Famous Female Civil Rights Activists a to z

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American civil rights activist and leader during the women's suffrage movement of the 1800s.

Joan Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter and activist who is best known for her distinctive voice and for her role in popularizing the music of Bob Dylan.

Civil rights activist Ella Baker worked with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Josephine Baker was a dancer and singer who became wildly popular in France during the 1920s. She also devoted much of her life to fighting racism.

Daisy Bates was an African American civil rights activist and newspaper publisher who documented the battle to end segregation in Arkansas.

Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator and activist, serving as president of the National Association of Colored Women and founding the National Council of Negro Women.

Mum Betts (Elizabeth Freeman) was the first slave to successfully sue for her freedom, encouraging Massachusetts to abolish slavery.

Linda Brown was the child associated with the lead name in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, which led to the outlawing of U.S. school segregation in 1954.

Septima Poinsette Clark was a pioneering educator and activist who championed teacher’s rights with organizations like the NAACP.

Teacher Marva Collins was one of the most influential education activists of the 20th century, working to gain equal access for minorities to quality education.

Claudette Colvin was a civil rights activist in Alabama during the 1950s. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest.

Angela Davis is an activist, scholar and writer who advocates for the oppressed. She has authored several books, including Women, Culture & Politics.

Ruby Dee is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, activist, poet and journalist, perhaps best known for starring in the 1961 film A Raisin in the Sun. She's also known for her civic work with husband Ossie Davis.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist. She was the first female judge in Iran, and won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

Author and activist Myrlie Evers-Williams was the wife of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and served as chair of the NAACP 1995–1998.

Matilda Joslyn Gage was an author and one of the leading figures in the women's rights and suffrage movement that began in the mid-1800s.

The poems of Nikki Giovanni helped to define the African-American voice of the 1960s, '70s and beyond. She was also a major force in the Black Arts movement.

Abolitionist and feminist Sarah Moore Grimké and her sister Angelina were the first women to testify before a state legislature on the issue of blacks' rights.

Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activists who helped African Americans register to vote and who cofounded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Dorothy Height was a civil rights and women's rights activist focused primarily on improving the circumstances of and opportunities for African-American women.

Actress and singer Lena Horne was one of the most popular performers of her time, known for films such as The Wiz and her trademark song, "Stormy Weather."

Dolores Huerta is an activist and labor leader who co-founded what would become the United Farm Workers.

Anthropologist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance before writing her masterwork, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

20th century recording artist Mahalia Jackson, known as the Queen of Gospel, is revered as one of the greatest musical figures in U.S. history.

In 1951, Barbara Johns led her fellow students in a walkout to protest school segregation. She then started a lawsuit that became part of Brown v. Board of Ed.

June Jordan was an African American author who investigated both social and personal concerns through poetry, essays, and drama.

Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist and the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan for her efforts.

Mary Mahoney became the first black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879.

Miriam Makeba, also known as "Mama Africa," was a popular South-African singer who introduced Xhosa and Zulu songs to Western audiences. She is best known for the songs "Pata Pata," "The Click Song" and "Malaika."

Anne Moody is an African-American author whose writings about her personal and political struggles during the American Civil Rights Movement became classic.

Constance Baker Motley was a legal advocate in the Civil Rights Movement. She became the first female African-American federal judge in 1966.

Lucretia Mott was a leading social reformer of her time and helped to form the Free Religious Association.

Reverend Pauli Murray was an American civil rights advocate and ordained priest. She is best known for furthering the civil rights and feminist causes.

Civil rights activist and ACLU alum Eleanor Holmes Norton serves as a non-voting delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia.

Mary White Ovington was a civil rights activist and one of the white reformers who helped found the NAACP.

Dorothy Parker was the sharpest wit of the Algonquin Round Table, as well as a master of short fiction and a blacklisted screenwriter.

Charlotte E. Ray was the first female African-American lawyer in the United States.

Faith Ringgold is an American artist and author who became famous for innovative, quilted narrations like Tar Beach that communicate her political beliefs.

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.

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an American community leader and women's rights activist who focused particularly on issues affecting African-American women.

Augusta Savage is remembered as an artist, activist, and arts educator, serving as an inspiration to the many that she taught, helped, and encouraged.

Betty Shabazz is best known as the wife of African-American nationalist leader Malcolm X, who was assassinated in New York City in 1965.

Helen Taft was a schoolteacher, political adviser and U.S. First Lady who was the wife of President William Howard Taft.

Mary Church Terrell was a charter member of the NAACP and an early advocate for civil rights and the suffrage movement.

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.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad.

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African-American novelist and poet most famous for authoring The Color Purple.

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.

Julia Ward Howe was a women's rights activist, abolitionist and writer who penned the poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Simone Weil was a French intellectual, activist and Christian Mystic.

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.