Question: Which civil rights leaders should I know about in the 20th Century? (scroll down for definition)

Answer:  

1. Booker T. Washington - c1900 - Believed that African Americans should gradually gain their rights. In the Atlanta Compromise, he told a mostly white audience that Blacks would work with their hands and accept a subservient role in society, in exchange for recognition of basic equality and education rights.

2. WEB Dubois - c1920 - Went against Washington's gradual rights ideology. He sponsored the Niagara Movement, which called for desegregation and absolute equality.

Don't get confused: W.E.B. Du Bois wanted absolute equality...Booker T. Washington wanted gradual gains. Remember: W.E.B. = Wants Equality for Blacks...Booker T., for Tuskegee Institute.

3. Marcus Garvey - c1920 - Leader of the Back to Africa, or Colonization Movement that encouraged blacks to return to Africa.

4. Martin Luther King Jr. - c1960 - becoming a national figure after the Montgomery Bus Boycott (which defended Rosa Parks), he was outspoken for civil rights. He supported civil disobedience, or passive resistance. He delivered the I Have a Dream Speech.

5. Stokely Carmichael - c1965 - A leader of the Black Panthers, and Black Power movement, he called for immediate civil rights, but also for black separatism.

6. Malcolm X - c1962 - As a member of the Nation of Islam, he preached Black supremacy, and separation of blacks and whites.

6. Freedom Riders - 1961 - Young white and black civil rights advocates rode buses together into the segregated South. They were met with violence.

7. SNCC - Student Noviolent Coordinating Committee - comprised of mostly college students, they were involved in many activities including sit-ins (or illegally sitting inside) of segregation of restaurants.

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