Famous Civil Rights Figures

• Anderson, Marian

  The Black contralto who sang at the Lincoln Memorial

• Baldwin, James

  Author of Go Tell It On The Mountain

• Clayton Powell, Adam Jr.

  The Harlem preacher who was a congressman from 1945 to 1970

• Colvin, Claudette

  The black teen who preceded Rosa Parks

• Evers, Medgar

  Assassinated Mississippi civil rights leader

• Gray, Fred D.

  The lawyer for Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks

• Hampton, Fred

  The young Black Panther murdered by Chicago police in 1969

• Hansberry, Lorraine

  The author of A Raisin in the Sun

• Jackson, Jesse

  Aide to Martin Luther King and candidate for U.S. president

• King, Coretta Scott

  The wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• King, Martin Luther, Jr.

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

• Lewis, John

  The civil rights leader who served in Congress for 33 years

• Marshall, Thurgood

  The first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

• Murray, Pauli

  The Civil Rights Era hero who became an Episcopalian priest

• Parks, Rosa

  The civil rights icon who wouldn't give up her bus seat

• Rustin, Bayard

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

• Seale, Bobby

  Co-founder, with Huey Newton, of the Black Panther Party

• Sherrod, Shirley

  The USDA employee unfairly smeared as a racist in 2010

• Till, Emmett

  The Black teenager murdered in Mississippi in 1955

• Walker, Maggie Lena

  The first black American woman to open a bank (1903)

• Warren, Earl

  Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953-69

• X, Malcolm

  Assassinated leader of the 1960s black power movement

See: Index by Occupation