humanitarian and one of the state’s most important civil rights leaders; he worked to bring peace and justice to all South Carolinians.
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Tanya Smith Brice
Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) was a political leader and activist best known as the first African American woman elected to the US House of Representatives and the first African American to seek the Democratic Party nomination for US President.
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Gary Mathews
Maryann Mahaffey (1925–2006) was elected to Detroit City Council in 1974, where she served until January, 2006. She used her political influence to address the issues of poverty, women's rights, civil rights, and the peace movement.
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Sunny Sinha
Dorothy Irene Height (1912–2010) was best known for her leadership positions with National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and Young Women’s Christian Association’s (YWCA), as she was instrumental in directing the efforts of both these organizations to address the issues of racial justice and gender equality.
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Karen D. Stout
Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, is credited with ending American apartheid. He fought for the civil and equal rights for ethnic minorities, women's rights, prisoners' rights, and was opposed to the death penalty.
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Brenda F. McGadney
Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was best known as an African American civil rights activist, who in 1955 refused to give up her seat to a White man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, leading to conviction for civil disobedience and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The 112th U.S. Congress celebrated her 100th birthday as National Day of Courage with a resolution recognizing her as the “first lady of civil rights” and the “mother of freedom movement” and commemorates her “legacy to inspire all people of the United States to stand up for freedom and the principles of the Constitution.”
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Paul A. Abels
Chauncey A. Alexander (1916–2005) was Executive Director of the National Association of Social Workers from 1967 to 1982 and founder and president of the First Amendment Foundation. He was instrumental in developing an International Code of Ethics for social workers.
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Wilma Peebles-Wilkins
W. E. B. Du Bois (1882–1973) was a Black scholar, writer, and militant civil rights activist. He actively fought against discrimination in all aspects of American life. He founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and edited The Crisis, the organizational magazine he founded in 1910.
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Iris Carlton-LaNey
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) was a civil rights leader, a minister, and an orator. In 1963, he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
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Jean K. Quam
Frank John Bruno (1874–1955) was an administrator and educator whose expertise and leadership influenced American social work. Working initially with the Associated Charities, he moved into academia, becoming president of two different bodies of social workers.
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Wilma Peebles-Wilkins
Whitney Moore Young, Jr., (1921–1971) was a social work educator, civil rights leader, and statesman. He worked to eradicate discrimination against Blacks and poor people. From 1961 until his death he was executive director of the National Urban League.
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Kenneth S. Carpenter
Kurt Reichert (1916–2006) and Betty Reichert (1916–2004) contributed to the health field as program and community planners, administrators, teachers, and writers. Kurt was active in the civil rights movement and Betty was an early pioneer in family life education.
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Sadye L. M. Logan
Ella Josephine Baker (1903–1986) was a consummate organizer and activist who played an active role in shaping the civil and human rights movements in the United States of America from 1930 through the 1980s.
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Brenda F. McGadney
Benjamin L. Hooks (1925–2010) was best known as an African American civil rights leader, lawyer, Baptist minister, gifted orator, and a businessman (co-founder of a bank and chicken fast-food franchises), who was executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (1977–1992). Hooks was appointed by President Richard Nixon as one of five commissioners (first African American) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1972, commencing in 1973 with confirmation by the Senate.
