Black Republican History

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 Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 at his family home in Atlanta,
Georgia. King's grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and his father was pastor of Atlanta's
Ebenezer Baptist Church. King earned his own Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozier
Theological Seminary in 1951 and earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Boston University
in 1955. As a Baptist Minister, he was an eloquent civil rights movement leader from the
mid-1950's until his death by assassination on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee where
he was there to support striking sanitation workers. King registered as a Republican in
1956.

As pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, King led a black bus boycott. He
and ninety others were arrested and indicted under the provisions of a law making it illegal
to conspire to obstruct the operation of a business. King and several others were found
guilty, but appealed their case. A Supreme Court decision in 1956 ended Alabama's
segregation laws enacted by Democrats. After this success, King was made president of
the newly established Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King led the 1963 March
on Washington where he delivered his most famous “I Have a Dream” speech. King
became a national hero as he promoted non-violent means to achieve civil rights reform.
He was awarded the 1964 Noble Peace Prize for his efforts, and President Ronald Reagan
made King’s birthday a national holiday.

Carter G. Woodson

(1875 - 1950)

"Switch parties if you are not being represented."

These are the words of Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, distinguished Black author, editor,
publisher, and historian. Carter G. Woodson believed that Blacks should know their past in
order to participate intelligently in the affairs in our country. He strongly believed that Black
history - which others have tried so diligently to erase - is a firm foundation for young
Black Americans to build on in order to become productive citizens of our society.

Known as the father of Black history, Dr. Woodson at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance
established "Negro History Week" in 1926 during the second week of February to
commemorate the birthday of abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass and President
Abraham Lincoln. Woodson sought to create a forum that later became Black History
Month. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Association for the Study of Negro
Life and History in 1915.
 Frederick Douglass

(1817 - 1895)

Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement which
fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War. He
eagerly attended the founding meeting of the republican party in 1854 and campaigned for
its nominees.

A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery Society to engage in
a tour of lectures, and so became recognized as one of America's first great black
speakers. He won world fame when his autobiography The Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, in which he gave specific details of his bondage,
was publicized in 1845. Two years later, he began publishing an anti-slavery paper called
the North Star. He was appointed Minister Resident and Consul General to Haiti by
President Benjamin Harrison on July 1, 1889, the first black citizen to hold high rank in the
U.S. government.

Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and
fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and
other civil liberties for blacks. After the Civil War, Douglass realized that the war for
citizenship had just begun when Democrat President Andrew Johnson proved to be a
determined opponent of land redistribution and civil and political rights for former slaves.
Douglass began the postwar era relying on the same themes that he preached in the
antebellum years: economic self-reliance, political agitation, and coalition building.
Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history
and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice.

Mary McLeod Bethune

(1875 - 1955)

Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator, presidential advisor, civil rights advocate, and one
of America's most influential African American leaders. As former slaves, Bethune's parents
were determined that she accept an offer from a Quaker woman to attend school when
few educational opportunities were available to African Americans.

Bethune founded a school for African-American girls in Daytona, Florida, which in 1923
became the co-educational Bethune-Cookman College. As college president until 1942, her
efforts gained tremendous recognition. Bethune became a national leader and united all
major black women's organizations across the nation into one powerful group, the National
Council of Negro Women. As its president for 14 years, Bethune led campaigns against
segregation and discrimination. Presidents Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman sought
her advice on issues concerning black Americans, and Franklin Roosevelt appointed her
director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. She was the
first black woman to ever head a federal agency.
 Dr. Condoleezza Rice

With her appointment as the 66th Secretary of State on January 26, 2005, Dr. Condoleezza
Rice became the first black woman in our country’s history to hold our nation’s highest
cabinet office. She was first entrusted with the security of our nation as the National
Security Advisor on January 22, 2001 at a time of unprecedented threat, and was the first
woman to hold that position. Her career in national security began in 1989 and lasted
through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet
Union. During this time, she served on the staff of the National Security Council for
President George Herbert Walker Bush as Senior Director of Soviet and Eastern European
Affairs in the National Security Council and Special Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs.

Academia was Condoleezza Rice’s first career path. In June 1999, she completed a six-year
tenure as Stanford University’s Provost, during which she was the institution’s chief budget
and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and
the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. Beginning in
1981, Dr. Rice was on the Stanford faculty as professor of political science and won two of
the highest teaching honors: the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching
and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Dr. Rice is well respected in academic circles, having earned her bachelor’s degree in
political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her
master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate
School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981..

Alphonso Jackson

Secretary Alphonso Jackson is guiding the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) in its mission of providing affordable housing and promoting economic
development, an assignment to which he brings more than 25 years of direct experience in
both the private and public sectors. Jackson holds a bachelor's degree in political science
and a master's degree in education administration from Truman State University. He
received his law degree from Washington University School of Law.

In nominating Jackson, President George W. Bush chose a leader with a strong background
in housing and community development, expertise in finance and management, and a deep
commitment to improving the lives of all Americans. The U.S. Senate unanimously
confirmed Jackson as the nation's 13th Secretary of HUD on March 31, 2004. Jackson first
joined the Bush Administration in June of 2001 as HUD's Deputy Secretary and Chief
Operating Officer. As Deputy Secretary, Jackson managed the day-to-day operations of the
$32 billion agency and instilled a new commitment to ethics and accountability within
HUD's programs and among its workforce and grant partners.
From January 1989 until July 1996, Jackson was President and CEO of the Housing
Authority of the City of Dallas, Texas, which consistently ranked as one of the best-
managed large-city housing agencies in the country during his tenure. Prior to that,
Jackson was Director of the Department of Public and Assisted Housing in Washington,
D.C., and also served as Chairperson for the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land
Agency Board.

Rod Paige

Former Secretary of Education Rod Paige was the first school superintendent ever to serve
in that position. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the
United States Senate on January 21, 2001. His vast experience as a practitioner, from the
blackboard to the boardroom, paid off during the long hours of work needed to pass
President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The driving force behind his work was
his shared belief with President Bush that education is a civil right, just as are the rights to
vote and be treated equally.

Born in 1933 in segregated Monticello, Mississippi, Paige's accomplishments speak of his

commitment to education. He earned both a master's and a doctoral degree from Indiana
University. Paige was elected in 1989 as a trustee and an officer of the Board of Education
of the Houston Independent School District where he served until 1994. Inside Houston
Magazine named Paige one of "Houston's 25 most powerful people" in guiding the city's
growth and prosperity. In 2001, he was named National Superintendent of the Year by the
American Association of School Administrators.

Clarence Thomas

Justice of the United States Supreme Court Clarence Thomas was born in Savannah,
Georgia. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967 to 1968 and received an A.B., cum
laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was
admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General
of Missouri from 1974 to 1977. In President Ronald Reagan’s administration, he served as
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education from 1981
to 1982 and Chairman of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
from 1982 to 1990. He served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. President George W. Bush nominated
Thomas, a brilliant jurist, as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his
seat on October 23, 1991.
 Michael S. Steele

In January 2003, Michael Steele made history when he became the first African American
elected to a Maryland statewide office and the first ever Republican Lieutenant Governor in
Maryland. After earning a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991, he
attended the Augustinian Friars Seminary at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania,
in preparation for the priesthood.

As Lieutenant Governor, Steele’s top priorities include improving the quality of Maryland’s
public education system, where he currently chairs the Governor’s Commission on Quality
Education; reforming the state’s Minority Business Enterprise program; expanding
economic development and international trade; and fostering cooperation between
government and community-based organizations to help those in need. In 2002, President
George W. Bush appointed Steele to serve on the Board of Visitors of the United States
Naval Academy.

He is a member of the Prince George's County Chapter of the NAACP and serves on the
NAACP's 2001 Blue Ribbon Panel on Election Reform. Steele became Maryland’s first
African American County Republican Party chairman, and in 1995 he was selected Maryland
State Republican Man of the Year. In December 2000, Steele became the first ever African
American to be elected as chairman of a state Republican Party and served as a member of
the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee.

Michael L. Williams

The son of public school teachers, Michael L. Williams earned a master's and law degree
from the University of Southern California. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush
appointed Williams to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights at the U.S.
Department of Education.

He was initially appointed to the Texas Railroad Commission by former Governor George
W. Bush in December 1998. He was elected by his fellow commissioners in September
1999 to chair the commission and elected by the people of Texas in November 2002 to
serve a six-year term. Williams is the first African American in Texas history to hold a
statewide executive post and is the highest ranking African American in the Texas state
government.

He volunteered as the general counsel of the Republican Party of Texas and the chairman
of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. He served on the Board of Directors of the
Arlington Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Our Mother of
Mercy Catholic School. He also served as Special Assistant to Attorney General Richard
Thornburgh at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1988 to 1989 and was awarded the
Attorney General's "Special Achievement Award" in 1988 by former U.S. Attorney General
Ed Meese for the conviction of six Ku Klux Klan members on federal weapons charges.
 Alveda C. King

Dr. Alveda C. King is the daughter of the late civil rights activist, Rev. A. D. King and the
niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She founded King for America, Inc. "to assist people in
enriching their lives spiritually, personally, mentally and economically." She is a former
college professor, holding the M.B.A. degree from Central Michigan University and a law
degree from Anslem College. She is the author of two books Sons of Thunder: The King
Family Legacy and I Don’t Want Your Man, I Want My Own.

During the years of the Civil Rights Movement, led by her Uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Alveda's family home was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, and her father’s church
office was bombed in Louisville, Kentucky. She was also jailed during the open housing
movement and has continued her long-term work as a civil rights activist. She believes that
School Choice is a pressing civil rights issue and that the most compelling issue of all is the
life of the unborn. The message that she carries to the world is that the key to positive
action to have faith in God and commitment to fulfill His will for our lives, not faith in
government.

J. Kenneth Blackwell

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has a distinguished record of achievement as

an educator, diplomat and finance executive. He is the state’s constitutional officer chiefly
responsible for elections, the management of business records, and the protection of
intellectual property and corporate identities.

Blackwell’s public service includes terms as mayor of Cincinnati, an undersecretary at the

U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations Human Rights Commission. In 1994, he became the first African American elected
to a statewide executive office in Ohio when he was elected treasurer of state. Blackwell
has twice received the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award from the
administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton for his work in the field of
human rights.

In 1994, the Blackwells were honored as one of the National Council of Negro Women’s
Families of the Year, and, in 1996, they received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Dreamkeeper
Award. In 2004, Blackwell received the John M. Ashbrook Award given jointly by the
American Conservative Union and the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. Past recipients of
this award include President Ronald Reagan, Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick and Charlton
Heston.

J.C. Watts Jr

Congressman JC Watts was born the fifth of six children to Buddy and Helen Watts on
November 18, 1957 in Eufaula, Oklahoma . He attended the University of Oklahoma and
earned a B.A. in journalism in 1981. While at the University of Oklahoma, Watts was
quarterback for the Sooners, leading them to two consecutive Big Eight championships and
Orange Bowl victories. He was voted the Most Valuable Player in 1980 and 1981 and
inducted into the Orange Bowl Hall of Honor in 1992.

He was first elected to represent the fourth district of Oklahoma in the U.S. House of
Representatives in November 1994 and won re-election in 1996, 1998 and 2000. Fellow
congressmen quickly recognized his leadership qualities and elected him chairman of the
House Republican Conference, the fourth-highest position in the House, in 1998 and again
in 2000. Watts earned a solid reputation in Oklahoma and throughout the nation as a
perceptive and passionate spokesman for redeveloping communities, exercising fiscal
discipline, strengthening education, restoring values, and bolstering national defense.

Watts was commended for his efforts in Congress with numerous community awards,
including the 1996 Junior Chamber of Commerce’s Ten Outstanding Young Americans
Award, the Jefferson Award for promoting economic prosperity and free enterprise, the
Christian Coalition’s Friend of the Family Award, the YMCA’s Strong Kids, Strong Families,
Strong Communities plaque, the 60 Plus Association’s Guardian and Benjamin Franklin
awards, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Spirit of Enterprise Award.

In 1996, he delivered a powerful, inspiring speech at the Republican National Convention.

Soon thereafter, he was selected to give the Republican response to President Clinton’s
1997 State of the Union Address. Watts also served as an honorary co-chairman at the
2000 Republican National Convention. After an outstanding career in public service, he
became chairman of GOPAC in March 2003, the premier training organization for
Republican candidates across America. He also serves on the board of the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes in Oklahoma.

Don King

"Only in America" boxing promoter extraordinaire Don King has been involved in well over
a billion dollars in fight purses. He coined the phrase, "Only in America" because he
believes that only in America can a Don King happen. King says that he loves American
because America is the greatest country in the world and what he has accomplished could
not have been done anywhere else. He came from the hard-core Cleveland ghetto and
beat the system to become the world's greatest promoter. He was inducted into the Boxing
Hall of Fame in 1997 and was the only boxing promoter named to Sports Illustrated’s list of
the "40 Most Influential Sports Figures of the Past 40 Years."

King is one of the world's leading philanthropists and established the Don King Foundation,
which has donated millions of dollars to worthy causes and organizations. He is also an
influential civil rights activist and a longtime supporter of the NAACP, the United Negro
College Fund (UNCF), and the Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation. The NAACP recognized
King with its highest honor, the President's Award, and he received the Martin Luther King
Jr. Humanitarian Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1987. All
three major boxing organizations, the IBF, WBA and WBC, have proclaimed Don King the
"Greatest Promoter in History."

Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington is an Oscar winner and is thought to be one of the finest actors of our
generation. His diverse range of roles has shown him to be one of Hollywood's most highly
talented leading men. He was born in 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York and was the middle
child of the three children of a Pentecostal minister father and a beautician mother. After
graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University intent on a career in
journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama
productions and upon graduation he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American
Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). He left A.C.T. after only one year to seek work as an actor.
With his acting versatility and handsome features, he had no difficulty finding work in
numerous television productions.

Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson is a hall of famer Brooklyn Dodger who in 1947 broke baseball's "color
barrier," becoming the first African American in the major league baseball. He played for
the Dodgers from 1947 to 1956. His impact on the game was legendary, and he was
chosen for his cool intelligence and high level of skill. He was also a pioneer in the nation's
civil rights movement and exemplified the utmost courage, determination, character and
competitiveness. On March 2, 2005, Robinson was recognized posthumously with the
Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush.

Lynn Swann

Wide Receiver - 5-11, 180

(Southern California)
1974-1982 Pittsburgh Steelers

Born in Alcoa, Tennessee, on March 7, 1952, this hall of famer joined the Pittsburgh
Steelers in 1974 pick just as they were embarking on a winning binge that produced six
straight AFC Central Division titles and four Super Bowls in six years. A former USC All-
American, Swann was the Steelers' No. 1 draft pick in the 1974 NFL Draft . Blessed with
gazelle-like speed, fluid movements and a tremendous leaping ability, Swann became a
regular at wide receiver in his second year. Immediately he demonstrated that he was a
complete player with phenomenal natural abilities. He was a three-time pro bowler and
most valuable player in Super Bowl X.
 Sammy Davis Jr

(1925-1990)

A veteran of Vaudeville, Broadway, motion pictures, Las Vegas shows and television,
Sammy Davis is considered to have been the world's greatest entertainer. He thrilled
millions of fans worldwide for over 50 years with his dancing, singing and acting.

Davis was a member of the famed Rat Pack and was among the very first African-American
talents to find favor with audiences on both sides of the color barrier He remains a
perennial icon of cool. Born in Harlem on December 8, 1925, Davis made his stage debut
at the age of three performing with Billie Holiday in Dixieland, a black vaudeville troupe
featuring his father and helped by his de facto uncle, Will Mastin. Dubbed "Silent Sam, the
Dancing Midget," Davis proved phenomenally popular with audiences and the act was soon
renamed Will Mastin's Gang Featuring Little Sammy. At the age of seven Davis made his
film debut in the legendary musical short Rufus Jones for President, and later received tap-
dancing lessons courtesy of the great Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. In 1941, the Mastin Gang
opened for Tommy Dorsey at Detroit's Michigan Theater where Davis first met Dorsey
vocalist Frank Sinatra, the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Edward William Brooke, III

In 1966, Edward William Brooke was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate
and re-elected in 1972. He was the first African American Senator born in Washington, DC
and the first African American Senator to serve since the Reconstruction era. He graduated
from Howard University in 1941 and from Boston University Law School in 1948. Brooke
moved to Massachusetts and became the first African American to win a statewide office in
Massachusetts when he was elected attorney general in 1962. He was re-elected in 1964.
Brooke was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 23, 2004 by President
George W. Bush.

William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr.

In 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked William T. Coleman, a longtime Republican,

to serve on the President's Commission on Employment Policy, which dealt with increasing
minority hiring in the government. In addition to service as secretary of transportation in
the Ford Administration, Coleman held a number of other public service and national
community positions.

An ardent civil rights activist and public servant, Coleman was co-author of the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund's (LDF) brief on Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas Board of
Education (1954) and helped to defend freedom riders and other civil rights workers. He
successfully argued cases that compelled the admission of blacks to previously segregated
universities and established the constitutionality of interracial marriages. Coleman began
his law career in 1947, and in 1948 served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate
Justice Felix Frankfurter, becoming the first black to serve in that capacity for the nation's
highest court.

Joe Celestin

The mayor of North Miami Beach, Florida is Haitian born Joe Celestin, the first black
American to be elected mayor of a large city in the state of Florida. He is a certified land
engineering contractor and a state-certified general builder, a project manager, as well as
state-certified in business and finance. He has held several political appointments and
memberships in a variety of organizations, including the North Miami Board of Adjustment;
the North Miami Planning Commission , the City of Miami Finance and Budget Review
Committee and the United States Presidential Meritorious Rank Review Board. He was also
a nominee for the Florida State Senate for District 3.

Herman Cain

In 1986, Herman Cain was appointed president of the then financially troubled Godfather's
Pizza, Inc. In 14 months, the chain regained profitability, and in 1988, Cain led his
executive team in a buyout of the company from Pillsbury. Cain was elected to the Board
of Directors of the National Restaurant Association in 1988. In 1996, Cain was elected CEO
and president of the National Restaurant Association. He was also a former chairman and
member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992 to 1996.

Cain now hosts a syndicated radio talk show and is an accomplished speaker and writer on
the subjects of leadership, motivation, national and economic policy, politics, and achieving
one’s American Dream. He's done it. He grew up in Georgia with wonderful parents and
little else. He rose up to earn a master's degree and succeed at the highest levels of
corporate America. For his efforts, Cain was hailed by The Wall Street Journal and Business
Week as a visionary leader.

In 2003, Cain announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for United States
Senate from Georgia. Cain campaigned on replacing the federal income tax code with a
national retail sales tax, restructuring the Social Security system, reducing the influence of
government and the courts in the health care system, and inspiring people to pursue
excellence in their personal and professional lives. Cain’s most recent book is They Think
You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It.
He's also the author of Leadership is Common Sense and CEO of Self.
 Booker T. Washington

(1856 - 1915)

Rising up from slavery and illiteracy, Booker T. Washington became the foremost educator
and leader of African Americans at the turn of the century. Born into slavery, Washington
was the most prominent spokesperson for African Americans after the death of Frederick
Douglass. After graduation from the Hampton Institute in 1875, he first taught in West
Virginia and then studied at the Wayland Seminary before returning to teach at Hampton.

In 1881 he left Hampton to begin the single most important undertaking of his life:
founding the Tuskegee Normal School in Alabama. Washington, his small staff, and their
students worked as carpenters to build Tuskegee. In its first year of operation Tuskegee
had 37 students and a faculty of three. When Washington died in 1915, Tuskegee had
1,500 students, a faculty of 180, and an endowment of $2,000,000.

A. Philip Randolph

(1889 - 1979)

As a Philip Randolph became one of America’s foremost labor leader and civil rights
pioneer. He was born in Crescent City, Florida in 1889. In 1925 he organized and served as
the first President of the Black International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph
was the first African American to serve as an International Vice-President of the AFL-CIO in
1957, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson in
1964.

He organized two major marches on Washington, D.C. in 1941 and 1963, which resulted in
important advances in black civil rights. The 1963 march made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
into a national figure. About the 1963 March Randolph once said:

"By fighting for their rights now, American Negroes are helping to make America a moral
and spiritual arsenal of democracy. Their fight against the poll tax, against lynch law,
segregation, and Jim Crow, their fight for economic, political, and social equality, thus
becomes part of the global war for freedom.”

Harriet Tubman

(1821 - 1913)

Harriet Tubman was heralded as the "Moses" of black people, leading approximately 300
slaves to freedom during nineteen trips. Her work became even more dangerous with the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the offer of awards by slave owners for her capture.
She learned about the Underground Railroad which was a secret network of abolitionists,
freed blacks, sympathetic whites and Quakers who helped runaway slaves. Tubman
became the most influential of the black conductors. After the outbreak of the Civil War,
she served with distinction as a soldier, spy, and a nurse, spending time at Fort Monroe,
where Jefferson Davis was later imprisoned.

Sojourner Truth

(1797 - 1883)

Sojourner Truth was born as a slave in Hurley, New York and became a nationally known
speaker on human rights for slaves and women. At the time of her birth, New York and
New Jersey were the only northern states that still permitted slavery. After gaining her
freedom, she took the name Sojourner Truth to signify her role as a traveler telling the
truth about slavery. She set out on June 1, 1843, walking for miles and gaining fame.
Truth's popularity was enhanced by her biography The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A
Northern Slave written by the abolitionist Olive Gilbert, with a preface written by William
Lloyd Garrison. She was the first prominent African American woman to become directly
involved with the white women’s suffrage movement. She gave her famous speech, “Ain’t I
a Woman?” in the 1851 Convention on Women’s Rights in Akron, Ohio in response to a
clergyman’s remarks ridiculing women as too weak and helpless to entrust with the vote.

In 1864, she was invited to the White House, where President Abraham Lincoln personally
received her. Later she served as a counselor for the National Freedman's Relief
Association, retiring in 1875 to Battle Creek, Michigan.

George Washington Carver

(1860 - 1943)

One of the best known agricultural scientists of his generation, Carver was born into
slavery near Diamond Grove, Missouri. Although Carver had to work and live on his own
while still a boy, he managed to finish high school and became the first African American
student to enroll at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. Later earned a Master of Science
from the Iowa Agricultural College. In 1896, Carver joined Booker T. Washington at the
Tuskegee Institute.

Carver encouraged Southern farmers to diversify from cotton only and also plant sweet
potatoes and peas to end leaching the soil of nutrients. In order to make these crops more
profitable, Carver did extensive research, producing more than 300 derivative products
from the peanut and 118 from the sweet potato. In 1923 Carver won the Springham
award, the highest annual prize given by the National Association for Colored People. In
1938 he took $30,000, virtually his entire life's savings, and founded the George
Washington Carver Foundation to continue his work after his death.
 Hiram Rhodes Revels

(1822 – 1901)

Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi was the first black United States senator serving from
1870-1871 as a Republican. The only other African American to serve as United States
Senators in the nineteenth century was Blanche K. Bruce also a Republicans from
Mississippi. Revels completed the unfinished term of Jefferson Davis who was the former
president of the confederacy. In the Senate, Revels supported civil rights for blacks. Born
in Fayetteville, North Carolina attending Knox College, he became a minister of the African
Methodist Episcope Church. After completing his term in the United States Senate, Revels
was named president of Alcorn University (now known as Alcorn State University).

Blanche Bruce

(1841 - 1898)

Blanche Bruce was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from
March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1881. He was the first African American to serve a full term in
the United States Senate. He was born in slavery near Farmville, Virginia . At the beginning
of the Civil War, he taught school in Hannibal, Missouri and later attended Oberlin College
in Ohio. After the Civil War, he became a member of the Mississippi Levee Board, a sheriff
and tax collector of Bolivar County from 1872 to1875. He was appointed register of the
treasury by President James Garfield in 1881 and was appointed to that position again in
1897. He served as the recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia from 1891to1893.

Ida B. Wells

(1862 - 1931)

Ida B. Wells was a journalist, advocate for civil rights and an anti-lynching crusader. She
was born in Springfield, Mississippi and helped to found the National Association of Colored
Women in 1896 and the Negro Fellowship League. She worked with the white Republicans
who started the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People on February
12, 1909.

She was forced off of a train for refusing to sit in the Jim Crow car designated for blacks
and was awarded $500 by a circuit court. That decision was overruled by the Tennessee
Supreme Court in 1887, a rejection that ultimately strengthened her resolve to devote her
life to upholding justice. She reported in two black newspapers, the New York Age and the
Chicago Conservator, about the violence and injustices being perpetrated by Democrats
against African Americans. In honor of her legacy, a low-income housing project in Chicago
was named after her in 1941, and in 1990, the U.S. Postal Service issued an Ida B. Wells
stamp.

Mary Terrell

(1863 - 1954)

Mary Terrell was a civil rights pioneer and lifelong political activist who fought for equal
rights for African American women. Terrell was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1863. Both
her parents were former slaves, but her father became very successful in real estate,
making it possible for her to have a privileged childhood. In 1884 she graduated from
Oberlin College and in 1886 began teaching in Washington's M Street High School (later
known as Dunbar High School). She her husband, Robert Terrell, Washington's first black
judge, were the second black family to move into LeDroit Park in 1894.

In 1896 she began president of the National Association of Colored Women . She was
active in the National American Suffrage Organization, and later she became actively
involved in the NAACP. At the age of 90 she was still an activist, playing an instrumental
role in the boycott of Washington, DC restaurants that refused to serve blacks. She carried
that fight to the Supreme Court in 1953, which upheld the right of blacks to equal service
in DC restaurants. The decision set in motion the desegregation of the capital. Terrell's
autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, is the first full length published
autobiography by an American black woman.

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford university. He writes on economics, history, social policy,
ethnicity, and the history of ideas. Over the past three decades, Sowell has taught
economics at various colleges and universities, including Cornell, Amherst, and the
University of California at Los Angeles, as well as the history of ideas at Brandeis
University. He has also been associated with three other research centers, in addition to
the Hoover Institution. He was project director at the Urban Institute from 1972 to 1974, a
fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in
1976–77, and was an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute in 1975-76.

Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 2003, Sowell received the
Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in
economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1958, his master’s degree in economics
from Columbia University in 1959, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of
Chicago in 1968.

Sowell's journalistic writings include a nationally syndicated column that appears in more
than 150 newspapers from Boston to Honolulu. Some of these essays have been collected
in book form, most recently in Controversial Essays published by the Hoover Institution
Press. Sowell’s current research focuses on cultural history in a world perspective, a subject
on which he began to write a trilogy in 1982. The trilogy includes Race and Culture (1994),
Migrations and Cultures (1996), and Conquests and Cultures (1998).

His most recent books on economics include Affirmative Action Around the World (2004)
(2004), Basic Economics (2004), and Applied Economics (2003). Other books on economics
he has written include Classical Economics Reconsidered (1974), Say’s Law (1972), and
Economics: Analysis and Issues (1971). On social policy he has written Knowledge and
Decisions (1980), Preferential Policies (1989), Inside American Education (1993) and The
Vision of the Anointed (1995).

On the history of ideas he has written Marxism (1985) and Conflict of Vision (1987). His
most recent books are Barbarians Inside the Gates (1999) and The Quest for Cosmic
Justice (1999). Sowell also wrote Late-Talking Children (1997). He has also written a
monograph on law titled Judicial Activism Reconsidered, published by the Hoover
Institution Press. His writings have also appeared in scholarly journals in economics, law,
and other fields.