Pioneers of Intergroup Relations

“Pioneers of Intergroup Relations” provides sketches of individuals who have been especially influential in shaping relations among racial and ethnic groups in North America.

African Americans

Abernathy, Ralph David (1926–1990): Christian minister and civil rights activist; became close friends with Martin Luther King Jr., when both took Baptist pastorates in Montgomery, Alabama, around 1951; helped coordinate the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957; succeeded King as president of the SCLC, 1968–77; stood unsuccessfully for Congress in 1977; published a controversial autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1989), which included details of King’s extramarital affairs.

Ali, Muhammad (1942–2016): Boxer; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., started boxing at an early age in Louisville, Kentucky; won Olympic gold medal as a light-heavyweight in 1960; converted to Islam and changed his name in 1964; won heavyweight championship four times (1964, 1967, 1974, 1978); stripped of title when he refused induction into the US Army in 1967, though the US Supreme Court reversed the draft evasion conviction in 1971; became a symbol of black pride during the 1960s and was named the greatest athlete of the twentieth century by Sports Illustrated magazine.

Angelou, Maya (1928–2014): Novelist, poet; born Marguerite Johnson, she worked as a nightclub singer in New York and San Francisco, as an editor for the English-language Arab Observer (Cairo) and as a teacher of music and drama in Ghana; became a national figure with publication of the first volume of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), detailing her experience of southern racism and sexual abuse; nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance as Nyo Boto in the television series Roots; invited to read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Asante, Molefi Kete (1942–    ): Scholar; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr., but legally changed his name in 1975; after receiving a doctoral degree in communications from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1968, taught at Purdue, UCLA, State University of New York, Howard University, and Temple University; named director of the Center for Afro-American Studies at UCLA; wrote more than two dozen books, including Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (1980), African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity (1985), and The Historical and Cultural Atlas of African-Americans (1991); was founding editor of the Journal of Black Studies.

Baker, Josephine (1903–1986): Civil rights activist; after graduating as valedictorian with a bachelor’s degree from Shaw Boarding School in 1927, moved to New York City where she became deeply involved with progressive politics; became director of the Young Negroes Cooperative League in 1931, helping to provide reasonably priced food to members during the Great Depression (1930s); worked with the literacy program of the Works Progress Administration; set up and directed branch offices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 1940s; moved to Atlanta to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1958; was unofficial adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960’s; helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; raised money for freedom fighters in Rhodesia and South Africa.

Baldwin, James Arthur (1924–1987): Author and playwright; often praised for his ability to make readers feel the destructive power of racial prejudice on both blacks and whites; his books include two autobiographical works, Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961); several powerful novels, including Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Another Country (1962), and Just Above My Head (1979); and a number of plays, including Blues for Mister Charlie (1964) and The Amen Corner (1964); spent the final years of his life in France, where he was made commander of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian award.

Baraka, Imamu Amiri (1934–2014): Poet, playwright; born LeRoi Jones, founded Yugen magazine and Totem Press in 1958 and the Black Arts Repertory Theater in 1964; achieved fame with honest treatment of racism in plays such as Dutchman (1964), The Slave (1966), and Four Revolutionary Plays (1968); was leading spokesperson for the Black Power movement in Newark, New Jersey, heading the activist Temple of Kawaida; chair of the National Black Political Convention in 1972.

Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955): Educator; after teaching at various schools in Georgia and Florida, founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial School for Negro Girls in 1904 and McLeod Hospital in 1911; the Daytona school merged with the Cookman Institute to become Bethune-Cookman College (now Bethune-Cookman University) in 1922, with Bethune serving as president until 1942; served on conferences under Herbert Hoover in the 1920s; served as director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, 1936–44; was special assistant to the Secretary of War during World War II; served as special adviser on minority affairs to Franklin Roosevelt, 1935–1944; played important roles in the National Urban League, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and National Council of Negro Women.

Bond, Julian (1940–2015): Politician, civil rights activist; student founder of the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights; attracted attention of Martin Luther King Jr., and helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, serving as its first director of communications, 1961–66; was Democratic member of the Georgia house of representatives, 1965–75, and the Georgia senate, 1975–87; helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971; served as president of the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1974–89; appointed chair of the NAACP in 1998; hosted the television program America’s Black Forum and narrated the Public Broadcasting Service civil rights series Eyes on the Prize.

Bradley, Thomas (1917–1998): Politician; held various positions with the Los Angeles Police Department, 1940–61; after earning a law degree in the 1950s, became the first African American elected to the Los Angeles City Council, 1963–73; served as mayor of Los Angeles, 1973–89; was a founding member of the Black Achievers Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Braun, Carol Moseley (1947–    ): Politician; assistant US attorney for the northern district of Illinois, 1973–77; served as Illinois state representative, 1979–87, establishing a reputation as an ardent supporter of civil rights legislation; was Cook County recorder of deeds, 1987–93; became first African American woman to be elected to the US Senate (Democrat, Illinois) in 1992. She served from 1993 to 1999.

Brown, H. Rap (1943–    ): Civil rights activist; became leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1967; charged with inciting riot in Cambridge, Maryland, in 1968 and convicted of carrying a gun across state lines; published Die Nigger Die (1969); while in prison for a robbery conviction, converted to Islam, taking the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin; leader of Community Mosque in Atlanta, Georgia.

Bruce, Blanche Kelso (1841–1898): Politician; born a slave, after the Civil War built a fortune as a plantation owner; served in various local and state positions in Mississippi; was a US senator from Mississippi (Republican), 1875–81, and became the first African American to serve a full term; was a staunch defender of black, Chinese, and American Indian rights; worked with US register of treasury, 1881–89, 1895–98; worked as recorder of deeds, District of Columbia, 1889–95.

Bunche, Ralph (1904–1971): Diplomat; head of the department of political science, Howard University, 1928–32; during World War II served as senior social analyst for the Office of the Coordinator of Information in African and Far Eastern Affairs and with the African section of the Office of Strategic Services; recognized as a colonial expert when he joined the State Department in 1944; served as delegate or adviser to nine international conferences in four years; was chief assistant on the United Nations Palestine Commission; became first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, for his role in the Arab-Israeli cease-fire of 1948–49; served as UN undersecretary of Special Political Affairs, 1957–67, and undersecretary general of the United Nations, 1968–71.

Carmichael, Stokely (1941–1998): Political activist; born in Trinidad; after attending Howard University, he became an accomplished organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) of which he was elected chair in 1966; popularized the controversial phrase “black power” as well as radical policies, which led to his expulsion from SNCC in 1968; joined the Black Panther Party in 1968, but resigned the following year and moved to Guinea, Africa; consistently supported Pan-Africanism; changed his name in 1978 to Kwame Toure, in honor of African leaders Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah.

Chavis, Benjamin (1948–    ): Civil rights activist; after training as a theologian, became a civil rights organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the United Church of Christ; indicted in 1971 as one of the Wilmington Ten for the firebombing of a store in Wilmington, Delaware; convicted but granted parole, his conviction was reversed in 1980; appointed executive director of the Commission for Racial Justice in 1985; served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1993–94, a position from which he was forced to resign because of a financial scandal; served as national director of the 1995 Million Man March.

Chisholm, Shirley (1924–2005): Politician; after an early career in child care and education, elected to the New York State Assembly in 1964; served as US representative (Democrat), 1969–83, becoming the first African American woman in Congress; published her autobiography, Unbossed and Unbought (1970); cofounded the National Political Congress of Black Women.

Cleaver, Eldridge (1935–1998): Civil rights activist; after serving a prison sentence from 1958 to 1966, joined the Black Panther Party and became one of the most vocal proponents of the doctrine of black power; his Soul on Ice (1968) became one of the most powerful statements of the movement; after involvement in a 1968 shooting, fled to Algeria; returned to the United States in 1975.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi (1975– ): Writer, journalist; grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended Howard University; a guest columnist for the New York Times and a national correspondent for the Atlantic, writing about social, political, and cultural issues, particularly as they relate to black Americans, such as "Fear of a Black President" and "The Case for Reparations"; wrote the memoirs The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood (2008) and Between the World and Me (2015), which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction; received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015.

Cone, James H. (1938–    ): Theologian; faculty member at Union Theological Seminary from 1969; provided systematic case for divine support of the black liberation struggle in the United States and elsewhere; wrote many books, including Black Theology and Black Power (1969), For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (1984), Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (1991), and The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011).

Cosby, Bill (1937–    ): Actor, comedian; by the mid-1960s, was playing top nightclubs with his comedy routine and regularly appearing on television; became first African American star of prime time television with three-time Emmy-winning role in I Spy (1965–68); throughout the 1970s appeared in films and television series and in Las Vegas, Reno, and Tahoe nightclubs; The Cosby Show (1985–92) presented upper-middle-class black family life to mainstream American audiences; earned five Grammy Awards; wrote Fatherhood (1986) and Time Flies (1987); reputation was tarnished following allegations of sexual assault and rape made by dozens of women in the 2000s and 2010s.

Crummell, Alexander (1819–1898): Christian minister, author; born in New York City; after earning a degree at Queens College, Cambridge, in England, served as professor of mental and moral science at the College of Liberia, 1853–73; was minister of St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, 1876–98; helped found the American Negro Academy in 1897; published many books, including Future of Africa (1862) and Africa and America (1892).

Davis, Angela (1944–    ): Political activist, scholar; after an extensive education at Brandeis University, the Sorbonne, and the University of Frankfurt, took a teaching job at the University of California, Los Angeles; joined the Communist Party in 1969; became involved with the Black Panther Party and was implicated in a courtroom shooting in 1970; went underground but eventually was arrested; acquitted of all charges in 1972; cochair of the National Alliance against Racism and Political Repression; wrote If They Come in the Morning (1971), Women, Race, and Class (1983), and Women, Culture, and Politics (1989).

Delany, Martin Robison (1812–1885): Doctor, author, abolitionist; born in West Virginia but fled north when it was learned that he could read; edited The Mystery and The North Star in support of the antislavery movement; disappointed with treatment of blacks in the United States, he recommended founding an African American colony in Africa or South America; commissioned first black major in the US Army in 1863; published Principal of Ethnology: The Origin of Races and Color (1879).

Douglass, Frederick (c. 1817–1895): Abolitionist; fled slavery in 1838; brilliant orator who became famous as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s; published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845); lectured in England and Ireland, 1845–47, earning enough money to purchase his freedom; founded and served as coeditor of The North Star, (Frederick Douglass’s Paper from 1851); opposed radical abolitionism of W. L. Garrison and John Brown; was US marshal for District of Columbia, 1877–81; was recorder of deeds, District of Columbia, 1881–86; served as US minister to Haiti, 1889–91.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963): Civil rights activist, scholar, author; leader of the Niagara Movement, 1905–9; helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1909; acted as director of publications for the NAACP and editor of The Crisis, 1909–34; was a professor of sociology at Atlanta University, 1932–44; served as head of special research department of the NAACP, 1944–48; dissatisfied with the pace of racial change, joined the Communist Party and emigrated to Africa in 1961 to become editor in chief of the Pan-Africanist Encyclopedia Africana, sponsored by Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah; wrote numerous books, including The Souls of Black Folk (1903), The Negro (1915), The Gift of Black Folk (1924), Color and Democracy (1945), The World and Africa (1947), and the Black Flame trilogy (1957–61).

Evers, Medgar (1925–1963): Civil rights activist; appointed Mississippi field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1954; actively fought for enforcement of school integration and advocated the right of blacks to vote and the boycotting of merchants who discriminated against African Americans; when murdered in 1963 became one of the first martyrs of the civil rights movement.

Farmer, James (1920–1999): Civil rights leader; organizer of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1942, the first major nonviolent protest organization; staged the first successful sit-in, at a Chicago restaurant in 1943; program director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1959–61; introduced the tactic of the Freedom Ride in 1961 to test principles of desegregation; left CORE in 1966; appointed assistant secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1969; became associate director of the Coalition of American Public Employees in 1976.

Farrakhan, Louis (1933–    ): Minister; born Louis Eugene Walcott; joined the Nation of Islam in the 1950s; denounced Malcolm X (following his split with Elijah Muhammad) and succeeded him as leader of the Harlem mosque; left Nation of Islam when it began to accept whites in the mid-1970s, founding a rival organization, later known by the same name; supported Jesse Jackson in the 1984 presidential campaign, marking a turning point in Black Muslim political involvement; organized 1995 Million Man March.

Father Divine (1879–1965): Religious leader; probably born George Baker; early life mysterious; joined various Christian sects before returning to native Georgia around 1910 to proclaim himself a “divine messenger”; driven from Georgia, settled in New York City in 1915, where he fed the poor and homeless and established a communitarian religious group based on racial equality; his Peace Mission movement spread in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming a cult in which Father Divine was worshiped as God incarnate on earth.

Forten, James (1766–1842): Abolitionist, entrepreneur; born of free parents in Philadelphia, served aboard a privateer during the American Revolution; captured and held prisoner for seven months; while in England became acquainted with abolitionist philosophy; by 1798 owned a prosperous maritime company; became active in the abolitionist movement in the 1830s, including membership in the American Anti-Slavery Society; helped raise funds for William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator; founded the American Moral Reform Society.

Fortune, T. Thomas (1856–1928): Journalist, editor; worked in various positions for the New York Sun from 1878; founded the New York Age (1883), the leading black journal of opinion in the United States; crusaded against school segregation; joined Booker T. Washington in organizing the National Negro Business League in 1900; coined the term “Afro-American” as a substitute for “Negro” in the New York press.

Garvey, Marcus (1887–1940): Black nationalist leader; Jamaican-born founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914; came to United States in 1916, founding branches of the UNIA in northern ghettos; at the UNIA’s first convention in New York City in 1920, outlined plan for the establishment of an African nation-state for American blacks; preached racial pride through civil rights and economic self-sufficiency; convicted of fraud in 1925; sentence commuted by President Calvin Coolidge and deported to Jamaica in 1927, where he continued to be active in progressive politics.

Gordy, Berry, Jr. (1929–    ): Songwriter, producer; served with US Army in Korea; after a number of failed or unsatisfying jobs in Detroit, Michigan, began writing hit songs with his sister Gwen and Billy Davis; formed Motown Record Corporation and a number of related businesses in 1959; by the mid-1960s had brought black soul music to mainstream American audiences with highly polished performances by artists such as the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Four Tops, the Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five, Lionel Richie, and Stevie Wonder; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Grace, Charles Emmanuel “Sweet Daddy” (1881–1960): Religious leader; born Marcelino Manoel de Graca in the Cape Verde Islands; established the United House of Prayer for All People (c. 1921), with ministry style rooted in faith healing and speaking in tongues; products such as “Daddy Grace” coffee, tea, and creams were believed to heal; by 1960, his church had some 25,000 adherents in 375 congregations.

Graves, Earl, Sr. (1935–    ): Publisher, editor; officer, US Army Green Berets, 1957–60; administrative assistant to Robert F. Kennedy, 1964–68; launched Black Enterprise (1970) to provide African Americans with practical help for succeeding in business; by the late 1990s, Black Enterprise had a subscription base of more than 300,000; wrote How to Succeed in Business Without Being White (1997).

Haley, Alex (1921–1992): Journalist, author; chief journalist for the US Coast Guard, 1952–59; interviewed Malcolm X for Playboy, which led to his first book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965); spent a dozen years researching family history, leading to publication of the novel Roots (1976), based on the life of a Mandingo youth named Kunta Kinte; the novel led to a twelve-hour television series of the same name, hundreds of interviews and articles, instructional packets and tapes, and sparked intense interest in African American genealogy and history.

Hamer, Fannie Lou (1917–1977): Civil rights activist; after forty years of work on the same plantation, lost her job when she tried to vote; began working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to register black voters in 1962; helped form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and spoke eloquently in favor of seating black delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1964; became one of the first delegates to the Democratic convention in 1968; founded Freedom Farms Corporation, 1969; toured and spoke widely on behalf of civil rights legislation.

Hill, Anita (1956–    ): Professor of law; a relatively unknown law professor at the University of Oklahoma when she gained national attention during Senate confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991; charged that she had been sexually harassed when working for Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in the early 1980s; withstood attempts by some lawmakers to have the University of Oklahoma Law School fire her; spoke widely around the country throughout the 1990s in favor of civil rights and women’s rights.

Hooks, Benjamin (1925–2010): Lawyer, preacher, civil rights leader; first African American to serve as judge in criminal court in Shelby County, Tennessee; served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1977–92, where he vigorously promoted integration, pro-African foreign policy, and employment legislation.

Hughes, Langston (1902–1967): Writer; after dropping out of Columbia University, wrote poetry and worked as a cabin boy on a freighter; major figure in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance; “The Negro Writer and the Racial Mountain” (1926) established an early ethic of black pride; wrote in many fields, including poetry (The Weary Blues, 1926; Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927; Shakespeare in Harlem, 1942; Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951); librettos (Street Scene, 1947); plays (Mulatto, 1935); and autobiography (The Big Sea, 1940; I Wonder as I Wander, 1956).

Innis, Roy (1934–    ): Civil rights leader; joined Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1963, becoming national director in 1968; founded Harlem Commonwealth Council designed to promote black businesses; controversy over recruitment of black Vietnam veterans for the civil war in Angola and misappropriation of funds led to important defections from CORE, which became largely inactive in the 1980s.

Jackson, Chris (c. 1971– ): Publisher, editor; executive editor at the imprint Spiegel and Grau beginning in 2006; with hip-hop journalist and activist Kevin Powell, published Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature (2000), which featured essays, short stories, poetry, and journalism by more than one hundred young writers of color; published several critically acclaimed and best-selling nonfiction books on race and racism, including Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, which won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which won the 2015 Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction.

Jackson, Jesse (1941–    ): Civil rights activist, Baptist minister; joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1965; served as executive director of SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket, 1967-71; founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in 1971; his PUSH-EXCEL program for encouraging young students to improve academically received funding from the administration of US president Jimmy Carter, 1977–81; ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988; finished a strong second to Michael Dukakis in 1988, demonstrating the viability of an African American candidate; continued to press for child care, health care reform, housing reform, and statehood for the District of Columbia.

Johnson, Jack (1878–1946): Boxer; first black heavyweight champion, 1908–15; became the center of racial controversy as the public called for Jim Jeffries, the white former champion, to come out of retirement; Johnson defeated Jeffries in 1910.

Johnson, James Weldon (1871–1938): Poet, diplomat, civil rights leader; as a young man known principally as a lyricist for popular songs, including “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (1899); served as US consul in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, 1906–9, and Corinto, Nicaragua, 1909–12; was executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1920–1930; wrote many books, including The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), God’s Trombones (1927), and Negro Americans, What Now (1934).

Johnson, John H. (1918–2005): Publisher; addressed the need for mainstream black publications with the establishment of the Negro Digest (1942) and Ebony (1945); member of advisory council of Harvard Graduate School of Business; director for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

Jordan, Vernon (1935–    ): Lawyer, civil rights leader; field secretary for the Georgia Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1962–64; director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council, 1964–68; appointed executive director of the United Negro College Fund, 1970–72; served as executive director of the National Urban League, 1972–81; became political confidante of President Bill Clinton in 1992.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968): Civil rights activist, Baptist minister; received doctorate from Crozer Theological Seminary, 1955; accepted pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956; organized the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956; founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, serving as first president in 1957; was copastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, 1960–68; arrested for protesting segregation and unfair hiring practices in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, leading to his classic “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”; delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the historic March on Washington in 1963; Time Man of the Year in 1963; awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1964; began to speak out forcefully against the Vietnam War and urban poverty, leading many black leaders to question his tactics in achieving full civil rights; assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968; consistently promoted a policy of nonviolent protest.

Lee, Spike (1957–    ): Filmmaker; while attending New York University’s Institute of Film and Television, won the Student Award presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Joe’s Bed-Sty Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1982); his films, highlighting past and present struggles of African Americans in a land of alien values, include She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), and Chi-Raq (2015).

Locke, Alain (1886–1954): Philosopher, writer; after study at Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Berlin, served on faculty at Howard University, 1912–53; celebrated black cultural contributions in works such as The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925) and a special issue of the journal Survey Graphic, which announced the arrival of a “Harlem Renaissance” and published work by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W. E. B. Du Bois; also wrote or edited Race Contacts and Inter-Racial Relations (1916), Opportunity (an annual review of the state of black writing), Negro Art: Past and Present (1936), and The Negro and His Music (1940).

Lowery, Joseph E. (1921–    ): Pastor, civil rights leader; pastor of the Warren Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1952–61; cofounder of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference (later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first vice president under Martin Luther King Jr.; became president of the SCLC in 1977; pastor of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta from 1986.

McKissick, Floyd (1922–1991): Lawyer, civil rights leader; sued the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for admission to their law school and became the first African American to earn a degree there; head of Congress on Racial Equality, 1966–68; between 1968 and 1980 worked unsuccessfully to establish a new and self-sufficient community in Warren County, North Carolina, known as Soul City.

Malcolm X (1925–1965): Black nationalist; born Malcolm Little to a family committed to Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association; after his father’s murder, left school for New York, where he was convicted of burglary; converted to Nation of Islam while in prison; a brilliant speaker, he began making provocative, anti-white statements, for which he was expelled from the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad; formed Organization of Afro-American Unity and Muslim Mosque Inc. in 1964; after pilgrimage to Mecca, converted to orthodox Islam, took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and moderated his views; shot to death by members of the Nation of Islam; author (with Alex Haley) of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965).

Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993): Lawyer, judge, civil rights activist; served as chief legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1938–61; played key role in Brown v. Board of Education case (1954), in which the US Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in public education; won twenty-nine of the thirty-two cases he argued before the Supreme Court; became federal circuit judge, 1961–67; appointed first African American associate justice of the US Supreme Court, 1967–91.

Meredith, James (1933–    ): Civil rights activist; became first African American to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962, generating riots and the stationing of federal troops on the campus; led march to encourage black voter registration in 1966, shot by sniper, but recovered; wrote Three Years in Mississippi (1966).

Morrison, Toni (1931–    ): Writer; born Chloe Anthony Wofford; incorporated African and African American folklore, legend, and mythology into her novels; works contain many autobiographical references; Beloved (1987), which examines the brutality of American slavery, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and became a motion picture in 1998; won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993; also wrote The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1974), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015).

Muhammad, Elijah (1897–1975): Religious leader and black nationalist; born Elijah Poole to a former slave; became chief assistant to W. D. Fard, founder of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, in 1930; upon Fard’s disappearance in 1934, succeeded to leadership of the Nation of Islam; preached racial segregation, black integrity, and the need for economic independence from whites; support for Japan in World War II and the conviction of three members of the Nation of Islam for the assassination of Malcolm X led to unfavorable press coverage, but the movement continued to grow, especially among the underemployed of the major cities.he major cities.

Newton, Huey P. (1942–1989): Black activist; with Bobby Seale, founded the Black Panther Party in 1966, which became a major force in California politics; convicted of manslaughter in the 1967 killing of an Oakland police officer, but the conviction was later overturned; helped elect Lionel Wilson as first black mayor of Oakland in 1977; frequently in legal trouble throughout the 1970s and 1980s; killed by a drug dealer.

Obama, Barack (1961– ): Politician; served as Illinois state senator, 1997–2004; US senator, 2005–2008; elected the forty-fourth president of the United States in 2008, the first African American to win the presidency; won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Owens, Jesse (1913–1980): Track and field athlete; one of the first great all-around track and field athletes, earned four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics (100- and 200-meter races, 400-meter relay, broad jump); became internationally famous when German leader Adolf Hitler refused for racial reasons to present the medals; traveled and spoke widely on the value of sport in breaking down racial barriers.

Parks, Rosa Louise McCauley (1913–2005): Civil rights activist; secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1950s; arrested and fined for refusing to give up her seat to a white person, sparking a 382-day citywide bus boycott aimed at desegregating public transportation; harassment led Parks and her family to move to Detroit, Michigan, where she worked in the office of Congressman John Conyers and continued to campaign for civil rights.

Patterson, Frederick D. (1901–1988): Educator; faculty member, and later president of, Tuskegee Institute from 1928; chair of the R. R. Moton Memorial Institute; organized United Negro College Fund in 1944 to aid historically black colleges and universities.

Payne, Daniel Alexander (1811–1893): Educator, bishop; born to free parents, opened a school for blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1829; after his school was closed by an act of the South Carolina legislature, traveled north to study, delivering powerful abolitionist speeches throughout the 1840s and 1850s; elected bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852; bought Wilberforce University from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1863 and devoted the rest of his life to developing the university and overseeing missionary endeavors; wrote Recollections of Seventy Years (1888) and History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891).

Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr. (1908–1972): Politician; instrumental in securing better treatment for African Americans in Harlem during the Great Depression (1930s); succeeded his father as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1936; served in various New York posts until 1944 when he was elected to the US House of Representatives, 1945–67, 1969–71; sponsored more than fifty pieces of social legislation, many aimed at ending discrimination against minorities; became chairman of House Committee on Education and Labor in 1960; censured in the House and unseated in 1967 for misuse of public funds but readmitted the following year.

Powell, Colin (1937–    ): Military leader; served two tours of duty in Vietnam during the 1960s; military assistant to the secretary of defense in 1983; national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, 1987–89; served as chair of the joint chiefs of staff, 1989–93, from which position he gained international recognition for his role in conducting the Persian Gulf War (1991); popularity and vocal support for personal responsibility made him an attractive political candidate; addressed the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, heightening rumors that he might one day run for high office. Served as the first African American secretary of state (2001–5), under President George W. Bush.

Robeson, Paul (1898–1976): Singer, actor; son of a runaway slave; after earning a law degree from Columbia University, was discovered by playwright Eugene O’Neill and became a successful stage actor in the 1920s; performance in Emperor Jones (1923) led to a successful singing career, including 1925 concert debut of all–African American music; active in national and international civil and human rights campaigns, he spoke out vigorously for independence for African colonies; trips to the Soviet Union and other association with Communists led to the revocation of his passport in 1950 and a decline in his career; regained passport after an eight-year legal battle in 1958 and moved to London, where he lived until 1963; wrote Here I Stand (1958).

Robinson, Jackie (1919–1972): Baseball player; after a stellar career at the University of California, Los Angeles, left in his junior year to play professional football for the Los Angeles Bulldogs, and then to serve as a lieutenant in the US Army during World War II; played baseball with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1945; became the first black player in modern major league baseball in 1947, beginning a ten-year career with the Brooklyn Dodgers; responded to much public hostility with grace and outstanding play, paving the way for expansion of opportunities for black athletes; inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Rustin, Bayard (1910–1987): Civil rights leader; organizer of the Young Communist League, 1936–41; worked with James Farmer in the Chicago Committee of Racial Equality, which developed into the Congress of Racial Equality; was a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1963; served as organizational coordinator of the 1963 March on Washington; was executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1964–79; founded Organization for Black Americans to Support Israel in 1975; consistent supporter of nonviolent change.

Scott, Dred (1795–1858): Slave, abolitionist; attempted to escape and buy freedom; with help from attorneys, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had accompanied his master into the free state of Illinois; US Supreme Court ruled in the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford that Scott, as a slave, was not a legal citizen and therefore had no standing before the courts; freed by owner shortly before his death.

Seale, Bobby (1936–    ): Black activist; cofounder, with Huey P. Newton, of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966; mistrial declared in his 1971 trial for the kidnapping and killing of a suspected police informant; disenchanted with revolutionary politics, left the Panthers in 1974; wrote Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party (1970) and A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale (1978).

Sharpton, Al (1954–    ): Pentecostal minister, social activist; after gaining prominence for his preaching in Brooklyn, became active in the civil rights movement; appointed youth director of Jesse Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket; briefly served as a bodyguard for singer James Brown and became involved with fight promoter Don King; founded the National Youth Movement (later the United African Movement) in 1971; involved with many high-profile racial incidents in New York City, including the Bernhard Goetz murder trial in 1984, the Howard Beach killing in 1986, the Tawana Brawley affair in 1987, and the Bensonhurst killing in 1989; controversial figure whose motives have been questioned.

Truth, Sojourner (c. 1797–1883): Abolitionist; born Isabella Baumfree, she was freed by the New York State Emancipation Act in 1827; preached and lectured widely to abolitionist audiences, taking the name Sojourner Truth in 1843; raised money to aid runaway slaves and soldiers during the Civil War; served as councilor with the National Freedmen’s Relief Association, 1864; dictated The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850).

Tubman, Harriet (c. 1820–1913): Civil rights activist; born Araminta Ross, escaped slavery in 1848; rescued more than three hundred slaves before the Civil War in nineteen forays along the Underground Railroad; aided John Brown in recruiting soldiers for his raid on Harper’s Ferry, 1858; spoke widely on emancipation and women’s rights after 1860; served as nurse and spy for the Union army during the Civil War; buried with military honors.

Turner, Henry McNeal (1834–1915): Religious leader; born to free parents; tutored by lawyers for whom he worked as a janitor; became a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1853; switched affiliation and preached for African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, DC, 1858–63; was chaplain of First US Colored Troops, 1863; served as Georgia state representative, 1868–69, 1870; elected AME bishop in 1880; supported voting rights for blacks and advocated a return to Africa when the Civil Rights Act was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883; proclaimed that “God Is a Negro”; forerunner of modern black theology.

Walker, Alice (1944–    ): Writer; poet; her works deal principally with the experience of black women living in a racist and sexist society; early books were critically acclaimed, though she did not become widely popular until she published her third novel, The Color Purple (1982), which won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction and was adapted to film in 1985; champion of the works of Zora Neale Hurston; published in several genres, including poetry: Once (1968) and Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973); novels: The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992); short stories: “In Love and Trouble” (1973) and “You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down”(1976); and criticism: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (1980).

Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915): Educator, political activist; born a slave, became committed to the idea that education would raise African Americans to equality; taught American Indians at Hampton Institute, 1879–81; founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 1881, and served as its president; founded National Negro Business League, 1900; advised Presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt on racial issues; promoted what is sometimes called the “Atlanta Compromise,” accepting segregation of African Americans in return for economic opportunities; his conservative racial views appealed to many white Americans who feared more radical change; wrote Up from Slavery (1901); opposed by W. E. B. Du Bois.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862–1931): Editor; editor and part owner of the black newspaper Memphis Free Speech from 1889; campaigned vigorously against lynching, leading to a mob attack on the newspaper’s offices; with Frederick Douglass and Ferdinand L. Barnett, wrote “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition” (1893); published the antilynching pamphlet, “Red Record” (1895); defended W. E. B. Du Bois’s criticism of Booker T. Washington in The Souls of Black Folk; helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1909.

Wilkins, Roy (1901–1981): Journalist, civil rights leader; on the staff of the Kansas City Call, 1923–31; served as assistant executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1931–55; succeeded W. E. B. Du Bois as editor of The Crisis, 1934–49; was executive secretary of the NAACP, 1955–64; served as executive director of the NAACP, 1965–77; chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Woodson, Carter (1875–1950): Scholar; known as the “Father of Modern Black History”; formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (later the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History), 1915, which established the Journal of Negro History (1916); founded Associated Publishers, 1920, and Negro History Bulletin, 1921; created Negro History Week (later Black History Month); wrote many books, including The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915); The Negro in Our History (1922), The Miseducation of the Negro (1933), and African Heroes and Heroines (1939).

Wright, Richard (1908–1960): Novelist; member of the Communist Party, 1933–44; used personal experience from his Mississippi youth to dramatize the brutal effects of racism in books such as Uncle Tom’s Children (Best Work of Fiction by a Works Progress Administration writer, 1938), Native Son (1940), and the largely autobiographical Black Boy (1945); moved to Paris in 1946; there continued writing, including The Outsider (1953), Black Power (1954), White Man Listen (1957), and Eight Men (1961); American Hunger (1977) was a continuation of his autobiography.

Young, Andrew (1932–    ): Civil rights activist, politician, diplomat; aide and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. in the early 1960s; was executive vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967; served as Georgia state representative, 1973–77; was US ambassador to the United Nations, 1977–79; served as mayor of Atlanta, 1981–89; chair of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.

Young, Whitney (1921–1971): Educator, civil rights leader; executive director of the St. Paul chapter of the Minnesota Urban League, 1950–54; was dean of Atlanta University School of Social Work, 1954–1961; served as executive director of National Urban League, 1961–1971; called for a “domestic Marshall Plan” to end black poverty, and helped President Lyndon B. Johnson craft his War on Poverty; received Medal of Freedom in 1969; wrote To Be Equal (1964) and Beyond Racism (1969).

Hispanic Americans

Anaya, Rudolfo (1937–    ): Writer; earned degrees at the University of New Mexico (1963, 1968, 1972); taught in public schools, 1963–70; on faculty, University of New Mexico, since 1974; wrote of the spirituality of the Chicano tradition in novels such as Bless Me, Ultima (1972), Heart of Aztlan (1976), and Tortuga (1979).

Avila, Joaquín (1948–    ): Lawyer; Alaska supreme court clerk, 1973–74; staff attorney, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), San Francisco, 1974–76; associate counsel, MALDEF, Texas, 1976–82; largely responsible for extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1982; served as president, MALDEF, 1982–85.

Baca Zinn, Maxine (1942–    ): Sociologist; professor of sociology, University of Michigan at Flint, 1975–87; research professor in residence, Memphis State University in Memphis, 1987; senior research associate, Julian Samora Research Institute, 1990; professor of sociology, University of Michigan at East Lansing, since 1990; through sociological research on Latino families and Mexican American women, became a pioneer of Chicana feminism in the mid-1970s.

Badillo, Herman (1929–2014): Born in Puerto Rico; sent to United States as a boy in 1940; gained national recognition during unsuccessful race for mayor of New York City; served as US representative (Democrat) from New York, 1971–78; first Puerto Rican elected as a voting member of Congress; appointed deputy mayor of New York City in 1978.

Cavazos, Lauro (1927–    ): Educator, government official; dean of Tufts University School of Medicine; president of Texas Tech University; appointed secretary of education by President George H. W. Bush, 1988–90, the first Hispanic named to the cabinet; instrumental in the creation of the President’s Council on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Chacón, Eusebio (1869–1948): Writer; earned law degree from Notre Dame; wrote passionately of Hispanic culture in works such as El hijo de la tempestad (son of the storm, 1892) and Tras la tormenta la calma (the calm after the storm, 1892).

Chávez, César (1927–1993): Labor organizer; after his parents lost their farm during the Great Depression (1930s), raised as a migrant worker; general director, Community Service Organization, 1958–62; established the National Farm Workers Association, 1962, which merged with another organization to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, 1966, later the United Farm Workers of America; led strikes and boycotts from 1965 to improve wages and working conditions for migrant workers; committed to nonviolent tactics.

Chávez, Dennis (1888–1962): Politician; born in New Mexico; largely self-educated; earned law degree at Georgetown University in 1920; served as US representative (Democrat), 1933–35; appointed to the US Senate in 1936, then elected, 1937–62; first Hispanic US senator; opposed US entry into World War II; drafted a bill creating the Fair Employment Practices Commission.

Cisneros, Henry (1947–    ): Politician; after earning graduate degrees from Harvard University and George Washington University, joined faculty of University of Texas at San Antonio, 1974; was a member of San Antonio City Council, 1975–81, emphasizing cooperation between white and Latino residents; served as mayor of San Antonio, 1981–89, becoming the first Hispanic mayor of a major US city; was secretary of Housing and Urban Development, 1993–96; indicted for conspiracy and obstruction of justice in 1997.

Fernández, Ricardo (1940–    ): Educator; born in Puerto Rico; earned advanced degrees at Princeton University; on faculty at University of Wisconsin, 1973–90; president, Lehman College of the City University of New York since 1990; president of the board of directors, Multicultural Training and Advocacy since 1986; was president, National Association for Bilingual Education, 1980–81; produced pioneering reports on Hispanic education.

García, Héctor Pérez (1914–1996): Doctor, civil rights activist; earned medical degree at University of Texas in 1940; founder of the American GI Forum, 1948; founder of Political Association of Spanish Speaking Organizations; alternative ambassador to the United Nations in 1964; commissioner, US Commission on Civil Rights in 1968; active in many human and civil rights organizations, including League of United Latin American Citizens, Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Advisory Council to Veterans Administration.

Gómez-Quiñones, Juan (1942–    ): Poet, historian, civil rights activist; born in Mexico; professor of history, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1969; director of Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA; cofounder, United Mexican American Students; cofounder/director, Chicano Legal Defense.

Gonzáles, Rodolfo “Corky” (1928–2005): Social activist; founded the Crusade for Justice in 1965 in Denver, providing medical and legal aid to Mexican Americans; proposed an independent Mexican American nation, or independent communities where Mexican Americans could control their own affairs; his poem “I Am Joaquin” (1967) became a symbol of the emerging Chicano movement.

González, Henry Barbosa (1916–2000): Politician; born in San Antonio, Texas, to Mexican parents; earned law degree at St. Mary’s University in 1943; was a member, San Antonio City Council, 1953–56; elected to the Texas state senate in 1956, becoming the first Mexican American state senator in 110 years; served as US representative from Texas beginning 1961; vigorous supporter of civil rights campaigns of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.

Gutiérrez, José Ángel (1944–    ): Educator, civil rights activist; founder of La Raza Unida Party, 1970; cofounder of Mexican American Unity Council, 1968; cofounder of Mexican American Youth Organization, 1967; served as associate professor, Western Oregon State College, 1982–86; was executive director, Greater Dallas Legal and Community Development Foundation, 1986; administrative law judge, city of Dallas, Texas, 1990.

Hernández, Antonia (1948–    ): Lawyer; born in Coahuila, Mexico; earned law degree at University of California, Los Angeles, in 1974; staff counsel to US Senate Judiciary Committee, 1978–1981; served as staff attorney, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), Washington, DC, 1981–83; employment litigation director, MALDEF, Los Angeles, 1983–85; president and general counsel, MALDEF, from 1985.

Hidalgo, Hilda (1928–2009): Educator, social activist; director, Group Work and Tutorial Division of the Child Service Association, Newark, New Jersey, 1964; founding member, Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey, 1975; professor of public administration and social work, Rutgers University, 1977–92; wrote Rehabilitation in the 80’s: Understanding the Hispanic Disabled (1982); served on editorial boards for Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, Affilia: The Journal of Women and Social Work, and Society and Culture.

Huerta, Dolores (1930–    ): Labor leader; lobbyist for the Community Service Organization (CSO) in the late 1950s and early 1960s; cofounder of the National Farmworkers of America (NFWA), 1962, which later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFA); held many offices in the NFWA and UFA; helped lead the strike against California grape growers, 1965–70, negotiating the contracts that led to a settlement; UFA activism helped lead to the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, guaranteeing the right of California farmworkers to deal with matters of union representation.

Magón, Ricardo Flores (1873–1922): Politician, journalist; founded the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM); attempted to invade Mexico from Texas, 1891–92; fled to Laredo, Texas, 1904; his newspaper Regeneracion advocated the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico and labor reform in the United States; jailed for violating neutrality laws, 1907–10; moved to Los Angeles and launched armed invasion of Baja California upon the outbreak of revolution in Mexico, 1910; imprisoned for espionage, 1918–22.

Martínez, Vilma (1943–    ): Lawyer, civil rights leader; counsel with the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1967–70; equal employment opportunity counselor, New York State Division of Human Rights, 1970–71; general counsel and president of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, 1973–82, where she was instrumental in securing extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Mexican Americans; consultant to the U.S. Census Bureau, 1975–81; member of the California Board of Regents, 1976–90; US ambassador to Argentina, 2009–13.

Montoya, Joseph (1915–1978): Politician; born in New Mexico; earned law degree from Georgetown University in 1938; New Mexico representative (Democrat), 1937–1941, senator, 1941–1947; lieutenant-governor, 1946–1950, 1954–1957; U.S. representative, 1957–1964; U.S. senator, 1964–1977; best known for his work on the Senate Agricultural Committee.

Moreno, Luisa (1907–c. 1990): Labor organizer; born in Guatemala; began organizing Hispanic garment workers in New York City in the 1930s; led a successful pecan shellers’ strike of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, gaining favorable notice of the leadership and eventually rising to be international vice president; helped launch the National Congress of the Spanish Speaking People (also known as El Congresso) in 1938, the first Mexican American civil rights organization; suspected of being a communist and deported in the 1950s under terms of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act; died in Mexico.

Palés Matos, Luis (1898–1959): Puerto Rican poet; worked as a secretary, bookkeeper, and journalist as he developed his poetic craft; founded the short-lived San Juan avant-garde literary movement, Diepalismo, in 1921; from the mid-1920s, developed (with Nicolas Guillen) the literary movement known as Negrismo, exalting black contributions to Latin American history and culture, which was controversial because he was white; abandoned Negrista poetry in the 1940s; wrote Drumbeats of Kink and Blackness (1937), Poesia 1915–1956 (1957).

Perales, César (1940–    ): Government official, lawyer; director, Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, New York City Office of the Mayor, 1976–77; regional director, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), 1977–79; assistant secretary, HEW, 1979–80; president, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, 1981–83; commissioner, New York State Department of Social Services from 1983; secretary of state of New York from 2011.

Rivera, Geraldo (1943–    ): Journalist; earned law degree at the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in journalism at Columbia University; began career as reporter for WABC-TV in New York City in 1970; host of the television talk show Geraldo (1987–96) and The Geraldo Rivera Show (1996–98); has won ten Emmy Awards for broadcast journalism.

Rodríguez, Armando Osorio (1929–    ): Judge, social activist; directing attorney, California Rural Legal Assistance, 1965–67; chair and board member, California Rural Legal Assistance, 1969–87; judge, Fresno Municipal Court, 1975–78, 1980; judge, Fresno Superior Court, 1978–80; board chair and member, Migrant Legal Service Project.

Roybal, Edward (1916–2005): Politician; raised in Los Angeles, served in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression (1930s) and in the Army during World War II (1944–1945); cofounder, Community Service Organization, 1947; member, Los Angeles City Council, 1949–62, the first Mexican American to serve there since 1881; opposed city development that adversely affected Mexican American families; US representative (Democrat), 1963–93; introduced legislation leading to the Bilingual Education Act of 1967; founding member of Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 1976.

Vásquez, Tiburcio (1835–1875): Bandit; allegedly driven to crime by white injustice, became a Mexican American folk hero as he stole cattle and robbed California Anglos; captured in 1874 and executed the following year.

Asian Americans

Arai, Clarence Takeya (1901–1964): Lawyer, activist; earned law degree from University of Washington in 1924; president, Seattle Progressive Citizens League, 1928, leading to foundation of the National Council of Japanese American Citizens League in 1930; interned during World War II at a camp in Idaho.

Ariyoshi, George (1926–    ): Politician, attorney; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Japanese immigrants; entered US Army in 1944, working with US military intelligence in Japan after World War II; after earning law degree from University of Michigan Law School in 1952, returned to Hawaii, where he served as a territorial representative, 1954–58, and a territorial senator, 1958–59; upon admittance of Hawaii as a state in the union, served as US senator, 1959–73; senate majority leader, 1965; governor of Hawaii, 1974–86; first Japanese American to be elected governor of a state.

Bulosan, Carlos (1911–1956): Writer, labor activist; migrated from the Philippines; worked in an Alaskan cannery and as a migrant field hand before becoming a respected author; published the radical literary magazine The New Tide (1934); at first applauded American opportunities, even for migrant workers, but later became disillusioned; editor of highly political yearbook of United Cannery and Packing House Workers of America (1950); best known for three novels, The Voice of Bataan (1943), The Laughter of My Father (1944), and America Is in the Heart (1946).

Chin, Frank (1940–    ): Writer, playwright; produced The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972), becoming the first Asian American playwright to reach the New York stage; founded the Asian American Theatre Workshop in San Francisco in 1973; opposed to the Asian American literature of popular authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan, which he considers to be founded in Western philosophy and tradition; The Year of the Dragon (1974) dealt with the disintegration of a Chinese American family; organized Day of Remembrance in 1978, bringing Japanese American leaders and activists together to publicize grievances suffered during World War II; with others edited Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers (1974).

D’Souza, Dinesh (1961–    ): Author; born in Mumbai; came to the United States in 1978 to complete his high school education; while in college edited the Dartmouth Review (1981), often perceived as being insensitive to minorities; contributed articles to prominent conservative political journals; assistant to domestic policy chief Gary Bauer during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, 1987–89; best known for his Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (1991), a bestseller that fueled a national debate on political correctness and the best means of creating fair rules for a diverse society.

Fang, John T. C. (1925–1992): Journalist, publisher; born in China, fled to Taiwan when communists assumed power in 1949; served as reporter and associate editor of New Life Daily News (Taiwan); managing editor of Chinese Daily Post (San Francisco) in the 1950s and 1960s; in the 1970s published Young China Daily News, founded by Sun Yat-sen early in the twentieth century; established Asian Weekly (1979), which became the paper of record among Asian Americans; beginning in 1984, prepared special editions during presidential elections, highlighting ethnic concerns.

Fong, Hiram L. (1906–2004): Politician; born to Chinese immigrants in Honolulu, Hawaii; earned law degree from Harvard in 1935; rose to rank of major, US Army Air Corps, 1942–44; Hawaiian territorial representative, 1938–54; first Asian American elected to the US Senate (Republican), 1959–77; helped establish the University of Hawaii’s East West Center; instrumental in framing immigration reforms, 1965.

Harano, Ross Masao (1942–    ): Activist, businessman; born in California, his family was forcibly relocated to Arkansas; after growing up in Chicago, went into banking and international trade; served as equal opportunity officer, director of advisory councils, and chief of the crime victims division of the Illinois Office of the Attorney General, 1988–93; president, Illinois Ethnic Coalition; chair of the Chicago Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League; president, Chicago World Trade Center.

Hayakawa, S. I. (1906–1992): Politician, educator; born in British Columbia to Japanese immigrants; received degrees from University of Manitoba in 1927 and McGill University in 1928 before moving to United States to earn a doctorate at the University of Wisconsin in 1935; as Canadian citizen was spared internment during World War II; president of San Francisco State University, 1968; US senator (Republican) for California, 1977–83; special adviser to the secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, 1983–90; wrote Language in Action (1941), a seminal text in semantics.

Hayashi, Dennis (1952–    ): Born in Los Angeles to Japanese American parents who were interned during World War II; earned law degree at Hastings College in 1978; worked for the Asian Law Caucus, 1979–91; has defended the civil rights of Pacific Islanders, Vietnamese, Japanese, and other Asian Americans; cofounder of National Network Against Asian American Violence; appointed director of the Office of Civil Rights, 1993.

Hayslip, Le Ly (1949–    ): Author, humanitarian; born to a devout Buddhist family in central Vietnam; arrested and brutalized by the French, the South Vietnamese, and the Viet Cong; came to the United States in 1970; founded East Meets West, an organization for improving relations between Vietnam and the United States and for bettering the lives of Vietnamese; founded hospitals, clinics, and schools in Vietnam; wrote memoirs of life in Vietnam and the United States: When Heaven and Earth Changed Places (1989) and Child of War, Woman of Peace (1993).

Hirano, Irene Yasutake (1948–    ): Administrator, social activist; born in Los Angeles, her father’s family was interned during World War II; associate director of Asian Women’s Center, 1972–1975; executive director of T.H.E. Clinic for Women, Los Angeles, providing medical help and counseling to poor women; president, Asian Women’s Network, Los Angeles, 1980; director and president of the Japanese American National Museum, 1988–2009; president of the US-Japan Council from 2009.

Hongo, Florence M. (1928–    ): Educator, social activist; born in California; interned in a Colorado camp during World War II; organized the Japanese American Curriculum Project in 1969 (from 1994, the Asian American Curriculum Project), which produced the controversial Japanese Americans, the Untold Story (1970); after the state refused to accept the work as a supplemental textbook, began distributing books, filmstrips, and other literature designed to produce full information about the internment of Japanese Americans.

Igasaki, Paul M. (1955–    ): Lawyer, social activist; born in Chicago; moved to California to attend Martin Luther King, Jr., School of Law at the University of California, Davis; lawyer, Legal Services of Northern California, 1980–85; Washington, DC, representative for the Japanese American Citizens League; executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, 1991–94; chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1994; chair and chief judge of the Department of Labor Administrative Revie Board, 2010.

Inouye, Daniel (1924–2012): Politician; born in Honolulu, Hawaii; joined US Army, where he distinguished himself in combat in Europe, 1943–45; earned a law degree at George Washington University Law School in 1952; majority leader in Hawaii territorial house, 1954–58; US representative (Democrat), 1959–63; US senator, 1963–2012; strong supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s social welfare program; gained national attention as member of the senate Watergate committee in 1973; chair of senate Iran-Contra committee; chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs.

Kingston, Maxine Hong (1940–    ): Writer; raised in a Chinese immigrant family, utilized Cantonese stories and myths and personal experience to create works in which the boundaries between fiction and autobiography are obscured; The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and China Men (1980) explore the feminine and masculine sides of the Chinese American experience.

Kitano, Harry H. L. (1926–2002): Scholar; raised in San Francisco; interned in Topaz, Utah, during World War II; earned Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley, in 1958; on faculty at University of California, Los Angeles, where twice was director of the Asian American Studies Center; wrote many important sociological studies of Japanese Americans, including Japanese Americans: Evolution of a Sub-Culture (1969).

Kochiyama, Yuri (1921–2014): Political activist; born in California; interned in Arkansas during World War II; joined National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 1950’s; moved to Harlem in 1960 during the civil rights movement, working for better community education and working conditions; met Malcolm X and joined his Organization for Afro-American Unity in 1964; supported solidarity between Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics.

Kumar, K. V. (1945–    ): Businessperson, political activist; born in Bangalore, India; came to United States as a student in 1968, working as messenger for international organizations; priest at Vittala Hindu temple, Washington, DC; founded the National Indian American Chamber of Commerce in 1991 to assist more than 100,000 Indian-owned or -operated businesses; active in Republican politics; received the 2015 Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations.

Le Xuan Khoa (1931–    ): Educator, community leader; born in Vietnam; deputy minister for culture and education in South Vietnam; vice-president, University of Saigon; came to United States as a refugee in 1975; chief executive of Southeast Asia Refugee Action Center since 1980; editor in chief of The Bridge, reporting on refugee issues; frequently has testified to US Congress on immigration issues.

Makino, Fred Kinzaburo (1877–1953): Publisher, community leader; born in Japan to an English merchant and a Japanese woman; sent to Hawaii in 1899, where he opened a drugstore; played a key role in the Higher Wage Association and the plantation strike of 1909; started the newspaper Hawaii Hochi in 1912 in support of Japanese laborers; fought against restrictions on Japanese-language schools in Hawaii.

Manlapit, Pablo (1891–1969): Migrated from the Philippines to Hawaii as a plantation laborer in 1910; founded Filipino Federation of Labor in 1911 and Filipino Unemployed Association in 1913; helped organize strike of plantation workers in Hawaii in 1920, the first major strike involving workers of multiple ethnic groups; convicted in 1924 following strike violence but paroled in 1927 with the requirement of leaving Hawaii; organized Filipino workers in California, 1927–32; forced to return to the Philippines in 1934.

Masaoka, Mike Masaru (1915–1991): Social activist, community leader; raised in Utah, where he became a Mormon; executive secretary of the Japanese American Citizens League, 1941; advised US government on administration of World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans; fought for admission of Nisei (second-generation, US-born Japanese Americans) into American armed forces; as a lobbyist, played a key role in Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act, 1948, and McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act, 1952; wrote They Call Me Moses Masaoka (1987).

Matsunaga, Masayuki “Spark” (1916–1990): Politician; born in Hawaii; served in US Army during World War II, earning bronze star and purple heart; earned law degree from Harvard University in 1952; representative to the Hawaiian territorial legislature, 1954–59; US representative (Democrat), 1963–77; US senator, 1977–90.

Mink, Patsy (1927–2002): Politician; born Patsy Takemoto in Hawaii; earned law degree at the University of Chicago in 1951, returning to Hawaii to open private practice; territorial representative, 1956; US representative, 1965–77, since 1990; member of Honolulu city council, 1983–87.

Mukherjee, Bharati (1940–    ): Writer; born into the Brahman caste in India, settled first in Canada, then in the United States; most of her works deal with the location of identity when faced with a multiethnic experience; wrote novels: The Tiger’s Daughter (1972), Wife (1975), Desirable Daughters (2002), The Tree Bride (2004); nonfiction: Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977) and The Sorrow and the Terror (1987), both cowritten with her husband, Clark Blaise; and short stories: Darkness (1985).

Omura, James Matsumoto (1912–1994): Journalist; born in Washington State; founded magazine, Current Life (1940), which published poetry, fiction, and news articles by Japanese American writers; at the Tolan Committee hearings, spoke out against forcible removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

Pran, Dith (1942–2008): Journalist; born in Cambodia; worked as an interpreter for US military in 1960s; hired by the New York Times as photographer and assistant to Sydney Schanberg in covering the Vietnam War in the early 1970s; could not escape when United States evacuated Cambodia in 1975; miraculously survived during Pol Pot’s regime, 1975–79, emigrating to United States; actively involved in heightening awareness of Cambodian problems.

Rhee, Syngman (1875–1965): Politician, Korean nationalist; first Korean to receive a PhD from an American university (Princeton); principal, Korean Community School, Hawaii, 1913, where he established a newspaper and a Korean community society; president of the provisional Korean government in exile, 1919–41; chair, Korean Commission in Washington, DC, 1941–45; president of Republic of Korea, 1948–60.

Santos, Bienvenido (1911–1996): Filipino American writer; following a secondary teaching career in the Philippines, came to the United States as cultural attache to the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC, 1942–45; returned to the Philippines, and over the next twenty-five years taught at universities in both the Philippines and the United States; while lecturing in the United States in 1972, martial law was declared in the Philippines and universities were closed, forcing him into exile; his books, short stories, and novels deal with the cultural difficulties of Filipinos who are unable to fully recover their culture because of contact with the United States; books include You Lovely People (1955), Brother My Brother (1960), Villa Magdalena (1965), and Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories (1979).

Saund, Dalip Singh (1899–1973): Politician; came to United States in 1920; after earning a PhD in mathematics, raised produce in California; naturalized in 1946; first mainland Asian immigrant to win a seat in the US House of Representatives (Democrat, California), 1957–1963.

Takaki, Ronald (1939–2009): Born in Honolulu, Hawaii; involved in the Free Speech movement in 1964; joined faculty of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1967; helped establish a multicultural atmosphere at UCLA, developing a course on the history of racial inequality and establishing centers for Chicano, Asian American, Native American, and African American studies; joined faculty at University of California, Berkeley, in 1972; an award-winning author, he has produced many works on ethnic studies, including A Pro-Slavery Crusade (1970); Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America (1979), Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (1989), and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993).

Tan, Amy (1952–    ): Chinese American writer; born in the United States to wealthy Chinese immigrants, her highly acclaimed first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), portrays the struggle of Chinese American women to recover their traditional culture; also wrote The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), and The Hundred Secret Senses (1995).

Uno, Edison (1929–1976): Educator, social activist; born in California; interned in Colorado and Texas during World War II; at age eighteen became president of the East Los Angeles chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League; worked to repeal Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950 in the early 1970s; played a major role in the redress movement.

Yatabe, Thomas T. (1897–1977): One of the first Japanese Americans born on the mainland; ordered to attend racially segregated schools in San Francisco in 1906; cofounder of the American Loyalty League in 1918, forerunner of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL); first president of the JACL, 1934; interned during World War II but continued to preach loyalty to the U.S. government; founded Chicago chapter of JACL following resettlement there, 1943.

Native Americans

American Horse (c. 1801–1876): Oglala Lakota Sioux leader; assisted Oglala chiefs in leading warriors and governing the community; actively resisted white encroachment following the Homestead Act of 1862; killed at the Battle of Slim Buttes in retaliation for the death of Custer at Little Big Horn.

Banks, Dennis (1937–    ): Anishinabe Ojibwa activist; entered the US Air Force, serving in Japan, 1953; after the questionable administration of justice in a robbery conviction, founded with George Mitchell and Clyde Bellecourt the American Indian Movement (AIM), 1968, to assist Native Americans in securing legal and economic rights; planned controversial and confrontational tactics, including occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, day of mourning at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970, and the armed occupation of Wounded Knee, site of an 1890 Indian massacre; served fourteen months in a South Dakota penitentiary, 1984–85, for involvement in a 1973 riot; throughout the 1980s and 1990s raised awareness of the concerns of Native Americans with organized walks and runs; wrote his autobiography, Sacred Soul (1988).

Black Hawk (c. 1767–1838): Northern Sauk and Fox leader; refused to accept treaties signed by southern Sauk and Fox; in an attempt to preserve Illinois and Wisconsin homeland, joined Tecumseh’s tribal confederacy and sided with the British during the War of 1812; after US government takeover of tribal lands, led a brief struggle to regain them in 1832; captured and taken to Washington, DC, to meet with President Andrew Jackson; dictated his autobiography to trader Antoine LeClaire (Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak: The Autobiography of Black Hawk, 1833).

Bonnin, Gertrude Simmons (Zitkala-Sa, 1875–1938): Yankton Dakota educator, writer, activist; born on the South Dakota Yankton reservation to a Yankton Sioux mother and a white father; educated in Quaker institutions in Indiana; around 1900 began preserving her culture through the publication of stories and essays in books and periodicals such as Atlantic and Harper’s Magazine; elected secretary of the Society of American Indians (SAI), 1916; opposition to the use of peyote in religious ceremonies led to her split with the SAI in 1920; founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926; collected writings include Old Indian Legends (1902) and American Indian Stories (1921).

Bruce, Louis R. (1906–1989): Oglala Sioux/Mohawk government official; born on Oglala Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to a Mohawk father and Oglala Sioux mother; raised on the Onondaga Reservation near Syracuse, New York, where his father held a pastorate; after graduating from Syracuse University in 1930, became a manager in a clothing store; director, Indians for the National Youth Administration, New York State, 1935–41; created the National American Indian Youth Conference in 1957; appointed commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1969–72.

Cloud, Henry Roe (Wonah’ilayhunka, 1884–1950): Winnebago educator, administrator; born in Nebraska; parents died shortly after his conversion to Christianity; while at Yale University, adopted by missionary Dr. Walter C. Roe; became first Native American to graduate from Yale University in 1910; received divinity degree from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1913; chaired delegation of Winnebagos to President William H. Taft, 1912–13; established the Roe Indian Institute (later American Indian Institute) in Wichita, Kansas, in 1915; coauthored the Meriam Report (1928); supervisor of Indian education at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1936–47; superintendent of the Umatilla Indian Agency, Pendleton, Oregon.

Cochise (c. 1812–1874): Chiracahua Apache tribal leader; born in Arizona territory; came to the attention of US Army when accused of a kidnapping in 1861, sparking a series of Apache wars; with father-in-law Mangas Coloradas led Apache resistance; surrendered in 1871.

Cornplanter (Kayenhtwanken, c. 1732–1836): Seneca tribal leader; son of a white trader and a Seneca woman; unanimous selection as chief of Seneca, one of the Iroquois tribes; led Iroquois to ally with the French in the French and Indian War (1755–59) and the British in the American Revolution (1775–83); became more peaceful toward settlers, working as an emissary for George Washington in 1791 and negotiating a peace treaty between the Northwest tribes and the U.S. government; lost influence with tribe because of conciliatory stance; dictated many Iroquois legends late in life.

Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitko, c. 1842–1877): Oglala Sioux leader; war leader during Red Cloud’s War (1866–1868); refused to enter reservation in 1875 and led the Sioux and Cheyenne into war in 1876; best known for defeating Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876; surrendered and murdered in 1877.

Deer, Ada E. (1935–    ): Menominee social worker, educator, social activist; born on the Menominee Indian Reservation, Wisconsin, of mixed Anglo-Indian parentage; first Native American to receive a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University; after serving as a social worker in New York City and Minneapolis, became Community Service Coordinator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Minnesota, 1964–67; founding member of Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Shareholders, 1970; chair of Menominee tribe and head of Menominee Restoration Committee, 1974–76; narrowly lost an attempt to become the first Native American woman in the U.S. Congress, 1992; first woman head of the BIA, 1993.

Deloria, Vine, Jr. (1933–2005): Yankton Sioux writer; born in South Dakota, served in U.S. Marine Corps, 1954–56; executive director, National Congress of American Indians, 1964–67; earned law degree at University of Colorado in 1970; on faculties at Western Washington State College, 1970–72, University of California, Los Angeles, 1972–74, University of Arizona, 1978–90, and University of Colorado since 1990; chair, Institute for the Development of Indian Law, 1970–78; in his extensive writings presents the case for Indian self-determination; wrote Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (1970), God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (1973), and American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century (1985).

Eastman, Charles Alexander (Hakadah, 1858–1939): Santee Sioux writer, doctor; born in Minnesota of mixed Sioux and white parentage; fled with his family to British Columbia following Sioux Indian Uprising in 1862; returned to the United States in 1873; earned doctorate at Boston University and became physician at Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, 1890–93; Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Santee Sioux, 1897–1900; physician at Crow Creek Reservation, 1900–3; Indian inspector, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1923–25; the most eloquent Native American writer of his age, published ten books, including Indian Boyhood (1902), From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916), and Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1918).

Harjo, Joy (1951–    ): Muscogee Creek writer, artist; attended boarding school at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, 1967; after graduating from the University of New Mexico in 1976, was faculty member at University of Colorado, 1985–88, University of Arizona, 1988–90, and University of New Mexico beginning 1990; widely acclaimed poetry draws upon the symbols and mystical elements of traditional Native American culture; throughout the 1980s worked extensively with the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium; wrote What Moon Drove Me to This (1980), Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), In Mad Love and War (1990), and The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994).

Harris, LaDonna (1931–    ): Comanche political activist; born in Temple, Oklahoma, to an Irish American father and a Cherokee mother but raised by her Cherokee grandparents; created Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, which organized members of sixty tribes in 1965; chair, National Women’s Advisory Council of the War on Poverty in 1967 and National Council on Indian Opportunity in 1968; founded Americans for Indian Opportunity in 1970; served as special adviser to the Office for Economic Opportunity during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, 1977–81, establishing the controversial Council for Energy Resources Tribes.

Joseph, Chief (Hinmaton Yalatkit, c. 1840–1904): Chief of the Nez Perce; educated at a Christian school; became chief at age thirty; refused treaty offer of 1868 removing Nez Perce from their lands; eventually led a band of Nez Perce in an unsuccessful escape to Canada, 1877; made two trips to Washington, DC, to negotiate with President Theodore Roosevelt for better lands.

McGillivray, Alexander (c. 1759–1793): Creek leader and diplomat; born in Alabama to a Scottish trader and a Creek mother, learned English at an early age; organized southern Creek cooperation with the British during the American Revolution; throughout the mid-1780s negotiated with northern tribes, and the governments of the United States, Georgia, and Spain to limit further expansion into Creek territories; opposed sale of Creek lands; negotiated the Treaty of New York in 1790, establishing direct relations between the US government and the Creek nation.

Mankiller, Wilma Pearl (1945–2010): Cherokee tribal leader; born at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to a Cherokee father and a Dutch-Irish mother; family’s relocation to California led her to reflect on her great-grandfather’s removal on the Trail of Tears, 1838–39; energized by the Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island by fellow San Francisco State College student Richard Oakes; returned to Oklahoma in 1976; became principal chief of the Cherokee in 1985, the first woman to hold that position.

Means, Russell (1939–2012): Lakota Sioux activist; born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, experienced racial taunting while attending San Leandro High School in California; director, American Indian Center, 1969; met Dennis Banks, cofounder of the radical American Indian Movement (AIM), and established its second chapter in Cleveland, Ohio; engaged in confrontational tactics to attract attention to Native American concerns; widespread conflict over reservation abuses led to the armed occupation of the community of Wounded Knee in 1973; acquitted of murder charges in 1976; left AIM in 1988 to form the American Indian Anti-Defamation League.

Opechancanough (c. 1544–1644): Powhatan-Renape leader; befriended John Smith in 1607; negotiated between English settlers and various Indian tribes, 1607–18; disillusioned, led rebellions against the English in 1622 and 1644; murdered while a prisoner.

Parker, Ely Samuel (Hasanoanda, c. 1828–1895): Seneca tribal leader, government official; born on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, the son of a Seneca chief; because of recognized abilities, was chosen as a young man to assist Seneca delegations to New York State and the US federal government; met and assisted Lewis Henry Morgan in the collection of data on the Seneca in 1844, leading to Morgan’s anthropological study, League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois (1851); denied admittance to the New York bar; became an engineer, finally accepting a position in Galena, Illinois in 1857, where he met Ulysses S. Grant; commissioned a captain in the Union army in 1863, eventually becoming Grant’s military secretary; commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1869–71.

Parker, Quanah (c. 1845–1911): Comanche leader; born to a Comanche warrior and a white captive; great hunter and warrior, who encouraged Comanche to accommodate themselves to new circumstances following their surrender to the US government in 1875; recommended the leasing of reservation grazing lands to Texas cattlemen; shrewd businessman and negotiator.

Pitchlynn, Peter Perkins (Hatchootucknee, 1806–1881): Choctaw leader and diplomat; one-quarter Choctaw, was born into a bicultural elite in Mississippi; helped create Choctaw constitution in 1826; moved to Oklahoma with Choctaws in 1831; helped draft first western constitution in 1834; established Choctaw national school system in 1840s; elected chief in 1864.

Porter, Pleasant (1840–1907): Creek leader; born of mixed Creek and white parentage; served in the Confederate army during the Civil War, rising from private to second lieutenant; became wealthy in business; appointed superintendent of schools in Creek nation in 1867; defended Creek constitutionalism by commanding national militia in times of crisis, 1871, 1876, 1882–83; Creek lobbyist in Washington, DC, 1872–1890s; elected principal Creek chief, 1899, 1903; president of constitutional convention that designed proposal for state of Sequoyah in 1905.

Powhatan (Wahunsunacock, c. 1550–1618): Virginia Indian leader; paramount chief of eastern Virginia (Confederacy of Powhatan) when English settlers arrived in 1607; father of Pocahontas and brother of Opechancanough; English encroachment led to the first Anglo-Powhatan War (1610–14).

Pushmataha (1764–1824): Choctaw chief; signed Treaty of Mount Dexter in 1805, ceding tribal lands in Alabama and Mississippi; opposed Tecumseh’s confederation in 1811; allied with US government during Creek War (1813–14).

Red Cloud (Makhpia-sha, 1822–1909): Oglala Sioux chief; born along Platte River, his early life obscure; forced United States to abandon Bozeman Trail in 1866; made peace at Fort Laramie when government abandoned Bozeman forts in 1868; made four trips to Washington, DC, before finally agreeing to resettle on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1878.

Red Jacket (Sagoyewátha, c. 1756–1830): Seneca leader; born in New York; spokesperson for the British during the American Revolution; in 1780s assumed ceremonial title of council orator; after the revolution maintained a moderate stance, suggesting neutrality for the Iroquois in US-Canadian disputes.

Ross, John (Coowescoowe, 1790–1866): Cherokee chief; son of Scotch father and part Cherokee mother; president, National Council of Cherokees, 1819–26; chief of Cherokee nation, 1828–66; forced to lead Cherokee nation on Trail of Tears to Oklahoma, 1838–39; reluctantly brought Cherokee into the Confederacy during the Civil War in 1861; captured and taken to Washington, DC, where he became friends with Abraham Lincoln.

Seattle (Seathl, c. 1788–1866): Duwamish, Suquamish, Lushootseed warrior and diplomat; born into the intertribal nobility of the Puget Sound area of Washington State; resisted encroachment by the Hudson’s Bay Company; converted to Catholicism in 1838; appointed by US leaders as head chief of the region following settlement of US-Canadian land dispute.

Sequoyah (c. 1770–1843): Cherokee leader; born to a white man and a Cherokee woman who was sister to several chiefs; moved from North Carolina to Alabama to escape encroachment of whites; worked on a written Cherokee language, 1809–21, which would better allow the tribe to deal with modern conditions; moved to Arkansas in 1818 to resist white encroachment; led delegation to Washington, DC, to negotiate the exchange of Arkansas lands for Oklahoma territory; negotiated peace between western and eastern Cherokees in 1839.

Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake, 1831–1890): Sioux leader; recognized early in life as a powerful warrior; became chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux; fought against white encroachment throughout the 1860s; appointed chief of the entire Sioux nation in 1867; refused US government order to evacuate Sioux lands for the reservation in 1876, leading to the annihilation of Custer’s force at Little Bighorn in 1876; surrendered to government forces in 1881, imprisoned, then sent to the Standing Rock Reservation in 1883; during the Ghost Dance movement, killed during an attempted arrest in 1890.

Tecumseh (1768–1813): Shawnee warrior, military leader; after his father’s murder by white settlers in 1774, adopted by Blackfish, who raised him with several white boy captives, including Daniel Boone; fought settlers in Kentucky and Ohio who encroached on Shawnee lands in the 1780s; refused to recognize the Treaty of Greenville of 1795, which ceded huge tracts of Indian land in the upper Midwest; with his brother Elskatawa, formed a confederation of tribes for mutual defense; joined the British during the War of 1812; killed at the Battle of the Thames River.

Ward, Nancy (Nanye-hi, c. 1738–c. 1824): Cherokee leader; as a young woman, led Cherokees in battle against the Creeks in 1755; accorded the title Ghigau (Beloved Woman); negotiator of the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785, first Cherokee treaty with the newly formed country; urged Cherokee to sell no more land to US government in 1808; married Bryant Ward, an Irish trader.

Other Significant Figures

Allport, Gordon (1897–1967): Psychologist; on faculty at Harvard University, 1930–67; helped establish department of social relations at Harvard; wrote path-breaking studies on the development of personality; wrote many books, including Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (1937), Nature of Personality (1950), Nature of Prejudice (1954).

Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1895–1989): Historian; born in Galicia; earned doctorates in philosophy, law, and political science at the University of Vienna; emigrated to the United States in 1926; joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1926; held the first chair in Jewish history at a US university; placed Jewish history in a broad world context, emphasizing Jewish resourcefulness and creativity; at various times president of American Academy of Jewish Research, the Conference on Jewish Social Studies, and the American Jewish Historical Society; wrote A Social and Religious History of the Jews (1937) and The Russian Jew Under the Tsars and Soviets (1964).

Bellow, Saul (1915–2005): Writer; born in Quebec to Russian immigrants; moved to Chicago in 1924; frequently wrote on the nature of the Jewish cultural experience; on faculty at Minnesota University and Chicago University in 1962; awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976; won National Book Awards for fiction with The Adventures of Augie March (1954), Herzog (1964), and Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1971); also wrote Henderson the Rain King (1959), Humboldt’s Gift (1975), and To Jerusalem and Back (1976).

Brown, John (1800–1859): Abolitionist; joined antislavery forces in Kansas in 1855; murdered five proslavery advocates in 1856 in retaliation for a previous massacre; established plan for a slave refuge state; seized US government arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, hoping to incite a slave insurrection; convicted of treason and hanged.

Cahan, Abraham (1860–1951): Journalist; born in the Russian empire, fled to the United States escaping czarist persecution; worked for Joseph Pulitzer’s World; founded Yiddish newspaper Vorwarts! (Jewish Daily Forward), in 1897, which he edited for fifty years; a staunch socialist, who nevertheless spoke out against the brutality of Stalin’s regime in Russia; explored the Jewish immigrant experience in the novels Imported Bridegroom (1898), The White Terror and the Red (1905), The Rise of David Levinsky (1907).

Collier, John (1884–1968): Sociologist, educator; executive secretary, American Indian Defense Association, 1923–33; editor, American Indian Life, 1926–33; US Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1933–45, responsible for passage of Indian Reorganization Act in 1934; director, National Indian Institute, 1945–50; president, Institute of Ethnic Affairs, 1947–68; wrote Indians of the Americas (1947), Patterns and Ceremonials of the Indians of the Southwest (1949).

Duke, David (1950–    ): Ku Klux Klan leader, politician; graduated from Louisiana State University; grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, 1975–80; ties to the American Nazi Party; Louisiana state representative (Republican), 1989–91; made strong bid for the US Senate in 1990 with a message of racial resentment, garnering 44 percent of the vote; ran for U.S. president in 1992 with little support; announced bid for a US Senate seat in Louisiana in 2016.

Garrison, William Lloyd (1805–1879): Journalist, abolitionist; published The Liberator (1831–65); founder American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, president of that organization 1843–65; opposed Compromise of 1850 and encouraged separation of North and South; after Civil War, campaigned against mistreatment of Indians and in favor of women’s suffrage.

Glazer, Nathan (1923–    ): Sociologist; on faculty at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, 1968; early books were oriented toward Zionism and socialism, though he became a neoconservative in the 1970s; best known for Beyond the Melting Pot (1963), written with Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Affirmative Discrimination (1976).

Howard, Oliver Otis (1830–1909): US Army officer; entered Army in 1854; fought in the Civil War, being promoted to brigadier general in 1861; commissioner, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–74; founder and president of Howard University, 1869–74; commander in campaign against Chief Joseph, 1877; superintendent at West Point, 1881–82; considered one of the few “humanitarian” generals who campaigned on behalf of Indian rights.

Jackson, Helen Hunt (1830–1885): Writer; documented US government mismanagement of Indian affairs in A Century of Dishonor (1881), presenting copies to all members of Congress; special commissioner to investigate Indian affairs; in Ramona (1884) personalized mistreatment of the Indians.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1908–1973): Politician; Texas state administrator, National Youth Administration, 1935–37; US representative (Democrat) from Texas, 1937–49, then senator, 1949–61; majority leader, 1955–61; US vice president, 1961–63; US president, 1963–69; crafted Great Society reform proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to ensure that African Americans received their full civil rights; established Department of Housing and Urban Development; appointed Thurgood Marshall as first black Supreme Court justice in 1967.

Kahane, Meir (1932–1990): Rabbi, Jewish activist; earned law degree from New York University; in 1960s founded Jewish Defense League, advocating use of violence in securing Jewish rights; emigrated to Israel in 1971 and was elected to the Israeli parliament in 1981; assassinated in New York City; wrote The Jewish Stake in Vietnam (1967).

Kaplan, Mordecai (1881–1983): Conservative Jewish leader; born in Lithuania; immigrated to United States in 1889; graduated from City College of New York in 1900 and Columbia graduate school in 1902; ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1902, where he joined the faculty in 1909 and became dean of the teachers institute there in 1931; organized the first Jewish center in the United States, in New York, 1916; established the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in 1922; led the Reconstructionist movement, publishing Judaism as a Civilization (1934) and the biweekly The Reconstructionist (1935); also wrote Judaism in Transition (1936) and Future of the American Jew (1948).

Kennedy, John F. (1917–1963): Politician; after graduating from Harvard in 1940, became a naval officer during World War II; US representative (Democrat) from Massachusetts, 1947–53, then senator, 1953–60; first Roman Catholic elected president of United States, 1961–63; in 1961 established Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress in Latin America; federalized Alabama national guard to ensure integration of schools in 1963; initiated legislation integrating hotels and restaurants to afford equal access to all races; assassinated in 1963.

Kennedy, Robert F. (1925–1968): Politician, lawyer; managed the 1960 presidential campaign of his brother, John F. Kennedy; US attorney general, 1961–1964; ardent supporter of civil rights; US senator from New York (Democrat), 1965–68; assassinated; wrote The Enemy Within (1960), Just Friends and Brave Enemies (1962), To Seek a Newer World (1967).

Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865): Politician; after a boyhood on pioneer farms in the Midwest, was in 1834 elected to the Illinois state legislature; served as US representative from Illinois, 1847–49, where he spoke out against the Mexican War; defeated for the Senate in 1858 but established his position against slavery in the campaign; president of the United States, 1861–1865; issued Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, freeing slaves in rebellious territories as of January 1, 1863; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

fMalamud, Bernard (1914–1986): Writer; frequently examined the moral strength of Judaism in urban environments; won Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Fixer (1966); on faculty of Oregon State University, 1949–61, and Bennington College, 1961–86; also wrote The Natural (1952), The Magic Barrel (1958), The Tenants (1971), Dubin’s Lives (1979).

Park, Robert Ezra (1864–1944): Sociologist, journalist; reporter and editor in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit, 1887–98; on faculty at Harvard, 1904–5, University of Chicago, 1914–33, and Fisk University, 1936–43; secretary to Booker T. Washington; became an expert in the study of African American sociology; wrote The Immigrant Press and Its Control (1922), Race and Culture (1950), Human Communities (1952).

Roth, Philip (1933–    ): Writer; first major Jewish American writer to look frankly into middle-class Jewish life; most famous works include Goodbye, Columbus, and Five Short Stories (1959), Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), and Operation Shylock (1993).

Ruppin, Arthur (1876–1943): Scholar; helped establish the concept of Jewish studies in the United States; served as official in and adviser to many Zionist agencies; began teaching a course in sociology of the Jews in 1926 at Hebrew University; wrote Die Juden der Gegenwart (1904); Die Soziologie der Juden (1930–31).

Schechter, Soloman (1847–1915): Leader of Conservative Judaism; born in Romania and educated in Vienna, Berlin, and London; appointed lecturer in Talmudics at Cambridge University, England, in 1890; moved to the United States to become president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in Philadelphia in 1902; supported the Zionist movement as a check on assimilation; founded the United Synagogue of America in 1913; wrote The Wisdom of Ben Sira (1899).

Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1904–1991): American Jewish journalist, writer; born in Poland, withdrew from rabbinical seminary to work as a translator and proofreader for a Warsaw newspaper; moved to United States in 1935 and began working for the Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish-language newspaper; naturalized as a US citizen in 1943 but continued to write in Yiddish; attempted to blend his old-world Jewish heritage with modern sensibilities; earned Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978; wrote many books, including Satan in Goray (1935), The Family Moskat (1950), The Slave (1962), and Enemies, a Love Story (1972).

Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868): Politician, lawyer; US representative from Pennsylvania (Republican), 1849–53, 1859–68; abolitionist; opposed fugitive slave laws; led Radical Republican plan of reconstruction after the Civil War; instrumental in framing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1868 and the military reconstruction acts in 1867; proposed impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

Wallace, George (1919–1998): Politician; after graduating from University of Alabama Law School in 1942, joined US Army Air Force, 1942–45; served in Alabama legislature, 1947–53; served as state judge, 1953–58, as governor, 1963–67, 1971–79, 1983–87, pledged “segregation forever”; ran for president of United States on an anti–civil rights ticket (American Independent Party, 1968), receiving almost ten million popular votes and forty-six electoral votes; shot during 1972 presidential primaries.

Whipple, Henry B. (1822–1901): Christian bishop; Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, 1859; convinced of government cruelty and corruption in dealing with Indians, appealed to Presidents James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant, leading eventually to Indian Appropriations Act of 1869 and an ostensible peace policy.

Wiesel, Elie (1928–2016): Educator, writer; born in Romania; deported to Auschwitz with his parents and three sisters in 1944; watched his father die of starvation and disease and mother and sister die in gas chambers; worked as journalist in France before moving to the United States in 1956 and becoming a naturalized citizen in 1963; on faculty at City College, City University of New York, 1972–76, Yale University, 1982–83, and Boston University, 1976–2016; chair, US President’s Commission on the Holocaust, 1979–80; received Nobel Peace Prize, 1986; author of many books, including his Holocaust memoir, Night (1960), Dawn (1961), The Accident (1962), The Town Beyond the Wall (1964), A Beggar in Jerusalem (1970), Souls on Fire (1976), The Fifth Son (1985), and Twilight (1988).

Wirth, Louis (1897–1952): Sociologist; first Jewish president of the American Sociological Association; first president of the International Sociological Association; his first major work, The Ghetto (1928), viewed the Jewish community as retrograde and urged assimilation of Jews.

Wise, Isaac Mayer (1819–1900): Educator, leader of reform Judaism; raised and educated in Prague and Vienna; arrived in the United States in 1847; appointed president of Hebrew Union College in 1875; devoted the remainder of his life to building the college; named president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1889.

Canadians

Big Bear (Mistahimaskwa, c. 1825–1888): Cree chief; born in Saskatchewan; concerned about the loss of traditional Indian lifestyle, refused to sign Treaty Number Six in 1876 and remained off the reservation until 1882 when destruction of the buffalo led to imminent starvation; Cree violence that he had tried to prevent led to his conviction for treason and a three-year sentence in Stoney Mountain Penitentiary, 1885.

Brant, Joseph (Thayendanegea, 1742–1807): Mohawk chief; served British in French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War; interpreter for Sir William Johnson and the British Indian Department; rallied to the British cause in the American Revolution and made captain in 1780; convinced British to pay Iroquois for wartime losses in 1785; started first Episcopal church in upper Canada in 1786; unsuccessfully tried to organize confederacy of Iroquois and western tribes in order to block American expansion, 1783–95.

Harper, Elijah (1949–2013): Cree activist; born in northern Manitoba; helped establish the native Canadian students’ association at the University of Manitoba, 1970–72; elected chief of the Red Sucker Lake Band, 1977–81; member of the Manitoba legislature, 1981–97; key figure in defeating the Meech Lake Accord in 1990; helped organize the movement for the establishment of National Aboriginal Day in 1996; came to symbolize the active defense of aboriginal interests.

Jones, Peter (Kahkewaquonaby, 1802–1856): Mississauga missionary; son of a white father and a Mississauga (Ojibwa) mother; converted to Christianity in 1823; made earliest translation of Bible from English into Ojibwa; chief of two Ojibwa bands; fought for Indian land rights; Life and Journals (1860) and History of the Ojebway Indians (1861) published posthumously.

Klein, Abraham Moses (1909–1972): Lawyer, poet, writer; born in Ukraine, raised in the Jewish immigrant district of Montreal; earned a degree from University of Montreal law school in 1933; editor and columnist of the Canadian Jewish Chronicle (1938–55); visiting lecturer in poetry at McGill University, 1945–48; suffered mental breakdown in early 1950s and gradually withdrew from society; wrote The Hitleriad (1944), The Rocking Chair (1948), and The Second Scroll (1951).

Kogawa, Joy (1935–    ): Writer, poet; born in Vancouver, British Columbia; interned in interior British Columbia during World War II; best known for her novel Obasan (1981), which realistically portrays the pain and alienation that Japanese Canadians suffered during World War II; also wrote The Splintered Moon (1967) and Jericho Road (1977).

Lévesque, René (1922–1987): Politician; born in Quebec, hosted Point de Mire (point of view), a public affairs television program, 1956–59; during the 1960s, served in the Quebec legislature; formed the separatist organization that would become the Parti Québécois in 1967, arguing that independence alone could protect French speakers in Canada; prime minister of Quebec, 1976–85.

Manuel, George (1921–1989): Shuswap tribal leader, civil rights activist; born in a Shuswap village in southern British Columbia; organized tribes in British Columbia in protest of the Canadian government’s decision to stop payment for medical services to native Canadians; formed Aboriginal Native Rights Committee of the Interior Tribes in 1958; president, National Indian Brotherhood, 1970–76; president of Union of British Columbian Indian Chiefs, 1977–81, president of World Council of Indigenous Peoples in 1975 and 1981; wrote The Fourth World (1974).

Poundmaker (1842–1886): Cree tribal leader; adopted by Blackfoot chief Crowfoot (c. 1873); named subchief of the Sipiwininiwug; signed Treaty Number 6 with the Canadian government, allocating land to the Indians and providing for education in farming; joined in the second Riel Rebellion in 1885; tried for treason and imprisoned for seven months in 1885.

Riel, Louis, Jr. (1844–1885): Metis leader; born in Manitoba to a Metis father and a French mother; deeply religious, studied for the priesthood in Montreal, before withdrawing; returned to Manitoba when he was not allowed to marry the girl he loved, probably for racial reasons; fearing the destruction of Metis property rights following the sale of Hudson’s Bay Company lands to the Canadian government, led the Metis in a rebellion in 1869; after failed negotiations, declared the Red River area independent under the name Assiniboia and was elected president; pardoned for his role in the rebellion in 1875; forced to remain in the United States, married a Metis woman and settled in Montana; executed for his part in a second Metis rebellion, 1884–85.

Shtern, Sholem (1906–1990): Writer; developed a distinctively Jewish Canadian literature, with heavy Marxist overtones; wrote In Kanade (1960, 1963), detailing the Jewish immigrant experience.

Wiebe, Rudy (1934–    ): Writer; born in Saskatchewan to Russian immigrants; briefly edited the Mennonite Brethren Herald in the early 1960s; wrote widely on encounters between Anglo-Canadians and Mennonites, the Metis, and native Canadians; began teaching at the University of Alberta in 1967; wrote Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), The Blue Mountains of China (1970), The Temptations of Big Bear (1973), My Lovely Enemy (1983), and A Discovery of Strangers (1994).

Bibliography

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Brewer, Marilynn B. Intergroup Relations. 2nd ed. Buckingham: Open UP, 2007. Print.

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Kim, Hyung-Chan, et al. Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport: Greenwood, 1999. Print.

Molefi, Asante Kete. 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst: Prometheus, 2002. Print.