To commemorate Martin Luther King Day, we honor some of his fellow heroes and heroines of the civil rights movement. It would be impossible to list all of them, so here are some of the most worthy namesakes.
AMELIA Boynton Robinson – brought Dr. King to Selma in 1953
ANGELA Davis –radical Black activist, advocate of racial justice
CARLOTTA Walls – youngest member of the Little Rock Nine students who desegregated Central High School in 1957
CHARLAYNE Hunter-Gault –one of the first two African-American students to enter the University of Georgia in 1961
CLARA Luper – activist known as the ‘Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’
CLAUDETTE Colvin – refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus nine months before Rosa Parks did
CORETTA Scott King – Dr. King’s full partner in the civil rights movement
DAISY Bates — a key figure in the integration of Central High School in Little Rock
DOROTHY Cotton – the highest ranking female in Dr King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT — a civil rights activist during her husband’s tenure as President.
ELLA Baker – influential activist, key figure in the NAACP, SCLC and in the creation of the Student Noviolent Coordinating Committee
FANNIE Lou Hamer – outspoken activist, a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
LOLA Hendricks — active in the 1963 Birmingham campaign
MAMIE Till-Mobley – mother of slain teenager Emmett Till became a tireless worker for racial justice
MARIAN Anderson – singer best remembered for her 1939 performance, arranged by Eleanor Roosevelt, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, after being banned from singing in Constitution Hall
MARVEL Cooke – first African-American journalist to work for a white-owned newspaper; active in the civil rights movement
MAYA Angelou – at the request of Dr. King, became a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
MELBA Beals –a member of the Little Rock Nine, who faced daily hostility, persecution and death threats
MINNIJEAN Brown—another member of the the Little Rock Nine
MODJESKA Monteith Simkins –a leader of public health and social reform and the civil rights movement in South Carolina
ODETTA — the iconic folk singer was a leading voice for civil rights, joining Dr King in the march on Selma and singing at the 1963 March on Washington
PRATHIA Hall — an important activist leader of SNCC
ROSA Parks – considered “the mother of the modern civil rights movement” whose refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger, and consequent arrest, were instrumental in inciting a social revolution
RUBY Dee – with husband Ossie Davis, formed the Association of Artists for Freedom, urging donations to civil rights causes, and was involved in several demonstrations
SEPTIMA Poinsette Clark – SCLC’s director of education
UNITA Blackwell — a project director for SNCC, organizer of voter registration drives across Alabama, and one of the first female black mayors
VIOLA Liuzzo — martyred civil rights leader who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan
VIVIAN Malone—one of two black students to desegregate the University of Alabama
AARON Henry – respected Mississippi activist, joined the Freedom Riders in 1961, led a large-scale voter registration drive
ADAM Clayton Powell , Jr –outspoken Congressman aggressively pursued anti-discrimination legislation
AMZIE Moore – worked with Medgar Evers to build the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, his home used as a “safe house” for Dr. King, Jesse Jackson and others,
ANDREW Young –a trusted aide to Dr. King, eventually becoming executive director of the SCLC, was with Dr. King when he was assassinated
BAYARD Rustin — organizer of the Great March on Washington in 1963, a vital force in the civil rights movement from the 1940s on
CLAUDE Black – Baptist minister who organized and led marches throughout Texas
CLYDE Kennard –civil rights activist unjustly imprisoned In Mississippi
EMMETT Till – 14-year-old Chicago boy whose brutal murder mobilized the civil rights movement
HARRY Belafonte –popular singer was an early supporter of the movement and a confidant of Dr. King
HOSEA Williams – one of Dr. King’s most trusted lieutenants, protested racial discrimination in some of the most violent confrontations of the civil rights movement
JESSE Jackson — civil rights activist, founder of the Rainbow Coalition, Presidential candidate
JULIAN (born Horace) Bond – helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), served in the Georgia Legislature, chairman of the NAACP.
LYNDON Johnson – insured the passage of President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill and the 1964 Voting Rights Act, giving African-Americans more political and economic opportunities
MEDGAR Evers – slain field secretary of the NAACP, and one of the its first martyrs
MYLES Horton –called “The Father of the Civil Rights Movement,” taught and influenced many of the era’s leaders, including Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Ralph Abernathy
OSSIE Davis – socially conscious actor who delivered the eulogies for both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X
RALPH Abernathy — closest friend and assistant of Dr. King, followed him as president of the SCLC.
W. SLOANE Coffin — Yale chaplain who became one of the “Freedom Riders” and was arrested several times for direct actions against segregation laws.
WHITNEY Young – Executive Director of the National Urban League, influenced the policies of Lyndon Johnson
WYATT Tee Walker—Dr King’s Chief of Staff, one of the founders or CORE
