“He was always positive, always had a smile on a face and he was always a joy to be around. He left an impact on a lot of people,” his sister said in a statement — BY, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Charles Avery had barely started marching when police arrested him, forced him into a […]
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Freedom Riders Attacked in Anniston, Alabama | EJI, A History of Racial Injustice
In 1961, a group of civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders began a desegregation campaign. The interracial group rode together on interstate buses headed south from Washington, D.C., and patronized the bus stations along the way, to test the enforcement of Supreme Court decisions that prohibited discrimination in interstate passenger travel. Their efforts […]
View MoreFannie Lou Hamer | PBS
Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the 20th child of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend, sharecroppers east of the Mississippi Delta. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] She first joined her family in the cotton fields at the age of six. Although she managed to complete several years of school, by adolescence she was picking hundreds of […]
View MoreWho Really Killed Malcolm X? | The New York Times
Fifty-five years later, the case may be reopened. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] For more than half a century, scholars have maintained that prosecutors convicted the wrong men in the assassination of Malcolm X. Now, 55 years after that bloody afternoon in February 1965, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is reviewing whether to reinvestigate the murder. Some new […]
View MoreLGBTQ Rights Icon Bayard Rustin Granted Posthumous Pardon In California | HuffPost
Rustin, who co-organized the March on Washington in 1963, was jailed for having gay sex nearly 70 years ago. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor announced Wednesday that he is posthumously pardoning a gay civil rights leader while creating a new pardon process for others convicted under outdated laws punishing homosexual activity. Bayard […]
View MoreLouis Allen Murdered in Liberty, Mississippi | EJI
On January 31, 1964, the night before he was set to move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Louis Allen was ambushed outside his property in Liberty, Mississippi and shot twice in the face with a shotgun. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] He died almost instantly. Mr. Allen was the victim of racially motivated violence in a system where he was […]
View MoreWhat Martin Luther King Sr. Wrote About His Son’s Death | Time
In April 1968, my sons went to Memphis to help organize a struggle by the city’s sanitation workers to achieve better wages and working conditions. I wondered about M.L.’s involvement in this, whether or not he was spreading his concerns and his energies too thin. But again he was right. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] reside online and […]
View MoreKKK Bombs Alabama Home of Civil Rights Leader Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth | Equal Justice Initiative
On December 25, 1956, Ku Klux Klan members in Alabama bombed the home of civil rights activist Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Shuttlesworth was home at the time of the bombing with his family and two members of Bethel Baptist Church, where he served as pastor. The 16-stick dynamite blast destroyed the home and caused […]
View MoreRichard and Mildred Loving Plead Guilty to Marrying Interracially | Equal Justice Initiative
After marrying in Washington, D.C., in 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving returned to their native Caroline County, Virginia, to build a home and start a family. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Their union was a criminal act in Virginia because Richard was white, Mildred was black, and the state’s Racial Integrity Act, passed in 1924, criminalized interracial marriage. […]
View MorePardons for the Wilmington 10 | The New York Times
Before leaving office next month, Gov. Bev Perdue of North Carolina should finally pardon the Wilmington 10, a group of civil rights activists who were falsely convicted and imprisoned in connection with a racial disturbance in the city of Wilmington more than 40 years ago. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] The convictions, based on flimsy evidence and perjured […]
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