Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation.
1913-2005
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an American community leader and women's rights activist who focused particularly on issues affecting African-American women.
1842-1924
Bayard Rustin was a civil rights organizer and activist, best known for his work as adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and '60s.
1912-1987
Augusta Savage is remembered as an artist, activist, and arts educator, serving as an inspiration to the many that she taught, helped, and encouraged.
1892-1962
Dred Scott was a slave and social activist who served several masters before suing for his freedom. His case made it to the Supreme Court (Dred Scott v. Sandford) prior to the American Civil War.
1795-1858
1936-
Betty Shabazz is best known as the wife of African-American nationalist leader Malcolm X, who was assassinated in New York City in 1965.
1934-1997
Mutulu Shakur is a former Black Liberation Army member and resistance leader who received a 60-year prison sentence in 1987 for his role in the 1981 Brinks bank robbery. He's also the stepfather of the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
1950-
Al Sharpton is an outspoken and sometimes controversial political activist in the fight against racial prejudice and injustice.
1954-
1933-2003
Trey Songz is a Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter known for hits like "Can't Help but Wait."
1984-
1939-
Percy Sutton was a Freedom Rider, civil rights activist and prominent African-American lawyer best known for representing Malcolm X.
1920-2009
Mary Church Terrell was a charter member of the NAACP and an early advocate for civil rights and the suffrage movement.
1863-1954
William Monroe Trotter was a Harvard-educated journalist and activist who championed equal rights for African Americans.
1872-1934
Sojourner Truth is best known for her extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?", delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.
1797-1883
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad.
1820-1913
Denmark Vesey was a freed slave who held meetings to organize what would have been the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history.
1767-1822
Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African-American novelist and poet most famous for authoring The Color Purple.
1944-
David Walker was an African American abolitionist whose pamphlet was one of the most radical documents of the antislavery movement.
1785-1830
Madam C.J. Walker was the first American woman to become a self-made millionaire. Her business was worth more than $1 million at the time of her death.
1867-1919
Maggie Lena Walker was grand secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke, an organization dedicated to the social and financial advancement of African Americans.
1864-1934
Educator Booker T. Washington was one of the foremost African-American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founding the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now known as Tuskegee University.
1856-1915
Kerry Washington has appeared in such films as Ray, She Hate Me, The Last King of Scotland and Django Unchained (2013). She also stars on the TV series Scandal.
1977-
Faye Wattleton, former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood—as well as the first African-American, first female and youngest president in the organization's history—has been one of the strongest champions of women's rights and reproductive health for more than four decades.
1943-
Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.
1862-1931
1953-
1893-1955
Roy Wilkins was best known as the executive director of the NAACP and a leader of the African-American civil rights movement.
1901-1981
African-American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the 1950s and '60s.
1925-1965
Andrew Young, Jr is a clergyman and was an activist during the civil rights movement. He was also a member of congress and twice elected at the mayor of Atlanta.
1932-
1918-1997
1921-1971