"Oretha Castle Haley" (July 22, 1939-October 10,1987)

Was an African American civil rights activist in New Orleans where she challenged the segregation of  facilities and promoted voter registration. She came from a working-class background, she was able to enroll in the Southern 

University of New Orleans, SUNO, then a center of  student actvism.Oretha joined the protest marches and went on to became a prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement and other causes.

The 1954 US Supreme Court decision,Brown v. Board of Education, undermined the legal foundation of seperate-but equal- racial segregation.The landmark court decision emboldened the cause for civil rights.The 1955 murder of  Emmett 

Till in Mississippi, and subsequent miscarriage of justice drew national attention to the brutal and unfair treatment of African Americans in the South. In late 1955,the arrest of  Rosa Parks led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.The boycott lasted almost a year and its success launched the career of Martin Luther King and demonstrated the power of non-violent political action.

The first protests marches she participated in were sponsored by the Consumers League of Greater New Orleans (CLGNO).When Oretha and several fellow protesters sought to stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters,both the Consumers League and the National Association for the Advance of Colored People (NAACP) took no interest. The CLGNO and NAACP were involved in sensitive litigations and negotiations and shunned the publicity.In the summer of 

1960,Oretha,Ruby Lombard and Jerome Smith pioneered their own organization and sought sponsorship from a national organization. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference,SCLC,was not active in New Orleans. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was the first activist group dedicated to non-violence founded in 1942 and based in Chicago. The newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee (SNCC) rapidly grew in prominence. SNCC's powerbase became the Nashville chapter founded by Diane Nash & John Lewis. Oretha and 

her and her coharts chose to ally their local group with core, and developed  their power base in New Orleans. SNCC and CORE both concentrated on street-level,

direct-action activism,and often compared. The NAACP,SCLC,CORE and SNCC 

cooperated in many endeavors, and each are credited with playing a major role 

in the success of the Civil Rights Movement.

On September 17,1960, Oretha and three of her fellow student-protesters were arrested for sitting in at the counter of McCrory's, a Canal street five-and-dime store in New Orleans.These protests were based on how stores in Central City 

"wouldn't hire African American clerks or cashiers, in spites of the fact that the majority of customers in the shopping district were African American." Oretha, Cecil Carter,Sydney Goldfinich and Rudy Lombard were charged with criminal mischief, " which makes it a crime to refuse to leave a place of business after being ordered to do so by the person charge of the premises.

There were no laws particularly allowing racial segregation in businesses in the town,however public announcements explaining a zero tolerance on sit-in demonstrations by the mayor and superintendent of the police had been made.

Those charged were sentenced to a $350 fine and 60 days in prison, or if the fine could not be paid 120 days in prison.

This case first went to Louisiana State Trial Court.The case was appealed by CORE attroneys to the Louisiana State Supreme Court,which upheld the conservative decision of the Trial Court.

The case was appealed and brought to the US Supreme Court. The USSC,headed 

by chief justice Earl Warren,overturned the ruling in an eight to one decision on May 20,1963.In the opinion to the court justice Warren indicated that due 

to the announcements made by public officials,restaurant owners had felt compelled to maintain segregated facilities even if it was not their will or official law.As a result, the court overturned the Trial Court and Louisiana State Supreme Court decisions.Futhermore, the court cited violations to the 14th amendment as grounds for their decision.

In 1961,CORE pioneered the Freedom Riders,a novel method of non-violent protest against segregation in interstate transportation.SNCC played a major role. Trained and committed volunteers boarded Greyhound  and Trailway buses in Washington D.C. and other northern cities,and headed south. At various stops,they occupied the white-only waiting rooms to draw attention to the segregated facilities. The Freedom Riders were scheduled to finish in New Orleans. The first Freedom Riders drew national attention in mid-may.Two buses left Atlanta,GA heading for Birmingham, AL. The first bus was commandeered by an angry mob in Anniston AL. The passengers were beaten by a waiting mob as local police stood by.

Oretha' house served as the New Orleans headerquarters for the Freedom Riders.With help from here mama Virgie and sister Doris,their home housed and fed hundreds of  Freedom Riders coming and going throughout the summer. New Orleans CORE staged a demonstration at Police Quarters.

Oretha was one of fifteen arrested.Attroney General Robert F.Kennedy was 

delegated the task of solving the problem.He petitioned and pressured the Interstate Commerce Commission,ICC, and finally on November 1, "the white only" signs were removed. The success of the Freedom Riders raised the profile and bolstered the reputation of CORE.

Toward the end of 1961 Ruby Lombard departed, and Oretha Castle was appointed  president  of the local chapter of CORE. A prominent fellow activists characterized her " the guiding force... the backbone... a woman of extraordinary capabilities.With its new notoriety,the New Orleans chapter of CORE attracted a growing membership.James Farmer had founded  CORE to 

be an interracial organization.In 1962,Oretha and African American coharts 

began to the question the participation of whites in their organization. Whites were assuming leadership roles in an organization dedicated to empowering African Americans.Oretha suspendded the white members  and came into conflict with the national office dispatched Richard Haley to resolve the issue. 

The suspensions were declared invalid, whites slowely  rejoined, yet the chapter never  fully regained the members it lost. Richard remained with the organization for the next five years.Oretha & Richard married 1967,and had two sons , in addition to the two sons Orerha was already raising.

In 1963 and 1964,nightly marches targeting segregated stores,hotels,theaters,and an amusementpark continued. The Scwegmann's

grocery store chain closed its lunch counters in response to a CORE lawsuit.

A Freedom March on city hall resulted in the desegregation of the municipal cafeteria. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited segregation in public accommodations,so the protest marches came to an end. The next battle was 

voter registration. CORE joined a coalition of civil rights organizations that combined their resources for the Freedom Summer project, what become known as Freedom Summer.In the spring of 1964,Oretha relinquished her 

presidency and moved upstate to Ouchita Parish to act as field secretary. 

In November,she was promoted to field for all of northern Louisiana.For more than a year,Oretha applied the protest techniques she helped to develop in Monroe, Jonesboro and Bogalusa,Louisiana.Freedom Summer accomplished its goal when the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in 

voting.

Bayard Rustin and James Farmer pioneered the use of non-violent disobedience in the United States inspired by Gandhi and other writers for almost ten years,non-violent methods led to the many triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement culminating with the March  from Selma to Montgomery in March,1965.In August,Watts Rebellion initiated three consecutive summers of urban rebellions. Many actvists questioned their faith in non-violence , including Oretha.Disenchanted by Selma and other unsuccessful strategies,the 

Black Panther party emerged. Stokely Carmichael ( later known as Kwane Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton wrote the book, Black Power: The Pollitics of 

Liberation (1967), encouraging self-determination for African American communities. CORE fractured in a dispute over criticizing Viet Nam War,and many long-time leaders left the organization.The original members of the New 

Orleans chapter of CORE all quit by 1965,including Oretha.CORE led by Roy Innis, is still active  in New York.

Oretha returned to New Orleans in 1966 and re-enrolled at SUNO to complete her degree. Her grass-roots organizational experience qualified her to take the lead in several  organizations sponsored by the Federal War on Poverty. 

She led a successful campaign to desegregate playgrounds. In 1971,she led 

the election campaign of Dorothy Mae,Taylor,who became the first African-American woman state legislator in Louisiana. In the 1980s, she served as 

deputy administrator of  Chairty Hospital where she instituted several  reforms. While there, she was central in creating the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.She remained married to Richard Haley until her death,caused 

by cancer, in 1987 at the age of 48.

"Arthur Courtney Logan (September 8,1909-November 25 1973)

Physician,surgeon, and civil rights, activist,was born on the campus of Tuskegee University in Alabama, one of five children born to Warren & Adelle Logan.Warren Logan, treasurer of TUskegee University,had begun working as an educator at the University when it was established in 1882. Arthur rembered and early childhood in bucolic surroundings where hesometimes spent summer days at the side of Booker T.Washington,the founder of Tuskegee University.

At age of ten he was sent to New York City to live in Harlem with an older sister and attend the Ethical Culture School on a scholarship.In the 1920s New York City offered African Americans a broader spectrum of opportunities than possible in Alabama.The Ethical Culture School,was founded by Felix Adler in 1878,was open to children of all races and religions.Felix was a social activist who promoted the concepts of equality,justice,and intellectual freedom.At Ethical, he Arthur was exposed to children from many diffirent cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Although the school had originally been founded to reach out to the children of the poor,many of New York's wealthiest citizens paid to send their children there as well.

He went to Williams College in Massachusetts,and in 1930 graduated in Phi Beta Kappa.Arhur then studied medicine at Columbia University,where he Felix held the chair for political and social ethiics.When Arthur graduated as one of the first African American students from Columbia's College Physicians and Surgeons in 1934,he took with him a commitment to social 

activism he had learned from years of study in institutions influenced by Felix's progressive ideas.Although he had other opportunities, Arthur chose to complete his internship at Harlem Hospital.It was in Harlem that he began his lifelong effort to provide quality medical care for poor and disenfranchised citizens in New York City.

After twelve years in private practice, Arthur, along with a small group of other Doctors, founded the Upper Manhattan Medical Group in Harlem to 

serve the poorest residents of the city.Founders of one of the nation's first health maintenance organizations,the group served more than thirty thousand subcribers,most of them African Americans.These prepaid subscribers received quality health services that otherwise would have been unavailable to them.Arthur remained a partner in the Manhattan Group and served as director of its surgical department until his death.

His life was marked by unusual privilege,he was committed to helping those who could not help themselves. The Manhattan group was just one of many projects he took on in order to support the African American community.While serving on the surgical staff of several New York hospitals, including Harlem Hospital,Sydenham Hospital,and Knickerbocker Hospital, he dedicated much of his time to organizations like Citizens Organized Against Drug Abuse,which he served as chairman of the board for many years; the New York City Council Against Poverty,in 1965; and United Neighborhood Houses of New York from 1966 until his death.He also worked with the city to develop and implement public projects such as the Manhattanville Heath Park, a plan to incorporate health facilities, job training facilities, parks, and low-income housing within civic and commercial areas.

His first marriage to Wenorah Bond ended in divorce in 1947. They had one daughter,Adele. He met his second wife,Marion Taylor of Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.when he was called in to treat her after she became ill at the Apollo Theater where she sang under the name of Marian Bruce. They were married in 1958. Their only child, a son was named Warren in honor of Arthur's daddy.

In the next decade Arthur turned his attention to the civil rights movement.In 1960 he became the director of the Urban League of Greater New York and in 1962 the director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational fund.His membership in New York's progressive elite society allowed him to work behind the scenes along with his wife,who was the only northern-based member on the board of directors of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).Together they opened their fashionable brownstone on West Eighty-eight Street to raise money to support the movement.Counted among their guests and associates were some of the most important names in civil rights history:Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Watkins, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy,Eleanor Holmes Norton,Vernon Jordan,Charles Rangel, and Shirley Chisholm. On a single night in April of 1965 the Logans raised eleven thousand dollars at a reception for Martin.

Five weeks after Martin's assassination on April 4th 1968 Arthur organized and led a team of medical workers to Washington to care for the three thousand demonstrators,mostly African Americans,who were camped on the Mall for Martin's planned Poor People's March on Washington. The Tent housing,enmeshed in mud and dubbed "Resurrection City," covered the Mall from May 14 until the federal government razed it on June 24 1968.

Housing concerns were second only to Arthur's dedication to providing adequate quality health care to everyone who needed it. His last undertaking before his death was the Manhattanville project, which along with an array of housing and other civic development.It was the construction site for this project where Arthur's body was found. It is believed that he fell from a viaduct on the Henry Hudson Parkway overlooking the site. Knickerbocker Hospital was renamed the Arthur C. Logan Memorial Hospital after his untimely death at the age of sixty-four.

Margaret James Strickland Collins (September 4,1922-April 27,1996)

Was an African American child prodigy, entomologist (zoologist) specializing in the study of termites, and a civil rights advocate.Margaret was nicknamed.the "Termite Lady" because of her extensive research on termites.Together with David Nickle,she identified a new species of termite called Neotermes luykxi.When Margaret earned her PhD., She became the first African American female entomologist and the third African American female zoologist.She was born Institute, West Virginia. Margaret started college at age fourteen and graduated with a bachelor of Science degree in Biology from West Virginia State University in 1943.Her Doctor of Philsophy degree was awarded by the University of Chicago in 1950,becoming only the third African American woman zoologist in the country.Her mentor was Alfred Edwards Emerson Jr.Her disseration was Difference in toleration of dying between species of termites (reticulitermes),with an article based on this work in Ecology,the journal of the Ecological Society of America.

She taught at Florida  A&M University and at Howard University.She saw herself primarily as a field scientist,and did extensive field work in North and South America,specializing in the insects of Guyana and Florida.

From the late 1970s through 1996,Margaret was a research associate in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History,Department of Entomology.Her primary area of study was termites of the Caribbean.

Her life research regarding termites included: the evolution of desiccation resistance in termites;various termites species' tolerance of high temperatures; defensive behavior in South America termites,including chemical defenses; termite ecology; species abundance in virgin and disturbed tropical rain forests;and behavioral ecology,taxonomy,and entomology. 

Margaret was born in Institute,West Virginia.She was the fourth child of Rollins James,& Luella James.Institute was described as an-black town and a college town. As a result,there were many educated African-Americans in 

Institute,West VIrginia.Her daddy,earned his bachelor's degree from West Virginia State University and his master's degree from Tuskegee Institute,

both historically African-American universities.With these degrees,he worked with George Washington Carver for a while.He then taught Vocational Agriculture at West Virginia State,ran the poultry program at West Virginia State,taught at West Virginia State's laboratory high school, and was a county agent for the USDA.Margaret's mama Luella James,wanted to become an archaelogist her studies at West Virginia State were limited because of gender,she later dropped out of college.

From an early age Margaret was fascinated by zoology.Inspired by naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton's books,Two Little Savages and Rolf in the Woods,Margaret would explore the woods and barn near her childhood home in order to collect insects.When she was just 6 years old,Margaret was recognized as a child prodigy; as a result of this achievement,she was given access to the book collections at West Virginia state University's Library. 

Margaret impressive intellect and university level reading skill allowed her to skip two grades and graduated high school early.

At 14years old,Margaret graduated from West Virginia State University's Laboratory High School. 

After her early graduation from High School,Margaret continued her education until she received a PhD.in zoology in 1950.In 1936 she started her first year at West Virginia State Univesity,a historically African-American University,on an academic scholarship. She faced a lot of difficulties as an undergraduated at West Virginia State University due to her gender.Margaret struggled to find a mentor in Biology,which was a 

predominantly male-field.She eventually received mentorship from Toye Davis  & Frederick Lehner,who were both professors at West Virginia University.Together Toye Davis & Frederick Lehner,helped Margaret find 

opportunities in the field of Biology.In 1943,she gained her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with minors in Physics and German.Later in 1943 Margaret enrolled in the University of Chicago graduating in 1950 

with a PhD in zoology.Alfred  E.Emerson, a termite expert,mentored her 

at the University of Chicago.Alfred assisted Margaret in her studies and shielded her from racism; he did not let her do fieldwork because he throught women were irritating during scientific expeditions. Alfred helped Margaret develop and complete her dissertation,Differences in Toleration of Drying among Species of Termmites  (Reticulitermes).

Margaret dissertation is well regarded in the field of entomology and is cited very often.She also wrote an article based on her dissertation in 

Ecology,the journal of the Ecological Society of America.

When Margaret received her PhD., she became the third African-American female zoologist and the first African-American female entomologist.

She was employed as an assistant professor at Howard University in 

Washington District of Columbia while her first husband,Bernard Strickland attended Howard University's Medical School. She later divorced Bernard and left Howard University because it did not treat its 

women and men faculty members equally.She started working for Florida  A&M University and while there married her second husband 

Herbert L.Collins.They had two sons.She was appointed a full-time professor at Florida  A&M,becoming chair of the Biology department in 1953.She often went on collecting trips in Evanglades National Park with her family.During her time in Florida,she was invited to guest lecture at 

local predominantly white university on Biology and equality. The lecture 

was cancelled due to a bomb threat.

Margaret also volunteered to drive people to work during the Florida A&m

Student Council's bus boycott.She was watched closely by the police and the FBI because of her actions against inequality.Her advocacy for equal 

rights limited her scientific work from 1952-1957 and she did not publish any papers at this time.

Margaret applied for and received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study at the University of Minnesota for a year.FROM 1961-1962,    Margaret was research associate at the Minnesota Agricultural 

Experimental Station in St.Paul where studied North American termites.

In 1964,she moved back to Washington, D.c., and returned to Howard University as a ful-time professor.Margaret also took a tenured position 

at Federal City College (now known as University of District of Columbia)

for ten years.additionally,she became president of the Entomological Society of Washington during her time in Washington, D.C., and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institute.

In 1968 with grants from the Smithsonian and the Graduate School of Howard University,Margaret led an expedition to Mexico.In 1972 she took a research trip to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona which was supported by the United States IBP Desert Biome Project and the National Science Foundation.In that same year,she was invited to the Clark Lectureship 

at Scripps College; She lectured about her research experiences.

While involved in field research in Guyana,Margaret reopened the Alfred 

Emerson research station in 1979.Also, in 1979 she orchestrated a symposium for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.The symposium's focus was on Science and the Question of Human Equality.After the symposium she published a book with the same title as the symposium's focus,Science and the Question of Human Equality.1979 was a very busy year for Margaret because she also started researching the defense mechanism of termites with Glen D.Prestwich.

From the late 1970s to 1996,she researched termites in the Caribbean 

through the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History,Department of Entomology,especially the termites of Guyana.

During these expeditions,Margaret informed Guyana's military of 

ways to build that would avoid termite damage and how to use termite 

excretions to strenghthen building materials.Margaret contributed 

greatly to the Smithsonian's termite collection.the materials she collected were curated as the Collins Collection at the National Museum of Natural History.

Margaret was still doing research when she died in the Cayman Islands.She died of heart failure,and , as she had hoped to,while on a field trip.

 

"The Tougaloo-Nine" (1961)

Were nine students who,in 1961 while undergraduates at Tougaloo College,staged sit-ins at the all-white Jackson Main Library in Jackson,Mississippi.Prior to the sit-ins,African Americans were prohibited from using the city's library.The nine-Meredith Coleman AndingJr., James Cleo Bradford,Alfred  Lee Cook,Geraldine Edwards,Janice Jackson,Joseph Jackson Jr., Albert Earl Lassiter,Evelyn Pierce, and Ethel Sawyer-were members of the Jackson Youth Council of the NAACP.Medgar Evers,who was who then president of the Jackson Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),trained the Tougaloo nine for sit-in
protest.

On March 27,1961,the Tougaloo Nine began their protest by entering the Jackson Main Library.Typical of civil rights demonstrations of the era,the 
women wore dresses and the men wore shirts and ties.The Nine visted the 
George Washington Branch (Colored) to request books they knew would not 
be in that facility.When they were told the books were not there,they went to
Jackson Public Library where they attempted to stage  a " read-in." They sat at different tables across the library reading library books quietly.

The Librarian called the Jackson police who arrived and asked them to leave.
When they did not,the nine were arrested,charged with of breach of the peace,
and jailed.

Later that day,students from Jackson State College,a predominantly African American college,organized a prayer vigil which was broken up by Jackson State College President Jacob Reddix,who was backed by city police.Three students-Joyce and Dorie Ladner and student body President Walter Williams,who organized the prayer vigil-were expelled from Jackson State College for their support of the Tougall Nine.

On March 28,other Jackson State Students boycotted classes in protest,held 
another rally,and marched to the Jackson City Jail were the nine being held.
They were joined by townspeople led by Medgar Evers,Jackson Police used tear gas and dogs against the protesters which included women and children.
An 81-year old man suffered a broken arm from an attack by a police officer 
with a nightstick.Medgar's supporters raised bail for the protesters who were 
arrested.They were later represented by local civil rights attorney Jack Harvey Young Sr.

The Tougaloo Nine went to trial on March 28,1961 and were all found guilty 
of breach of the peace.Each student was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined 
$100.The Judge however suspended the sentences on the condition that there 
would be no further demonstrations.There were none.

Nonetheless the Tougaloo nine's action action led the NAACP to file a class action lawsuit on January 12,1962 against the Jackson Public Library,calling for its integration.In June 1962 U.S. District Court William Harold Cox ordered the Library to desegregate.Although the Tougaloo Nine episode was one of  the first desegregation victories in the 1960s civil rights campaign in Mississippi,the story was largely ignored at the time.On August 17,2017,the Tougaloo Nine was honored for their contributions with a freedom trail marker in Jackson,Mississippi.

Unlike the Freedom Riders,Friendship Nine,and Little Rock Nine,the Tougaloo Nine are not as well known historically.Sammy Bradford,one of the Tougaloo Nine,said on the occasion of the read in anniversary: "It seems that everybody 

"Xernona Clayton" (August 30 1930)

A civil rights activist and the first woman to host a a TV show in the south,was born to James and Lillie Brewster in Muskogee,Oklahoma.
Her daddy was a respected Baptist minister and both parents managed 
Indian affairs in Oklahoma.Lillie was a quarter Cherokee,and as administrators,Of Indians affairs,she and James worked with disadvantaged Native Americans.She has three older half siblings,and an older brother James,and an older sister,Vera,and a twin sister,Xenobia.

Xernona & Xenobia attended Tennessee State University and graduated in 1952.That summer,they moved,to Chicago where the Urban League 
employed them as undercover agents,working to determine discriminatory hiring practices.Xernona received a scholarship for graduate work at the University of Chicago.While in Chicago,she also taught elementary and high school in the public school.

It was also in Chicago that Xernona met her first husband,Ed Clayton,who was Jet's executive editor at the time.They married in 195,and in 1960,they moved to Los Angeles.There, she played an active role in political campaigns.While in Los Angeles,after hearing an announcement  from President John F.Kennedy requesting people to volunteer their time to help the less fortunate citizens,she organized a group to mentor roughly one hundred high school dropouts,eighty of whom returned to school and graduated.This was one of many instances over her career where Ed reached out to struggling teenagers and young adults.

The Claytons moved to Atlanta in 1965 at the request of Martin Luther King,Jr.,the next year,Ed died suddenly.Xernona & Ed had worked at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which gave her the opportunity to become close friends with the King family.She helped plan the funeral for Dr.Martin Luther King following his assassination in 1968.

Xernona was politically and civically active in Atlanta,Georgia.In 1966 
she helped organize the Doctors' Committee on Implementation which helped desegregate hospitals in Atlanta.In 1968,she worked for Model 
Cities,the federal associated with the War on Poverty.While there she Calvin Craig the Grand Dragon of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan.After many 
conversations with her regarding race,Craig remarkably decided to leave the KKK,crediting his change of heart of Xerona.

After pointing out the absence of African Americans on TV in Atlanta,Xernona was hired by WAGA-TV,the CBS affiliate in the metropolitan region,to be the hostess of Themes and Variations.The 
show which aired from 1968-1975,made her the first on-air T.V. personality in the South.

When Turner Broadcasting was founded in 1979,Xernona went to work 
for the new Cable TV network.She had a career there spanning three decades.Her last and most prestigious role was as Corporate Vice President for Urban Affairs.In 1993,she founded the Trumpet Awards Foundation,Inc,to recognize accomplishment of African Americans.
She served as the first president and CEO of the organization.

Xerona lives in Atlanta and is married to Judge Paul Lawrence Brady.
She continues her involvement in the city's civic affairs and especially 
with Ebenezer Baptist Church,the church Dr.Martin Luther King and 
his daddy led for decades in Atlanta.

"Lu lu Belle White (August 6,1900-July 6,1957)

Civil rights activists,was born Lu lu Belle Madison, in Elmo,Texas, to Henry Madison, a farmer, and Eastern Norwood, a domestic worker.Lulu,who had five brothers,and six sisters, received her early education in the public schools of Elmo and Terrell, Texas.Following her high school graduation she attended Butler College,an African American school in Tyler, Texas, for one year before transferring to Prairie View College (later Prairie View A&M University), an African American land-grant institution,from which she received a BA in English in 1928.

On June 28 Lu married Julius White,a businessman, nightclub owner,and promoter of public entertainment.After teaching school for nine years Lulu resigned her post to devote herself fully to the NAACP.In 1939 she became acting president she became acting president of the Houston branch of the NAACP,and just a few years later,in 1943,she was elevated to the post of full-time executive secretary of the Houston branch,making her the first woman in the south to hold that position.

In her role as executive secretary Lulu traveled to towns throughout most of the state to garner contributions,organize new branches, and reactivate old ones.Her job entailed managing the office,conducting branch activities,and helping to organize other branches,most especially she directed membership and fund-raising drives.Members' dues were essential in keeping the NAACP viable,providing the basic revenue not only for local branches but also for state and national operations,the salaries for all the organization's workers,publicity, cost of publications,travel expense,and other miscellaneous expenditures.In Texas she seemed the right person for the job.

Under her guidance the Houston grew from 5,674 members in 1943 to 12,700 in 1948, an increase that reflected Lulu's aggressive fieldwork in recruiting new members as well as the extent of her appeal to African-American Texans and African American Houstonians, This work would earn her the title of director of state branches in 1946.

By taking the helm of Texas's NAACP in 1943 she placed herself squarely in the beginning with the elimination of the state statute that held only whites were eligible to vote in the Democratic primary.Sharp-tongued and unafraid of speaking her mind to both whites and African-Americans,Lulu boldly created a movement for the elimination of the all-white primary.The success of the movement would require courage,passion,spontaneity,and leader who had the time,resources,and a leader 
who had the time,resources,and energy to encourage people to join the NAACP and to fight for civil rights.The movement found these qualities in Lulu.Since she Lulu was already familiar with African-American Texan's struggle to retrieve the ballot,she needed no briefing on this issue.Not only did she become directly involved in Smith v.Allwright (1944),last of the U.S. Supreme Court's so-called White Primary cases and the one that at last brought an end to the state's all-white primary,but she also was in daily contact with NAACP  national headquarters and served as liaison between the national office,the local chapter,and the African American press.In anticipation of a favorable court decision she mounted  a "pay your poll tax" When in April of 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the all-white Democratic primary statute unconstitutional,Lulu hailed the decision a " second emancipation" (Houston Informer, April 10 1944).

The success of the NAACP in overturning the primary law launched a new era in both African-American politics and Democratic Party elections.Throughout the 1940s & 1950s Lulu argued that a strong black voice was needed to shape governmental policies at both the local and state levels.She urged African-Americans to assume greater roles in the political lives of their communities,to learn about political organizations,and to prepare for future leadership positions.She argued convincingly that those who understand the movement for social change must identify with it fully and must interpret it to others.Not only did Lulu urge African-American to vote and seek office she also conducted voter registration seminars,helped select candidates,aided in drafting platforms,and used African-American churches to address public issues-all without actually campaigning for specific candidates.
In part as a result of her efforts African-American voter registration increased and 
several African-Americans became candidates for office in the 1940s.

Just she viewed the vote as a nenessary ingredient to full citizenship,she believed
that if African-Americans were to enter the mainstrain of American life,it was necessary to expand equality through economics.To this end she encouraged her
allies to seek employment at white establishments,a task she was willing to personally undertake.Her energetic pursuit of equal opportunities often took her on a stormy path; some white managers refused to see her,while others slammed doors in her face or were simply evasive.Ever persistent,she staged solo as well as group 
demonstrations,one of which resulted in having "colored" and "white" signs removed from the soda fountain at one of Houston's department stores in 1946.

As a tactic for achieving economic justice Lulu advocated that African-American work with organized labor,without whom,she argued, African-American workers possessed little bargaining power in disputes with employers.Through Lulu's advocacy for a colition with labor caused many to label her a communist,she did nothing to discourage the label,and indeed in 1948 she worked to get Henry Wallace's Progressive Party on the Presidential ballot in Texas.

When in June 1945 the NAACP  announced that it would challenge segregated public 
professional education in Texas,Lulu was the forefront of the movement to integrate 
the University of Texas Law School.It was Lulu who found the plaintiff, Heman Sweatt, who represented by the NAACP  legal team,pursued the case Sweatt v.Painter  to the U.S. Supreme Court.Heman won the case and later credited Lulu's 
leadership for maintaining his own resolve.

Lulu stepped down as executive secretary of the Houston chapter of the Houston 
chapter of the NAACP on June 19 1949,after after a long-standing feud with Carter Wesley,editor  of the Houston Informer,over the issue of integration.Lulu's resignation did not signal the end of her political activism.In her work as director of state branches for the Texas NAACP  continued to fight for political and economic 
opportunities demanding that the Houston city council pass ordinance to allow city 
hospitals to employ African-American doctors,staging demonstrations against the 
prohibition of African-American women from trying on clothing in department stores,
and working toward the integration of yellow cab companies, Lulu's friendship with 
Walter White,Daisy Lampkin, Thurgood Marshall,and Roy Wilkins enabled her to 
exert influence in the NAACP  nationally.As such she went on to become a field-worker for the national office of the NAACP  established the Lulu White Freedom Fund in her honor.She is buried Paradise South in Houston,Texas.

"Walter-Francis White" (July 1 1893-March 21 1955)

Civil rights leader,was born in Atlanta,Georgia,to George White, a mail carrier,and Madeline Harrison,a former school teacher.The fourth of seven children,George whose parents had been born in slavery,grew up entrenched in African-American Atlanta's leading and most respected institutions:his family attended the prestigious First Congregational Church,and received his secondary and collegiate education at Atlanta University,from which he graduated in 1916.(His siblings enjoyed similar religious training and educational opportunities.)With blond hair,blue eyes,and a light complexion,Walter was a "voluntary Negro," a person who could pass for white yet chose not to do so.His African-American racial identity was annealed by the Atlanta riot of September 1906.For three days white mobs rampaged through African-American neighborhoods,destroying property and assaulting people;the thirteen-year-old Walter realized,as he put it in his autobiography,that he could never join a race that infected with such toxic hatred.

Upon graduation from college,Walter became an executive with the Standard Life Insurance Company,one of the largest African-American-owned businesses of its day.Part of Atlanta's "New Negro" business elite,Walter was a founder of a real estate and investment company looked forward to a successful business career.He also participated in civil affairs:In 1916 he was a founding member and Secretary of the Atlanta branch NAACP.The branch experienced rapid growth,largely because,in 1917,it stopped the school board from eliminating seventh grade in the African-American public schools.Walter was an enegetic organizer enthusiastic speaker,qualities that attracted the attention of NAACP Field secretary James Weldon Johnson.The association's board of directors,at James behest,invited Walter to join the national staff as assistant secretary.Walter accepted,and in January 1918 he moved to New York City.

During Walter's first eight years with the NAACP,his primary responsibility was conduct undercover investigations of lynching and racial violence,primarily in the South.Putting his complexion in service of the cause,he adopted a series of white male incognitos-among the cleverer ones were intinerant patent-medicine salesman,land speculator,and newspaper reporter intent on exposing the libelous tales being spread in the North about white southerns- and fooled mob members and lynching spectators into providing detailed accounts of the recent violence.Upon Walter returning to New York from his investigative trips,the NAACP would publicize his findings,and Walter eventually wrote several articles on the racial carnage of the post-World War I era that appeared in the Nation the New Republic,the New York Herald-Tribune,and other prestigious journals of liberal opinion.By 1924 Walter had investigated forty-one lynchings and eight race riots.Among the most notorious of these was the 1918 lynching in Valdosta,Georgia,of Mary Turner,who was set ablaze.Mary was nine month pregnant,her womb was slashed open,and her fetus was crushed to death.Walter also investigated the bloody race riots that left hundereds of African-Americans dead in Chicago and in Elaine Arkansas,during the "red summer" of 1919,and the 1921 riot in Tulsa,Oklahoma,that resulted in the leveling of the African-American business district and entire residential neighborhoods.Walter's investigations also reveled that prominent and respected whitesparticipated  in racial violence,the mob that perpetrated a triple lynching in Aiken,South Carolina,in 1926,for example,included local offcials and relatives of the governor.

Walter wrote of his undercover investigations in the in the July 1928 American Mercury and in Rope and Faggot (1929),a detailed study of the history of lynching and its place in American culture and politics that remains indispensable.His derring-do in narrowly escaping detection and avoiding vigilante punishment was also redered in verse in Langston Hughes's "Ballard of Walter" (1941).

At the time he was exposing lynching,Walter emerged as a leading light in the Harlem Renaissance.He authored two novels.The Fire in the Flint (1924)was the second novel to be published by a New Negro,appearing just after Jessie Fauset's There IS Confusion.Set in Georgia after World War I and based on Walter's acuaintance with his native state,The Fire in the Flint tells the story of the racial awakening of Kenneth Harper,who pays for his new consciousness when a white mob murders him.The novel was greeted with critical acclaim and was translated into French,German,Japanese,and Russian.His second work of fiction,Flight (1926),set in New Orleans,Atlanta, and New York,is both a work about the great Migration of African-Americans to the North and story about "passing." Flight's reviews were mixed.Walter's response to one of the negative reviews-by the African-American poet Frank Horne,in Opprtunity magazine-is instructive.He complained to the editor about being blindsided and parlayed his dissatisfaction into a debate over his book's meriits that stretched over three issues.To Walter there was no such thing as bad publicity-in art or in politics.The salient point was to keep a topic- a book or a political cause-firmly in public view,which would eventually create interest and sympathy.

Walter's dynamism and energy was central to the New Negro movement.He was a prominent figure in Harlem's nightlife,chaperoning well-connected and sympathetic whites to clubs and dances.He helped to place the works of Langston Hughes,Countee Cullen,and Claude McKay with major publishers,and promoted the careers of the singer and actor Paul Robeson,the tenor Roland Hayes,and the contralto Marian Anderson.

When James Weldon Johnson retired from the NAACP in 1929,Walter,who had been looking to assume more responsibility,succeeded him.As the association's chief executive,Walter had a striking influenced on the civil rights movement's agenda and methods.In 1930 he originated and orchestrated the victorious lobbying campaign to defeat President Hoover's nomination to the Supreme Court of John J.Parker,a North Carolina politician and jurist who had publicly stated his opposition to black suffrage and his hostility to organized labor.During the next two election cycles,the NAACP worked with substantial success to defeat senators with significant African-American constituencies who had voted to confirm John.The NAACP became a recognized force in national politics.

During Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal,Walter raised both the NAACP's public profile and its influence
on national politics.Walter's success owned much to his special knack for organizing the more enlightened of America's white elite to back the NAACP's programs.Over the decade of the 1930s,he won the support of the majority of the Senate and House of Representatives for a federal anti lynching law;only southern senator's filibusters prevented its passage.His friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt likewise gave him unparalleled access to the White House.This proved invaluable when he conceived and organized Marian Anderson's Easter Sunday 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial,which was blessed by the president and had as honorary sponsors cabinet members,other New Deal officials,and Supreme Court justices.As NAACP secretary and secretary and head of the National Committee against Mob Violence,Walter convinced,President Truman in 1946 to form a presidential civil rights commission,which the following year issued its groundbreaking antisegregationist report,To secure these rights.
In 1947 he persuaded Truman to address the closing of the NAACP's annual meeting,held at the Washington Monument;it was the first time that president had spoken at an association event.

As secretary,Walter oversaw the NAACP's legal work,which after 1934 included lawsuits seeking equal education opportunities for African Americans.He was also instrumental in convincing the liberal philanthropists of the American Fund for Public Service to commit $100,000 to fund the endeavor,though only a portion was delivered before the fund became insolvent.After 1939 the day-to-day running of the legal campaign against desegregation rested with Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall's NAACP legal Defense Fund,but Walter remained intimately involved in the details of the campaign,which culminated with the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that declared the doctrine of "separate but equal" unconstitutional.

Walter married Gladys Powell,a clerical worker in the NAACP national office,in 1922.They had two children,Jane & Walter Carl Darrow, and divorced in 1948.In 1949 he married Poppy Cannon,a white woman.This interracial union provoked a major controversy within both the NAACP and African-Americans at large,and there was widespread sentiment that Walter should resign.In response,Walter,was always an integrationist,claimed the right to marry whomever he wanted.He weathered the storm with the help of NAACP board member Eleanor Roosevelt,who threatened to resign should Walter be forced from office.Though Walter maintained the title of secretary,his powers were reduced,with Roy Wilkins taking over administrative duties.Walter continued to be the association's public spokesperson until his death.In declining health for several years,he suffered a fatal heart in his New York apartment.

Unlike other NAACP leaders such as W.E.B.Du Bois and Charles Houston,Walter was neither a great theoretician nor a master of legal theory.His support for the NAACP agenda among persons of influence in and out of government and to persuade Americans of all races to support the cause of equal rights for African-Americans.

"Freddie-Mae-Gautier,Hurd" (July 15,1930-December 14,2001)

Civil rights activists,political  advisor,businesswoman,and mentorwas auguably the most politically influential African American woman in Seattle in the latter half of the twentieth century.Born in Seattle General General  Hospital.She never knew her birth parents.When she was eight months,old Freddie G.Hurd, a bakery, owner,and his wife,Minnie Purnell Hurd, adopted her.Her birth certificate listed her as white,Freddie identified herself as a "Negro" woman.

Freddie attended the Seattle Junior

"Robert-Parris-Moses" [January 23,1935]

Civil rights activist and math literacy advocate,was born in New York City to Gregory Moses,a janitor,and Louise Parris. Bob Moses would later recall that his father's job was a good one during the Depression that Gregory,a hardworking,intelligent man, resented the lack of opportunties for African Americans in the 1930s.Determined that his sons would not face the same frustrations, Gregory pushed them hard academically.Robert,a quiet and bookish child,won admision to the Stuyvesant High School for gifted students,where teachers encouraged his precocious interest in Chinese philosophy. He also captained the school baseball team and was elected senior class president. In 1952 Robert sought and won a scholarship to Hamilton College, a small, highly selective, and conservative school in Clinton, New York.

One of only a handful of African American students at Hamilton,Robert found upstate New York to be sharp contrast to Harlem,he soon immersed himself in a range of college activities. At first he particpated in a fundamentalist Christian study group and considered entering the ministry, he was gradually drawn to the pacifist beliefs of several of his professors. They encouraged Robert to attend Quaker workshops and summer camps in Europe,where he helped to build low-income housing for the homeless,picked potatoes,and came to share his fellow volunteers' commitment to social justice.Following graduaation in 1956,Robert traveled to Japan to explore his interest in Zen Buddhism. He had also become fascinated by the existential philosophy of Albert Camus,who argued that people should be driven by their individual consciences in confronting evil.

When Robert entered Harvard University's philosophy department in 1957,he focused not on Camus but on analytical philosophy,for which his interest in mathematics and questions of logic served him well.Soon after after completing his MA,he returned to New York City in 1958 to be near his daddy,had suffered a nervous breakdown following his wife's death from cancer.Robert found a job teaching math at the city's elite Horace Mann High School and became involved in civil rights activism with the veteran New York pacifist Bayard Rustin.

Inspired by the wave of student sit-ins in early 1960,he traveled to Atlanta Georgia,on Bayard recommendation,to meet with Ella Baker. Ella,a veteran NAACP organizer,in the South, was at that time executive secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), founded by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1957.She was instrumental in promoting a new, youth-led organization,the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),that shared SCLC's goals of ending segregation through nonviolent protests,which she hoped would be less reliant on charismatic leaders like Martin.Her philosophy of civil rights organizing appealed to Robert,since it was all intents and purposes a practical expression of Camus's existentialism.Ella and Robert believed that a racists society could be transformed only if those who suffered under it came understand their oppressors.Believing that SNCC had much to learn from local African American leaders,Ella sent Robert to Cleveland,Mississippi,where the NAACP leader Amzie Moore persuaded him to focus his efforts on voter registration,rather than try to replicate a sit-in of the type that had been effective in lunch counter demonstrations in Greensboro,North Carolina.In 1960 a mere 5 percent of African American adults in Mississippi were registered to vote.Only with the power of the ballot,Amzie argued,could African Americans overcome their own fear,and only then could they overcome segregation. Robert recognized that white resistance would be intense,the Harvard philosophy student,known for his soft-spoken, sensitive demeanor,could barely conceal his euphoria about the prospect of battle."Nobody starry-eyed," he wrote a fellow SNCC staffer,"these are nasty jobs we're going to find some nasty people to do them,so put me down' cause I'm not only getting mean I'm getting downright nasty" (quoted in Branch,331). 

Robert returned to Mississippi in the summer of 1961 to serve as SNCC's full-time field secretary.He began by opening a voter registration school in McComb, in the southwestern part of the state,to help would-be voters pass Mississippi's notorious literacy tests,which had been designed to keep African Americans off of the register.

"Dr.-W.H.C. Stephenson [1825?-April 6,1899]

Was a preacher,and the first African American doctor in Nevada,practiced   medicine in Virginia City,Nevada,during the heyday of   the Comstock Lode.Born in Washington, D.C.,he lived in Pennsylvania and California prior to Nevada.He was trained  at one   of   the  Edectic Medical Institutes   in   Philadelphia.

In addition to practicing medicine,Dr.W.H.C. served  as a    community leader and vehemently rallied for African American rights in educational pursuits,the right to vote,and the right to serve on juries.As soon as the Fifteenth Amendment passed,he registered to vote and encourage other
African American men to vote.

On June 19,1865,African Americans of Virginia City formed the Nevada
Executive Committee to petition the Nevada Legislature for equal rights
"Colored Citizens of  the State of Nevada." Dr.W.H.C. was appointed   
chairman and later became the organization's president.He subsequently drew up a petition that was presented to the legislature in
February 1866 requesting that "colored people be allowed to testify in
civil cases." The petition also called for African Americans access to public schools since they paid taxes.

Dr.W.H.C. helped established the Lincoln Union Club in February 1870.
Again,he was elected president of the organization and in the same year
he was nominated to represent Nevada on the Executive Committee in
Washington.