Civil Rights Movement Leaders

The African American Civil Rights Movement was a series of reform movements, aimed to protest against the growing racial discrimination against people of African American origin, in the United States from 1955 to 1968. This movement was started and led by some African American leaders who were pained at the racist and discriminatory social practices and behavior being meted out to them. As a result, they organized themselves to conduct protest rallies and demonstrations which went on to become the voice of the African Americans and a historic movement in American history

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Born on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther attended a segregated public school in Georgia. In 1948, he earned a BA degree from the Morehouse College, in Atlanta. A strong advocate of the civil rights of African Americans, Martin Luther was appointed to the executive committee of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1954. In the following year, he agreed to lead the first non-violent demonstration by negros, in contemporary United states. This boycott lasted for 382 days. Their efforts gained success in 1956, when the Supreme Court declared that the laws requiring segregation in the public transport system were unlawful, and negros and whites started to travel in the public transport buses together. In 1963, he directed a peace march to Washington D.C. It was here that he delivered his celebrated speech "I have a dream". During this period he faced arrest and assault a number of times. In 1963, he was named the Man of the Year by the 'Time' magazine. At the age of 35, he became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshal was an eminent American jurist, best remembered for his legal policies in the fields of criminal procedures and civil rights. Born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall earned a degree in law from the Howard University School of Law. In 1940, Marshall was appointed as the Chief Counsel of NAACP. His most important contribution to the Civil Rights Movement came in 1954, when he argued and won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed that the laws which supported separate public schools for black and white students, indirectly denied the black children of their right to equal educational opportunities. This victory became one of the pivotal moments of the Civil Rights Movement. In June 1967, Marshall was chosen to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, thus becoming the first African American to achieve this distinction. Thurgood Marshall died on January 24, 1993 in Maryland, United States. His significant contributions in the field of law and civil rights are hailed even today.

Rosa Parks
Recognized as the 'Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement', Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist in the Civil Rights Movement. She was born on February 4, 1913, in Alabama, United States. In 1955, during her tenure as the secretary of the NAACP Montgomery chapter, she refused to obey the bus drivers, who ordered her to vacate the seat for a white passenger. This stance by Parks triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was aimed to oppose the policy of racial segregation in the public transit system of the United States. Her act of defiance made her an international icon of the modern Civil Rights Movement. She played a vital role in the movement by helping other civil rights leaders in their fight against racial segregation. She spent the last days of her life in Detroit, where she died, on October 24, 2005.

Roy Wilkins
Roy Wilkins was a noted civil rights activist, who strongly opposed militancy in Civil Rights Movement. He was born on August 30, 1901 in Missouri, United States. An active leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he was appointed as its executive secretary in 1955, and later the executive director in 1964. Prior to this, he also served as the editor of the NAACP's official magazine - 'The Crisis'. Wilkins was a strong opponent of the communists within the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of the founders of Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), one of the first civil rights coalitions. Throughout the movement, he actively participated in various protest marches, like, the March on Washington, in 1963, and the March Against Fear, in 1966.

These were some of the Civil Rights Movement leaders, whose sincere efforts and sheer determination made the Civil Rights Movement a catalyst for change. Their success was marked by the passing of legislations such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped to bring about considerable change in the social and political scenario of the United States.