Frederick Douglass

Feb. 1818 – Feb. 20, 1895

Frederick Douglass was a former slave who became one of the great American anti-slavery leaders of the 1800s. Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland but in 1838, at age 20, he escaped to freedom in New York.

A few years later he went to work for abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, travelling and speaking on behalf of Garrison’s paper The Liberator. Douglass published his memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845.

Eloquent, smart and determined, Douglass gained fame as a speaker, began his own anti-slavery publications and became a ‘conductor’ on the Underground Railroad.

In later years he became a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln and helped persuade Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He is often described as the founder of the American civil rights movement.

Booker T. Washington

April 5, 1856 — Nov. 14, 1915

Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington was the most prominent spokesperson for African Americans after the death of Frederick Douglass. Much more conciliatory than Douglass, Washington sought—but never demanded—social betterment for African Americans through economic progress.

In 1871, Washington enrolled in the Hampton Institute in Virginia. He taught and then studied at Wayland Seminary before returning to teach at Hampton.

In 1881 he begin the single most important undertaking of his life: founding the Tuskegee Normal School in Alabama. Washington, his small staff, and their students worked as carpenters to build Tuskegee.

In its first year of operation Tuskegee had 37 students and a faculty of three; when Washington died in 1915, Tuskegee had 1,500 students, a faculty of 180, and an endowment of $2,000,000.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Feb. 23, 1868 — Aug. 27, 1963

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was one of the country’s most distinguished educators. Born in a small village in Massachusetts in 1868, DuBois first came face to face with the realities of racism in 19th century America while attending Fisk University in Nashville. It was while completing his graduate studies at Harvard that DuBois wrote an exhaustive study of the history of the slave trade — one that is still considered one of the most comprehensive on that subject. †

In 1895 he was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

In 1897, DuBois took a position with Atlanta University. During his tenure there he conducted extensive studies of the social conditions of blacks in America. At the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, DuBois created a full-scale exhibit of African American achievement since the Emancipation.

In 1903 he wrote The Souls of Black Folk (which may be read online here) which serves as the underpinning of access to many of his ideas.

In 1905 W.E.B. Dubois, John Hope, Monroe Trotter and 27 others met secretly in the home of Mary B. Talbert, a prominent member of Buffalo’s Michigan Street Baptist Church, to adopt the resolutions which lead to the founding of the Niagara Movement. The movement will be a forerunner of the NAACP.

The Niagara Movement disbanded in 1910.

Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, W.E.B. DuBois continued to work as an author, lecturer and educator. His teachings were an important influence on the Civil Rights Movement of the’50s and’60s. Ironically, DuBois died on the eve of the historic march on Washington in 1963.

Harriet Tubman

c. 1820 — March 10, 1913

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the U.S. Civil War.

After escaping from captivity, she made 13 missions to rescue over three hundred slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women’s suffrage.

Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various owners as a child. Early in her life, she suffered a traumatic head wound from the abuse of an irate slave owner.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom.

Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or ‘‘Moses”, as she was called) ‘‘never lost a passenger.” Heavy rewards were offered for many of the people she helped bring away, but no one ever knew it was Harriet Tubman who was helping them.

When a far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly-freed slaves find work.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated more than 700 slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.

Sojourner Truth

c. 1797–November 26, 1883

Sojourner Truth began life as a slave and ended it as a celebrated anti-slavery activist. She was born in New York and was sold several times before escaping to freedom with an infant daughter in 1827.

She worked as a housekeeper, lived in a religious commune, and eventually became a travelling speaker and preacher. Although she could not read or write, Truth was a captivating speaker: she reportedly stood nearly six feet tall and was a spirited evangelist who spoke out for women’s rights and against slavery.

Prompted by religious feelings, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843. Her memoir The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (as told to author Olive Gilbert) was published in 1850 and helped establish her in the public mind. The next year, at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her famous speech, ‘‘Ain’t I A Woman,” a short but stirring challenge to the notion that men were superior to women.

During the Civil War she worked to support black Union soldiers, and after the war she continued to travel and preach on spiritual topics and as an advocate for the rights of blacks and women.

Thurgood Marshall

July 2, 1908 — Jan. 24, 1993

Thurgood Marshall was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Prior to becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education.

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Md. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law.

Additionally, as a child, he was punished for his school misbehavior by being forced to read the Constitution, which he later said piqued his interest in the document. Marshall was a descendant of slaves.

He attended Lincoln University and studied law at Howard University.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Four years later, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him as solicitor general. Johnson turned to Marshall in 1967 to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Marshall was the first black to serve on the Court. He was an unrepentant liberal whose commitment to equality only expanded during his years of service.

He remained true to the values of freedom and equality despite the erosion of the liberal majority that he helped sustain when he was first appointed.

He retired in 1991.

Gen. Colin Powell

April 5, 1937 —

Colin Luther Powell was born in Harlem in 1937. His parents were Jamaican immigrants who stressed the importance of education and personal achievement. Powell grew up in the South Bronx.

He entered the City College of New York to study geology and it was there, by his own account, that he found his calling when he joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps.

After getting his commission in the Army, Powell was wounded by a punji-stick booby trap while patrolling the Vietnamese border with Laos.

He was awarded the Purple Heart, and later that year, the Bronze Star. Powell served a second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968-69.

During this second tour he was injured in a helicopter crash. Despite his own injuries, he managed to rescue his comrades from the burning helicopter and was awarded the Soldier’s Medal. After becoming a major, he won a White House fellowship during President Nixon’s time in office.

After studying at the Army War College, he was promoted to Brigadier General and commanded a Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

In the administration of President Jimmy Carter, Powell was an assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and to the Secretary of Energy.

President George W. Bush appointed Colin Powell to be the Secretary of State. To date, this is the highest rank ever held by an African American in the United States government.