Famous Black Activists

• Bethune, Mary McLeod

  The founder of the National Council for Negro Women

• Burke, Tarana

  The woman credited with starting the Me Too movement

• Cleaver, Eldridge

  The Black Panther who wrote Soul on Ice

• Davis, Angela

  The black feminist/communist on the Most Wanted list in 1970

• Du Bois, W.E.B.

  Author of The Souls of Black Folk

• Evers, Medgar

  Assassinated Mississippi civil rights leader

• Giovanni, Nikki

  The poet who wrote "Ego-Tripping"

• Gray, Fred D.

  The lawyer for Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks

• Hampton, Fred

  The young Black Panther murdered by Chicago police in 1969

• hooks, bell

  Black feminist critic of "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy"

• King, Martin Luther, Jr.

  The civil rights hero who said "I have a dream"

• Maathai, Wangari

  The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize

• Murray, Pauli

  The Civil Rights Era hero who became an Episcopalian priest

• Newton, Huey

  Co-founder of the Black Panthers

• Plessy, Homer

  Namesake of the U.S. court case Plessy v. Ferguson

• Rustin, Bayard

  Organizer behind Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington

• Sharpton, Al

  New York's African-American preacher, activist and presidential candidate 

• Truth, Sojourner

  The freed slave and activist who said "Ain't I a Woman?"

• Tutu, Desmond

  The bishop who won a Nobel prize for opposing apartheid

• Woodson, Carter G.

  The "Father of Black History"

See: Famous African-Americans (for Black History Month)