List of African American activists

This is a list of African-American activists[1] covering various areas of activism, but primarily focus on those African Americans who historically and currently have been fighting racism and racial injustice against African Americans. The United States of America has a long history of racism against its Black citizens.[2] The names detailed below contains only notable African Americans who are known to be activist (sorted by surname).

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Contents

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

Martin Luther King was an especially prominent black activist who received numerous honors and is now commemorated by a national holiday.

A

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Ralph Abernathy	Civil rights movement	Ralph David Abernathy (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, and close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr.[3]
Naomi Anderson	Gender (mainly women) and racial equality	Born: Naomi Bowman Talbert Anderson (March 1, 1843 – ?). Black suffragist and poet.[4]
Theresa El-Amin	Civil rights activist	Union organizer and former member of the Green Party of the United States Steering Committee.[5]

| Ermias Asghedom | community activism.

B

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
James Baldwin	Race and LGBT equality.	Born James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987). Also novelist and playwright. Baldwin was an inclusionist, not a separatist during the Civil Rights Movement.[6]
Lillie Mae Bradford	Civil rights	Four years prior to Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat to a white man, Bradford (October 1, 1928 – March 14, 2017) was charged the wrong bus fare and racially insulted by a bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama to which she protested by sitting at the front of the bus reserved only for white people in accordance with racist American laws against its Black citizens. She was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct.
Aurelia Browder	Civil rights	Also known as Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman (January 29, 1919 – February 4, 1971). Almost eight months prior to the Rosa Sparks incident, Browder was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person.[7]
Nannie Helen Burroughs	Civil rights and feminist	Burroughs (May 2, 1879 – May 20, 1961) was also an educator, orator, religious leader and businesswoman.[8]

C

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Archibald J. Carey, Jr	Civil Rights Movement	Archibald James Carey Jr. (February 29, 1908 – April 20, 1981) was a lawyer, judge, politician, diplomat and clergyman. Confidante of Martin Luther King Jr., Carey was also active in the national Civil Rights Movement and worked to end employment discrimination in the U.S. government against Black Americans.[9]
Claudette Colvin	Civil Rights Movement	Claudette Colvin (September 5, 1939)[10] is an American nurse and one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement. Colvin was arrested on March 2, 1955, at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded racially segregated bus.[11] Colvin was also an NAACP Youth Council member in her student days.[12]
Anna Julia Cooper	Black feminist and civil rights	Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1858 – February 27, 1964) was an author, educator, sociologist, prominent African-American scholar, and "sometimes called the mother of Black Feminism."[13]
Patrisse Cullors	Black Lives Matter and LGBT	Born in 1984, Cullors is an artist and activist, and an advocate for prison abolition in Los Angeles. She is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.[14][15][16]

D

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Angela Davis	Communism and feminism	Briefly involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement.[17]
William L. Dawson	Civil Rights Movement	William Levi Dawson (April 26, 1886 – November 9, 1970) was a politician; an active participant during the civil rights movement; and a sponsor of registration drives.
Charles Diggs	Civil Rights Movement	Charles Coles Diggs Jr. (December 2, 1922 – August 24, 1998[18]) was an early member of the civil rights movement.
Frederick Douglass	Abolitionist	Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818[19] – February 20, 1895[20] was a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman.

E

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Ruth Ellis	LGBT rights
Keith Ellison
Elizabeth Piper Ensley
Charles Evers
Medgar Evers
Myrlie Evers-Williams

F

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
David Fagen	Anti-imperialism	David Fagen was the son of former slaves, born in 1878 in Tampa.[21] As a teenager, Fagen became involved in labour strikes but joined the army in 1898. After combat in Cuba, he was deployed to Manila to fight in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). No longer able to conduct himself as an instrument of white racism or American imperialism he joined the Philippine Liberation Army where he was promoted to captain and given his own command. Fagen achieved legendary status as a fighter and became a hero not just to the Philippines but to all those who oppose American imperialism and racism.[22]

G

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Erica Garner	Black Lives Matter.[23]	Daughter of Eric Garner, founder of the Garner Way Foundation, a foundation named in honour of her father[24][25]
Alicia Garza	Black Lives Matter	Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement
Ernest Green	Civil rights movement	Part of the Little Rock Nine, and became the first African-American to graduate from Little Rock Central high School in 1958.

H

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Fannie Lou Hamer	voting rights and women's rights; civil rights movement
Fred Hampton
Frances Harper	Abolitionist; women's rights
Aaron Henry	Civil rights movement
T. R. M. Howard	Civil rights movement
Langston Hughes

J

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Jesse Jackson	Civil rights movement
Alberta Odell Jones	Civil rights movement	Attorney
Quincy Jones

K

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Sarah Louise Keys
Martin Luther King Jr.

L

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Audre Lorde	Poet

M

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
DeRay Mckesson
Irene Morgan
Amzie Moore

N

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Bree Newsome
Huey P. Newton

O

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Sarah Massey Overton

P

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Rosa Parks	Civil Rights Movement
Lucy Parsons
Jewel Prestage

Q

R

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
George Raymond Jr.
Bayard Rustin

S

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Bobby Seale
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Al Sharpton
Nina Simone
Mary Louise Smith
Marion Stamps
Bryan Stevenson	Criminal justice reform

T

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Sojourner Truth	Abolitionist; womens suffrage
Harriet Tubman	Abolitionist; womens suffrage

U

V

W

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Madam C. J. Walker
Ida B. Wells	Civil rights movement; suffragist	One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Cornel West
Roy Wilkins	Civil rights movement
Bobby E. Wright	Pan-Africanism

X

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Malcolm X	Human rights activist; Civil rights movement

Y

Name	Area of activism	Notes and references
Andrew Young	Civil rights movement

Z

References

1. Evan F. Moore "In honor of Black History Month, here’s a list of Chicagoans you should know", Chicago Sun-Times, February 1, 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
2. Kleinig, John, Handled with Discretion: Ethical Issues in Police Decision Making, Rowman & Littlefield (1996), p. 157, ISBN 9780847681778. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
3. Bio of "Ralph David Abernathy", Frye Gaillard, University of South Alabama, March 14, 2007, (archive)
4. Smith, Jessie Carney; Phelps, Shirelle, Notable Black American Women, Book 2, VNR AG (1996), p. 11, ISBN 9780810391772.
5. "SNCC passes the torch | The CLog". Creative Loafing Charlotte. February 29, 2008. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
6. Henneberg, Susan. James Baldwin: Groundbreaking Author and Civil Rights Activist, The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc (2014), pp. 6–8, 66, ISBN 9781477778975.
7. Schwartz, Barry (June 2009). "Collective Forgetting and the Symbolic Power of Oneness: The Strange Apotheosis of Rosa Parks". Social Psychology Quarterly. 72 (2): 123–142. doi:10.1177/019027250907200204. JSTOR 25593914.
8. "Nannie Helen Burroughs papers, 1900-1963 (Library of Congress), Biographical Note (Woman's Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America)". Hdl.loc.gov. 2001. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
9. Dickerson, Dennis C., "The Wesleyan Witness in the US Civil Rights Movement: The Allen Legacy against 20th Century American Apartheid", 2007. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
10. "Claudette Colvin Biography, Activist, Civil Rights Activist, Medical Professional (1939–)", Biography.com, A&E Television Networks, April 1, 2014.
11. Gray, Eliza (March 2, 2009). "A Forgotten Contribution: Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus", Newsweek.
12. Adler, Margot. Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin. NPR. March 15, 2009.
13. Foundations of African-American Sociology Archived 2017-03-06 at the Wayback Machine. Hampton University Department of Sociology. Hampton University. Retrieved 7 March 2017. From Melvin Barber; Leslie Innis; Emmit Hunt, African American Contributions to Sociology.
14. Goldhill, Olivia (November 15, 2016). "'We can feel sad, hurt, demoralized. But we can't give up': A Black Lives Matter founder on Trump's presidency". Quartz.
15. Garza, Alicia, "Herstory". Black Lives Matter. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
16. Queerness on the front lines of #BlackLivesMatter. MSNBC. February 19, 2015 (video).
17. "Angela Davis". CCCB. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
18. Haskins, James, Distinguished African American Political and Governmental Leaders. Oryx Press (1999), p. 67. ISBN 9781573561266,
19. "Frederick Douglass Biography : Journalist, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Government Official (c. 1818–1895)". Biography.com.
20. "Later Years and Death", Frederick Douglass Heritage. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
21. Rafael, Vicente. "David Fagen (1875-?)". Black Past.
22. Hoffman, Phillip W. (5 Sep 2017). David Fagen: Turncoat Hero. American History Press. ISBN 978-1939995254.
23. Wang, Vivian (December 30, 2017), "Erica Garner, Activist and Daughter of Eric Garner, Dies at 27", New York Times
24. Erik Ortiz,Erica Garner, activist daughter of Eric Garner, dies at 27. NBC News, December 30, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
25. Sheryl Huggins Salomon, "EXCLUSIVE: Erica Garner Slams 'Fraudulent Claims' In O'Keefe Video, Announces Foundation". News One, February 24, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2019.