Pauli Murray was an American civil rights activist, women’s rights activist, lawyer and author. She was the first woman to be awarded a J.D.S degree from Yale and the first black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. She also co-founded NOW, the National Organization for Women. Murray was born in 1910 in Baltimore, …
Gloria Richardson is best known as the the leader of the Cambridge Movement, a struggle for civil rights and economic opportunities in Cambridge, Maryland. Richardson was born in Gloria St. Clair Hayes in 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland. At the age of six, Richardson’s family moved to Cambridge, Maryland where her grandfather, Herbert M. St. Clair, …
Shirley Chisholm was an educator, author and politician. She was the first African-American woman elected to the United States Congress, the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States, and the first woman ever to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Chisholm was born Shirley St. Hill in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York …
Maya Angelou was an American award-winning author, poet, and civil rights activist. She is best known for her acclaimed memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and her numerous poetry and essay collections. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was briefly raised in St. Louis until her parents …
Faith Bandler was an Australian civil rights activist who campaigned for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders. She is known for her leadership in the 1967 referendum on the rights of Aboriginal Australians. Bandler was born Ida Lessing Faith Mussing in Tumbulgum, New South Wales. Her father, Wacvie Peter Mussing was a …
Marian Anderson was an American singer and one of the finest contraltos of her time. She became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955 and an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States. Anderson was born in South Philadelphia …
Grace Lee Boggs was an American author, social activist, philosopher and feminist. She fought relentlessly for civil rights, feminism and labor for seven decades and was hugely influential in bringing about social change in Detroit. Boggs (born Grace Chin Lee or Yuk Ping (玉平) to use her Chinese name) was born in Providence, Rhode Island …
Barbara Brenner was a renowned American breast cancer activist and leader of the Breast Cancer Action organisation. Brenner’s activism started at a young age when her mother took her to a Civil Rights march when she was 10 where she heard Martin Luther King, Jr speak. While at Smith College she was active in the …
Claudia Jones was a feminist, black nationalist, political activist, community leader, communist and journalist. She is the founder of Britain’s first black weekly newspaper “The West Indian Gazette” and has been described as the mother of the Notting Hill Carnival. Jones was born Claudia Vera Cumberbatch in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1915. At …
Ida B Wells was an American journalist, suffragist, sociologist and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Wells was born a slave in Mississipi in 1862. Six months after her birth slaves were decreed free by the Union thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. Wells faced racial prejudice and discriminatory rules because of her race. …