Download Martin Luther King Jr. Cesar Chavez Rosa Parks Hector P. Garcia

Martin Luther King Jr.
Cesar Chavez
Rosa Parks
Hector P. Garcia
(1929‐1968) (1924‐1997) Cesar Chávez was a migrant farm worker who sought to improve the lives of other migrant workers. He served as national director of the Community Service Organization before resigning in 1962 to focus on organizing a union for farm workers. He called for non‐violent struggles for justice and used strikes, boycotts and other forms of civil disobedience to improve conditions for migrant workers. Eventually strikes and boycotts caused 26 grape growers in California to recognize the United Farm Workers union in 1970 but growers continued to break contracts. Chávez provided leadership for 30 years, protesting violence and urging cooperation between growers and workers. The union continues to protect the rights of migrant laborers from unfair treatment on the part of employers. (1914‐1996) Martin Luther King was one of several African‐Americans concerned with reforming American society and gaining equal rights by using civil disobedience or non‐violent action. He earned his Ph.D. from the School of Theology at Boston University. He was called to minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Despite opposition from his father who urged him to return to Atlanta, King moved to Montgomery in 1955, settling in just before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. King assisted in coordinating the bus boycott which gained national and international attention. He gained visibility as a black leader, and experience in organization and leadership as a result. In 1957 he was instrumental in organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a consortium of churches and civic groups which supported activities to parallel those of the NAACP. The SCLC supported sit‐ins, boycotts, and protest marches in Birmingham, Alabama beginning in 1963. In August, during the March on Washington in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, King set aside his prepared speech and rallied the 250,000 in attendance with "I have a dream today!" He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. (1913‐2005) Hector García founded the G.I. Forum, one of the Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Parks grew up most active and successful civil rights organizations for Mexican‐Americans. Born in Llera, Tamaulipas, on her grandparents' farm near Montgomery and Mexico, García moved to south Texas with his family attended high school and college in the city. She and was educated there. He earned an M.D. from the and her husband were both active members of University of Texas at Austin in 1940. He served with the National Association for the Advancement of the U.S. Army Medical Corp during World War II and Colored People (NAACP). During a time when earned the Bronze Star. He founded the American G. public transportation was legally segregated, she I. Forum in 1948, a political activist organization was arrested on December 1, 1955, when she designed to protect the rights of Mexican‐American refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white veterans and their access to financial and medical man. Her actions prompted black church and benefits from the Veterans Administration. The G. I. business leaders to conduct a boycott of the Forum became one of the major advocacy groups for Montgomery bus company, which began Hispanics in the United States with 540 affiliate December 5, 1956. On December 21 the U.S. organizations and more than 20,000 members. García was politically active as a member of the Texas State Supreme Court ruled that segregation on city Democratic Committee and the Democratic National buses was unconstitutional. Martin Luther King, Committee. In 1960 he founded the Political Jr., the new minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Association of Spanish‐Speaking Organizations Church in Montgomery, participated in the (PASO). He was also involved in LULAC (League of December 5 meeting, an event which helped United Latin American Citizens). He was awarded the launch his civil rights career. United States of America Medal of Freedom in 1984. Betty Friedan
Orval Faubus
George Wallace
Lester Maddox (1919 ‐ 1998) George Wallace was governor of Alabama in 1963 when African‐American students sought admission to the University of Alabama. He literally barred the door, denying them admission. This prompted several non‐violent protests including sit‐ins, boycotts, and marches. Opposition to these tactics often became violent, especially in Birmingham and Selma. He later recanted his pro‐segregationist stance and gained black support for his last election as governor. In 1968 he received the most votes of any third‐
party nominee for president, running against Democrat Hurbert Humphrey and Republican Richard M. Nixon. He was shot and paralyzed as he campaigned for the 1972 election but this did not deter him from continuing in public office. He served two more terms as governor before retiring. (1921 ‐ 2006) Betty Friedan has been central to the reshaping of American attitudes toward women's lives and rights. Through decades of social activism, strategic thinking and powerful writing, Friedan is one of contemporary society's most effective leaders. Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, detailed the frustrating lives of countless American women who were expected to find fulfillment primarily through the achievements of husbands and children. The book made an enormous impact, triggering a period of change that continues today. Friedan has been central to this evolution for women, through lectures and writing (It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement in 1976 and The Second Stage in 1981). She was a founder of the National Organization for Women, a convener of the National Women's Political Caucus, and a key leader in the struggle for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. (1910 ‐ 1994) (September 30, 1915 – June 25, 2003) The tumultuous political and social change in Georgia during the 1960s yielded perhaps the state's most unlikely governor, Lester Maddox. Brought to office in 1966 by widespread dissatisfaction with desegregation, Maddox surprised many by serving as an able and unquestionably colorful chief executive. Orval Eugene Faubus served six consecutive terms as governor of Arkansas, holding the office longer than any other person. His record was in many ways progressive, but he is most widely remembered for his attempt to block the desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. His stand against what he called “forced integration” resulted in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s sending federal troops to Little Rock (Pulaski County) to enforce the 1954 desegregation ruling of the Supreme Court. Phyllis Schlafly
Thurgood Marshall
Eleanor Roosevelt
Dolores Huerta
(1908 ‐ 1993) Thurgood Marshall earned his law degree from Howard (1924 ‐ ) Law School in Washington, D.C. and made significant contributions in the quest for legal justice and civil rights in American author and political activist, known for her opposition to the women's liberation the United States. He argued cases which furthered the rights of African‐Americans and then became the first movement. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Schlafly African‐American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. campaigned against the proposed Equal Rights His early career involved assisting his mentor Charles Amendment (ERA). The amendment called for Hamilton Houston, who served as special counsel to the men and women to be given equal treatment Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the under the law. Schlafly opposed the ERA because Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The group challenged the validity of segregation and the concept of it would require women to serve in combat, and separate but equal as established by the 1896 Supreme because she believed it would take away legal Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. They argued that the rights of wives and would negatively influence decision violated the 14th Amendment. In 1954 Marshall family life. Schlafly also argued that the won his most famous case, Brown v. Board of Education. amendment would lead to unisex restrooms. She Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Earl Warren became a leading opponent of the ERA through announced the unanimous decision that segregation of public schools was inherently unequal and her lobbying organizations, Stop ERA and Eagle unconstitutional, and he ordered desegregation. The Forum, and by testifying against the ERA before decision motivated school districts to address the 30 state legislatures. The ERA was defeated in inadequate educational systems for blacks which had 1982, and Schlafly continued to lead her Eagle resulted from the "separate‐but‐equal" approach to Forum organization in campaigns advocating segregation. President Lyndon Johnson nominated Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 and he served conservative issues. until retirement in 1991. (1884 ‐ 1962) Considered by many the most influential First Lady and one of the most significant American women of the 20th (1930 ‐ ) century, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt married her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1905. She and F.D.R.'s Huerta is the co‐founder and Secretary‐Treasurer campaign advisor Louis Howe coordinated efforts to cast of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Mr. Roosevelt as a national leader. She realized the Huerta has received numerous awards for her importance of the role of women in politics, organizing the community service and advocacy for workers', Democratic national campaign for women in 1928 as her husband competed for the governorship of New York immigrants', and women’s rights, including the state. She politicized the plight of African‐American men Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding and women and working‐class whites, supported the American Award, the United States Presidential reform causes of Jane Addams and others, and promoted Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the political careers of women. During World War II she the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As a role continued striving for civil rights, believing that people of model to many in the Latin community, Huerta is all races have inviolate rights and that democracy in the United States could not exist as long as democracy was not the subject of many ballads and murals. The mother of 11 children, 14 grandchildren and four extended to African‐Americans. President Harry S. Truman appointed her as a delegate to the United Nations. She great‐grandchildren, Dolores has played a major chaired the Human Rights Commission which drafted the role in the American civil rights movement. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948. President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the United Nations and she chaired his Commission on the Status of Women. Stokely Carmichael
Malcolm X
James Meredith
A. Philip Randolph
(May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965)
He was born Malcolm Little and was an AfricanAmerican Muslim minister and a human rights
activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate
for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white
America in the harshest terms for its crimes against
black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching
racism and violence. He has been called one of the
greatest and most influential African Americans in
history. Malcolm X was effectively orphaned early in
life. His father was killed when he was six and his
mother was placed in a mental hospital when he was
thirteen, after which he lived in a series of foster
homes. In 1946, at age 20, he went to prison for
larceny and breaking and entering. While in prison he
became a member of the Nation of Islam, and after his
parole in 1952 quickly rose to become one of its
leaders. For a dozen years he was the public face of
the controversial group; in keeping with the Nation's
teachings he espoused black supremacy, advocated the
separation of black and white Americans and scoffed
at the civil rights movement's emphasis on integration.
June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) He was a Trinidadian‐American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. Growing up in the United States from the age of eleven, he graduated from Howard University and rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party. (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979)
He was a leader in the African-American civil-rights
movement, the American labor movement and
socialist political parties. He organized and led the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first
predominantly black labor union. In the early civilrights movement, Randolph led the March on
Washington Movement, which convinced President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802
in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense
industries during World War II. The group then
successfully pressured President Harry S. Truman to
issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending
segregation in the armed services. In 1963, Randolph
was the head of the March on Washington, which was
organized by Bayard Rustin, at which Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have A
Dream" speech. Randolph inspired the Freedom
budget, sometimes called the "Randolph Freedom
budget", which aimed to deal with the economic
problems facing the black community.
(June 25, 1933 – ) He is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African‐American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans. James Farmer
Jackie Robinson
Earl Warren
Lyndon B Johnson
(January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) Ha was born in Marshall, Texas and was a civil He was an American baseball player who became rights activist and leader in the American Civil the first African‐American to play in Major League Rights Movement. He was the initiator and Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which broke the baseball color line when the Brooklyn eventually led to the desegregation of inter‐state Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, transportation in the United States. In 1942, 1947. As the first major league team to play a Farmer co‐founded the Committee of Racial black man since the 1880s, the Dodgers ended Equality, which later became the Congress of racial segregation that had relegated black Racial Equality (CORE), an organization that players to the Negro leagues for six decades. The sought to bring an end to racial segregation in the example of Robinson's character and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional United States through nonviolence. Farmer was the organization's first leader, serving as the basis of segregation, which then marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed national chairman from 1942 to 1944. He was an honorary vice chairman in the Democratic significantly to the Civil Rights Movement. Socialists of America. (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973) He is often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974)
position he assumed after his service as Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). He is He was an American jurist and politician who
one of only four people who served in all four served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United
elected federal offices of the United States: States (1953–1969) and the 30th Governor of
California. He is best known for the decisions of
Representative, Senator, Vice President, and the
Warren Court, which ended school segregation
President. Johnson was greatly supported by the and transformed many areas of American law,
Democratic Party and as President, he was especially regarding the rights of the accused,
responsible for designing the "Great Society" ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and
legislation that included laws that upheld civil requiring "one-man-one vote" rules of
rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, aid apportionment. He made the Court a power center
on a more even base with Congress and the
to the arts, urban and rural development, and his presidency especially through four landmark
"War on Poverty." The Civil Rights Act of 1964 decisions: Brown v. Board of Education (1954),
signed by Johnson banned racial discrimination in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Reynolds v. Sims
public facilities, interstate commerce, the (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
workplace, and housing, and a powerful Voting Rights Act of 1965 guaranteed full voting rights for citizens of all races.