Tag Archives: women’s history

New! Online Resource: Black Nationalism and RAM; and Papers of Amiri Baraka 

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I am pleased to report that the Vere Harmsworth Library has purchased the previously trialled databases Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement and Papers of Amiri Baraka for Bodleian Readers.

Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford)

The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) came into existence as a result of a year of organizing for student rights and involvement in the civil rights movement among a collective of undergraduate students at Central State College (now University) in late May to early June of 1962.

Originally focused in Philadelphia, RAM, engaged in voter registration/education drives, organized community support for the economic boycotts of the Philadelphia “400” ministers led by Rev. Leon Sullivan and held free African/African-American history classes at its office. RAM participated in support demonstrations of the struggles then being waged in the South to end racial segregation. It was also active in coalitions to eliminate police brutality against the African-American community.

RAM became a national organisation in 1964, organising African American students, raising the demand for Black studies and campaigning for economic, social and political equality. It also sent organisers into Southern states. RAM was the first African-American organization to denounce the US government’s war of aggression against the people of Vietnam and support the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF). RAM was dissolved in 1968, following pressure from US government intelligence agencies (most noticeably the FBI) and local police forces.

This collection of RAM records reproduces the writings and statements of the RAM and its leaders. It also covers organizations that evolved from or were influenced by RAM and persons that had close ties to RAM. The most prominent organization that evolved from RAM was the African People’s Party. Organizations which worked with RAM included the NAACP, SNCC and Deacons of Defense. Organizations influenced by RAM include the Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Youth Organization for Black Unity, African Liberation Support Committee, and the Republic of New Africa. Individuals associated with RAM and documented in this collection include Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, General Gordon Baker Jr., Yuri Kochiyama, Donald Freeman, James and Grace Lee Boggs, Herman Ferguson, Askia Muhammad Toure (Rolland Snellings), and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael).

You can access Black Nationalism and Revolutionary Action Movement using your Single Sign On here.

Papers of Amiri Baraka, Poet Laureate of the Black Power Movement

The collection consists of materials from the years 1913 through 1998 that document African American author and activist Amiri Baraka and were gathered by Dr. Komozi Woodard in the course of his research. The extensive documentation includes poetry, organizational records, print publications, articles, plays, speeches, personal correspondence, oral histories, as well as some personal records. The materials cover Baraka’s involvement in the politics in Newark, N.J. and in Black Power movement organizations such as the Congress of African People, the National Black Conference movement, the Black Women’s United Front. Later materials document Baraka’s increasing involvement in Marxism.

The collection has been organised into 18 series,

  • Series I: Black Arts Movement, 1961-1998
  • Series II: Black Nationalism,, 1964-1977
  • Series III: Correspondence, 1967-1973
  • Series IV: Newark (New Jersey), 1913-1980
  • Series V: Congress of African People, 1960-1976 – Organisation founded by Baraka in 1970 to advance his own vision of African cultural nationalism.
  • Series VI: National Black Conferences and National Black Assembly, 1968-1975 –Includes the 1972 Convention in Gary, Indiana, where delegates adopted the National Black Political Agenda, also known as the Gary declaration and formed the National Black Assembly (NBA).
  • Series VII: Black Women’s United Front, 1975-1976 -Formed  in 1974 by Amina Baraka (Sylvia Jones), the wife of Amiri Baraka.
  • Series VIII: Student Organization for Black Unity, 1971
  • Series IX: African Liberation Support Committee, 1973-1976
  • Series X: Revolutionary Communist League, 1974-1982 – founded by Bakara when CAP disintegrated in conflict, and reflects Baraka’s move away from nationalism to a Marxist position.
  • Series XI: African Socialism, 1973
  • Series XII: Black Marxists, 1969-1980–  includes materials on black Marxist contemporaries of Baraka, and older black Marxists such as Harry Haywood, C.L.R. James, and Odis Hyde. The series also includes files on the All African Revolutionary Party, the Black Workers Congress, and the Progressive Labor Party.
  • Series XIII: National Black United Front, 1979-1981
  • Series XIV: Miscellaneous Materials, 1978-1988
  • Series XV: Serial Publications, 1968-1984
  • Series XVI: Oral Histories, 1984-1986 –  transcripts from sixteen interviews conducted by Komozi Woodard and his assistants as part of an oral history project entitled, “The Making of Black NewArk: An Oral History of the Impact of the Freedom Movement on Newark Politics.” Most of the people interviewed were primarily local Newark activists, although there are also interviews with Baraka, Maulana Ron Karenga, and scholar John Henrik Clarke. This series of oral histories is one of the most unique and valuable parts of this collection.
  • Series XVII: Komozi Woodard’s Office Files, 1956-1986

You can access the Papers of Amari Baraka using your Single Sign On here.

New! Online Resource: Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II

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Decorative poster from Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Full citation: You Are Not Alone! n.d. TS Posters from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives 1134;1992-077/11 N. Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Gale Document Number ITJQWI002629288

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am pleased to report that Bodleian readers now have access to Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II. This database was kindly funded by Bloomsbury Publishing.

The Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II provides coverage of the development, culture, and society of LGBTQ groups in the latter half of the twentieth century. It provides new perspectives on a diverse community and the wealth of resources available in the archive allow for creating connections amongst disparate materials. Oxford researchers now have access to both Part I and II of the Archives of Sexuality and Gender (see our previous blogpost for more information about Part I).

Materials were selected from the following US archives:

  • ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, University of Southern California, Los Angeles – the world’s largest repository of LGBTQ materials, primarily focused on activities in California
  • GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, California
  • Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
  • Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
  • Lambda Archives, San Diego, California

Collections of interest to Americanists include:

Alongside the above are materials from Canadian and British based collections, alongside ephemera and publications from Mexico, giving researchers a broader geographic context.

You can access Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II here, or via the Bodleian Libraries Database A-Z.  Note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access this resource.

New: Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities

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[Partially re-blogged from the History Faculty Library blog]

As we continue to grow our eresources collections on women’s history, we are pleased to announce that Oxford researchers now have access to Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities.

Home page of the resource showing a search box and an image of a line of suffragettes holding a poster which reads "Mr Presidents, how long must women wait for liberty".

National Woman’s Party members picket outside the White House in 1917 with the message, “Mr. President, How long must women wait for Liberty” Source: Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman’s Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 12 © Gale Cengage

This collection traces the path of women’s issues in the 19th and 20th centuries, drawing on primary sources from manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and more. It captures the foundation of women’s movements, struggles and triumphs, and provides researchers with valuable insights. It focusses on the social, political, and professional achievements of women, the pioneers of women’s movements, and is useful to understand the issues that have affected women and the many contributions they have made to society.

It is, however, more generally also a useful resource to research WWI, WWII, social and economic conditions, and world events in the 20th century, as described and seen from women’s perspectives and revealed in periodicals, correspondence and papers.

Individual source collections of particular interest to US historians are:

  • Periodicals and newsletters from the Herstory Collection, tracing the women’s rights movement in the US and abroad; alongside primary source collections focused on women’s health/mental health and the law.
  • Manuscript records of key women involved in political movements, missionary work or American pioneer activities.
  • Records of the Committee of Fifteen (1900-1901), a private group based in New York who collected evidence of “vice” – prostitution and gambling- to spur local authorities into action and promote anti-vice legislation.
  • Records of the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) and its founders.
  • Records of political anti-war movements, such as the Woman’s Peace Party (1914-1920), the Women’s Peace Union (1921-1940) and the United States section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) (1919-1959).
  • Files from two key grassroots feminist organisations based in Boston and San Francisco, which were part of the second-wave feminist movement.
  • Records from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, including records from it’s predecessors (American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau). Documents include minutes of meetings, conferences, subject files, correspondence and personal papers of key founders.

You can search across the above collections and other Gale databases via Gale Primary Sources. Please note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access these resources.

New Databases from Archives Unbound!

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I am pleased to report that the VHL has committed funding towards four new databases from the Archives Unbound collections from Gale.

These four collections are now available for all Bodleian readers to use, and can be found in SOLO or our Database A-Z. You can find out more about each collection below. Their topics range from the American Confederacy, religion, politics and African American movements in 1930s/40s America.

You can search across all the above databases via Gale Primary Sources. Please note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access these resources.

Confederate Newspapers: A Collection from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama

This collection is a mixture of issues and papers from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama ranging from 1861-1865. These newspapers “recorded the real and true history of public opinion during the war. In their columns is to be found the only really correct and indicative ‘map of busy life, its fluctuations and its vast concerns’ in the South, during her days of darkness and of trial.” The newspapers are text-searchable, and include advertisements. Topics include everyday life in the Confederacy, as well as discussions of the Civil War and Slavery.

You can access this database directly here.

Election of 1948

This collection provides documents and the perspectives of the four base camps from the 1948 United States presidential election: Democrat incumbent President and eventual victor Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; U.S. President, 1945–1953), Republican and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (1902–1971), Progressive and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965) and Dixiecrat and South Carolina Governor J. Strom Thurmond (1902–2003). Sources include Papers of Harry S Truman, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Papers of Americans for Democratic Action as well as selections from several southern newspapers. These sources show the political landscape of the United States post-WWII, and the growing tensions within the country.

You can access this database directly here.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945

This new series contains a collection of essential materials for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement-concerned with the issues of Lynching, Segregation, Race riots, and Employment discrimination. FDR’s record on civil rights has been the subject of much controversy. This new collection from FDR’s Official File provides insight into his political style and presents an instructive example of how he balanced moral preference with political realities. Topics also include the migration of African Americans to northern states, the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in championing equal rights and racial justice, and reports on key individuals and organisations, such as the NAACP.

You can access this database directly here.

Global Missions and Theology

This collection documents the broad range of Nineteenth Century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States by reproducing pivotal personal narratives, organizational records, and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries, and churches. This collection includes materials on missionary activities among Native Americans and African Americans, both slaves and freedmen. In addition, it highlights activities in far-flung regions and countries, such as Africa, Fiji and Sandwich Islands, India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Hawaii.

You can access this database directly here.

 

Trial Access: Race Relations in America and Everyday Life and Women in America (Trial Ended)

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[Update: These trials have now ended. If you have any feedback you wish to give regarding these databases, please contact Bethan Davies, VHL Librarian – 2nd March 2023]

I am pleased to announce that the VHL has organised trials of two databases; Race Relations in America and Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920.

The trials for both databases last until the 1st March 2023 – please plan your use of these databases accordingly, and pass any feedback that you have to bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Race Relations in America title. Image of a group of African American children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race Relations in America

Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants.

Key themes covered include:

·         Desegregation of schools, industries and public transport – survey material documents the attitudes of the community towards prospective desegregation, as well as analysing the results. The progress of legislation and legal cases can also be explored within the collection, alongside statistical data used in key Supreme Court Cases.

·         Migration of African Americans from the rural South to urban centers, which had a significant impact on American industry and the labour movement, as well as domestic issues such as housing, overcrowding and poverty.

·         The role of the Church in the Civil Rights Movement and in African American communities, from helping to fund organizations like the Race Relations Institute, to the part played in encouraging integration or segregation among their congregations. Other religious and spiritual groups are also covered.

·         Race riots and other racial tensions, which the Race Relations Department worked to diffuse or prevent by aiding communities to identify and address their problems. Alongside surveys created by field workers are reports on specific events, with testimonies from individuals involved in events such as police brutality.

·         Activities of the Civil Rights Movement, including protest marches, sit-in demonstrations, student movements, and legal cases. Reports and correspondence are kept on key organisations, as well as the activities of specific hate groups.

·         Speeches and reports by key figures of the time, including Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks, alongside sociologists, activists, psychologists, teachers, ministers, students and housewives.

Alongside this are contextual essays, thematic guides, audio recordings and video interviews, interactive maps of survey locations and data on attendees of Race Relations Institute.

Title Everyday life and women in America. Illustration of a family around a dining table. A text box reads "Discover the Collection: Explore documents from the Sallie Bingham Centre for Women's History and Culture, Duke University and the New York Public Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920

Everyday Life & Women in America comprises thousands of fully searchable images of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.

Key themed areas within the collection are:

·         An extensive number of periodicals, with either complete or near complete runs, covering both national and local levels. Titles include society periodicals like Town Topics and general household magazines such as Household News. Periodicals focused on religious, political and social causes are included (like the anarchist Lucifer, The Light Bearer, which later became the American Journal of Eugenics), alongside official publications of clubs, organisations and educational institutions. Topics also cover national events and topics, such as the American Civil War, suffrage movements and race.

·         Documents which refer to, and were aimed for, African Americans, Native Americans and Jewish women. There are also publications aimed at and for white supremacist movements (such as Installation ceremonies; Women of the Ku Klux Klan).

·         A broad collection of popular fiction series and sensational literature.

·         Guidance books, etiquette manuals and advisory literature on the expected behaviour of women and their conduct, marriages, motherhood and house roles.

·         Works and official reports on the role of women in education and the workplace.

·         Rare cookbooks, medical guidance works and collections of home remedies.

·         Fashion advertisements and periodicals, as well as works on the “ideal form of Beauty”.

Alongside this are contextual essays, thematic guides, an interactive chronology of events throughout 1800-1920, and subject search directories.

 

NEW Online Resource: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

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Decorative image of women throughout American History.I am pleased to report that Bodleian readers now have access to Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000.

Loosely organized around the history of women in social movements in the United States between 1600 and 2000, the site seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding of U.S. history while making the insights of women’s history accessible to scholars and students. It features document projects, as well as extensive collections of primary sources. Women and Social Movements in the United States is also an online journal, and our access includes issues up to and including 2019, which feature  document projects and book reviews, as well as a host of other material, including essays, roundtables, and other special features.

Primary source collections within Women and Social Movements in the United States includes:

  • Memoirs, biographies and historical works of women in the U.S. suffrage movement, including the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage, by Stanton, Anthony and others, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, as well as an online edition of the biographical dictionary Notable American Women (1971-2004).  
  • An almost complete run of Equal Rights, the official publication of the National Women’s Party, 1923-1954.
  • More than 1,800 items written by black women suffragists, 1831-1965
  • 42 major contemporary published works that examine women’s activism from the time of the Civil War to the mid-1950s.
  • 640 publications from the League of Women’s Voters (1923-1999), taken from the League’s library in Washington D.C.
  • More than 1,850 publications of state and local commissions on the status of women, and 73 reports on gender bias in state courts, 1983-2002
  • Records from the National Consumer’s League from 1904 to 1934.
  • Transcriptions of 25 women’s rights conventions (1848-1870), three national conventions of anti-slavery women (1836-1838) and the conference minutes for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 1874-1898.
  • Annual reports of the WCTU, 1874-1898.
  • Transcripts of interviews with female US historians who developed the field of women’s history in American academia from the 1960s onwards.

Alongside the above collections, Women and Social Movements in the United States also includes 129 document projects, which present and interpret primary sources, a dictionary of social movements and organisations and a chronology of American women’s history.

This compliments our similar collection, Women and Social Movements, International 1840-present which includes 150,000 pages of conference proceedings, reports of international women’s organizations, publications and web pages of women’s non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of women active internationally since the mid-nineteenth century.

You can access Women and Social Movements, United States here, or via the Bodleian Libraries Database A-Z.  Note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access this resource.

New e-Resource – Black Authors, 1556-1922: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia

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[Item originally posted on on the EFL blogpost]

Black Authors, 1556-1922This online collection consists of 550 fully searchable works written by Black authors from Africa, the Americas, and Europe, and spans from the mid-sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. The collection is remarkable for the diversity of its content and contains texts that fall within a wide range of genres, including autobiographies, essays, letters and poems, as well as examples of more unusual genres such as maps and sheet music.

The archive may be browsed by author, genre or subject (such as agriculture, economics and trade, education, government, health, law and crime, literature, philosophy, politics, and slavery and race relations). It is also possible to narrow down search results within a given subject as each is further divided into several subtopics. The archive can also be searched by place of publication and by publisher.

Individual authors include Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho and Bethany Veney.

The Bodleian Libraries have committed substantial external funding to a one-off set of purchases of electronic research resources deemed to be important to researchers in the University. This follows a project to identify desiderata across all subjects and to list suggestions from readers.

Purchase of this resource was partly funded by the Drue Heinz Fund.

New in Oxford: Black Thought and Culture

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Following a trial period, and positive feedback from readers, I am pleased to announce that the Vere Harmsworth Library has purchased access to the online resource, Black Thought and Culture.

This impressive database contains a collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts.

The collection spans from the works of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells Barnett, to Zora Neal Hurston, Audra Lorde, and Jesse Jackson. Most notably, the collection includes items previously undigitized, and difficult to obtain, such as:

  • The transcript of the Muhammad Ali trial
  • A full run of The Black Panther newspaper, with full-colour images of every page as well as searchable text
  • 2,500 pages of exclusive Black Panther oral histories owned by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
  • Selected audio files, heard here for the first time
  • the full run of Artist and Influence journal, tracking African American cultural trends in the 20th Century.

This resource will be of interest to those interested in African American history, politics, literature and culture.

You may access the resource here.

American National Biography Update: March 2021

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Believing that the life of a nation is told by the lives of its people, the American National Biography consists of over 19,000 scholarly biographies of significant, influential, or notorious figures from American history. The latest update to the American National Biography adds thirteen new essays in celebration of Women’s History Month.

New additions include Nina Allender (1872­–1957), who merged art and activism to have a lasting effect on the women’s suffrage movement. Allender’s art aimed to entertain, but the imagery provided important commentary on politics, race, and gender. She also collaborated with Alice Paul to promote the National Woman’s Party’s positions in her illustrations. Allender carved out new space for professional female artists and activists within social movements and in public life. Her work challenged decades of negative anti-suffrage cartoons and advanced a new (and lasting) stereotype of suffragists as fashionable, young, white women.

Alice Coachman (1923­–2014), track and field sensation who in 1948 became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, in the high jump event. A lifelong competitor whose athleticism propelled her from poverty, segregation, and gender constraints to international triumph, Coachman is now revered as a civil rights pioneer. She presented as demurely feminine off the track and scorched competitors on it, proving her worth in elite global contests and challenging racism and sexism by virtue of her success. She set the standard in U.S. track and field for Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Allyson Felix, and other black women athletes who, since 1948, have realized their own potential because of her leadership in American sports.

Angel De Cora (1868 or 1869–1919), Winnebago artist and educator who insisted on the inherent artistic ability of indigenous people and the distinctiveness of the art they produced. De Cora promoted an alternative to the European American aesthetic, arguing that Indian art be viewed by its own standards rather than European American ones. She simultaneously pushed for recognition of Native American productions as art rather than ethnographic artifacts and aimed to establish Native American art as a cultural category in mainstream American society

Alvenia Fulton (1906–1999), African American health food promoter and celebrity dietitian who looked to improve community health through fasting and vegetarianism. Fulton’s sought to confront racism in whatever form it took—whether by helping black athletes and celebrities overcome racial barriers in their respective fields, helping families get healthy affordable food, or creating sustainable and anti-racist techniques for reversing heart disease. Ultimately, Fulton’s pioneering work as a healer and community leader laid the groundwork for the black vegan movement of the 21st century, with its attention to issues of health and racial equality.

Rose Winslow (1899–unknown), suffragist and labor activist whose life reveals the connections forged between working-class immigrant women and women’s middle-class reform movements in the Progressive Era. Working as a hosiery knitter and then a shopgirl, Winslow became an organizer for the National Woman’s Party, the National Consumers’ League, and the Women’s Trade Union League. Jailed for picketing the White House, she also had an audience with President Woodrow Wilson, where she made the working-class case for woman suffrage.

Neith Boyce (1872–1951) feminist-anarchist novelist and playwright whose work with the Provincetown Players made them one of the twentieth century’s most influential theater groups. She was also an important forecaster of strains on the institution of marriage as it changed during the twentieth century. Her life exemplifies how modernism was more than an artistic aesthetic; it was a new way of conceptualizing human relationships.

Maria Gertrudes “La Tules” Barceló (c.1800–1852), entrepreneur who operated the most extravagant gambling halls and saloons in nineteenth-century Santa Fe. La Tules’s saloon served as the site where men of all social standings and backgrounds gathered, including soldiers, traders, businessmen, the upper-class, and immigrants, both Anglo and Spanish. Barceló actively participated in gambling and surprised men with her winning skills in the Spanish game of Monte. Her saloon served as a bridge between New Mexicans and Euro Americans, who shared and exchanged cultural and economic commodities, and it provided a place for Euro Americans to grow accustomed to the New Mexican society.

American National Biography Update: February 2021

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Believing that the life of a nation is told by the lives of its people, the American National Biography consists of over 19,000 scholarly biographies of significant, influential, or notorious figures from American history.

The latest update to the American National Biography adds six new essays in celebration of black history month.

New additions include Bo Diddley (1928–2008), guitarist, singer, and songwriter who bridged the transition between the blues and rock and roll. Easily identifiable by his trademark sunglasses and black hat, Diddley was most associated with the Twang Machine, his homemade electric guitar. It featured a cigar box-shaped square body that he crafted himself and attached to the neck and electronics from a Gretsch guitar. Diddley’s career spanned generations; he became even more popular in the 1990s when he starred alongside Bo Jackson in a series of Nike advertisements.

Marsha P. Johnson (1945–1992), gay and trans rights activist, participated in the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In 1970, Johnson and her friend Sylvia Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in New York City, the first LGBTQ youth shelter in North America and one of the first organizations in the United States founded by transgender women of color. She was also an AIDS activist associated with ACT UP, a direct-action political group combatting governmental and institutional neglect of the AIDS crisis. Johnson’s fierce passion for justice defines her as a founder and legend of the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States.

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy (1916–2000), lawyer and feminist activist, described herself as “too erratic to lead and too undisciplined to follow.” She was a pivotal and wide-reaching figure, building bridges between the civil rights, Black Power, feminist, anti-war, and reproductive rights movements that helped define the 20th century. She skillfully used the media to spread her message, writing a weekly column and hosting a radio and television show. She was also a lawyer and defended a number of Black Power activists, including H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, and Afeni Shakur. Kennedy was an original and instrumental member in the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Women’s Political Caucus; was influential in the founding of the National Black Feminist Organization; and organized the Feminist Party.

Gladys Bentley (1907­­–1960), blues singer and pianist, brazenly defied race, gender, and sexual stereotypes in Renaissance-era Harlem and later Los Angeles. She performed wearing tailored men’s shirts and jackets, skirts, and close-cropped hair. Langston Hughes called her “an amazing exhibition of musical energy—a large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboard.” Bentley was a forerunner of post-Stonewall views toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives and experiences.

Lerone Bennett, Jr. (1928­–2018), author, journalist, and editor, was the major force behind Ebony magazine’s reporting on the civil rights movement. Many of his early stories became the impetus for his first book, Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, (1619-1962). The book placed African Americans, whose American history was one year deeper than that of the Puritans who arrived on the Mayflower, at the forefront of American history. He also wrote an influential biography about his old Morehouse classmate, What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

James D. Saules (1806?–1850s), sailor and musician, is best known for likely inspiring Oregon’s first black exclusion law. He arrived in the Willamette Valley joining the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), also known as the Wilkes Expedition. On May 1, 1844, he was arrested for allegedly inciting several indigenous men to threaten the life and property of Charles E. Pickett, a proslavery Virginian and white supremacist. The all-white jury found Saules guilty and he was forced to leave the Willamette Valley. The newly-created Provisional Government of Oregon passed its first black exclusion law on June 25, 1844. In 1857 Oregon’s state constitution banned all African American immigration.