Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American political activist and lifelong champion of civil rights for Black, Latino, Native American and Asian-American communities. Kochiyama was born in 1921 in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrant parents Seiichi Nakahara and Tsuyako Nakahara. Kochiyama grew up in a predominantly white neighbourhood and became the first female student body …
Florynce Kennedy was an American lawyer, activist, civil rights advocate, lecturer and one of the pioneers of second-wave feminism. Kennedy was born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up in a mostly white neighbourhood, and as a young child was arrested as the police didn’t believe she lived in the neighbourhood. On one occasion, …
Josephine Baker was an American-born French dancer and singer who was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture. She devoted much of her life to fighting racism and was a vital member of the Civil Rights Movement. Baker was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of eight, …
Daisy Bates was an American journalist and civil rights activist who is best known for playing a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957. Bates was born in 1914 in Huttig, Arkansas. Bates was adopted as a baby after her mother was murdered when attempting to resist being raped by three white …
Alice Walker is an American novelist, story story writer, poet and civil rights activist. She is best known for her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker was born in 1944 in Putnam County, Georgia. Walker lived under Jim Crow Laws, but her parents refused to …
Dorothy Height was an American civil rights and women’s rights activist who served as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) for four decades. She is known as the “godmother of the women’s movement.” Height was born in 1912 in Richmond Virginia. At the age of 4, her family moved to Rankin, Pa, …
Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist, civil rights leader, and philanthropist. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi’s Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and served as vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Hamer was born in 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi. Two years later, her family moved to …
Ella Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist who worked with the NAACP and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Baker was born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in North Carolina. Her grandmother would tell her stories about …
Miriam Makeba was a South African singer and civil rights activist also known as “Mama Africa” and the “Empress of African Song”. She introduced Xhosa and Zulu songs to Western audiences, becoming one of the world’s most prominent black African performers in the 20th century. She is best known for the songs “Pata Pata,” “The …
Viola Desmond was a Black Nova Scotian businesswoman who challenged racial segregation at a film theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946. Her actions sparked the modern civil rights movement in Canada. Desmond was born Viola Davis in 1914 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her parents, James Albert and Gwendolin Irene were active in the …