rosa parks- led the montgomery bus boycott.
martin luther king jr.- won the nobel peace prize for his "I Have A Dream" speech. He was assassinated in Nashville, TN. they beleive that his death was a government conspiracy, some think James Earl Rey killed him on his own.
black history month was started in 1926, it was originally called negro history week. it was established in february because there were two former abolitionists whom had birthdays during that month
jackie robinson was the first african american to play mlb. robinson was born in 1919 into a very poor family in georgia. he played tennis track basketball football and of course baseball. he also did sports in college. he was the first athlete to letter in four sports at ucla. from 1942 to 1945 he was in an all black calvary, he fought in world war two. zach thinks jackie is very influential on black athletes and black right. before jackie in baseball they had the negro leagues. he did not feel that was competetive enough. jackie robinson made it into the mlb be tryouts, he played minor leagues and was eventually moved up the the major leagues.
the watts riots were in los angeles. these started on august 11 in 1965. they were started by a black drunk driver whom was pulled over by a white cop. the black man asked if his brother could drive his car home. the officer said the car was to be impounded. eventually the whole family was arrested. it was in a black community. because the white officer was treating the black man so poorly people in the black community began to riot. the riot proceeded to get worse as the days went on. people began to start fires. national guards were sent in to maintain the streets. the riots started to die down on august 15. in the end there were 32 people dead, 800 wounded, and 3,000 people were arrested.
colin powell was born in harlem. he went into the military after high school and fought in vietnam. he was a captain for the army when he was in vietnam. when he first went over he was wounded, so he was sent back but he eventually returned. he became president george w. bush's secretary of state. he was the first african american secretary of state and was the first black man to be in charge of the joint chiefs of staff. about a year and a half ago he made the news saying that he was a supporter of barrack obama, which made a lot of republicans angry.
thurgood marshall was a lawyer. he was denied into the university of maryland because he was black. he won his first major court case in 1933. he sued maryland university because they denied his entry into their school. he won that case. in about 1967 he was nominated for supreme court, in which he made on. he was the first black supreme court justice.
NAACP- national association of the advancement of colored people. this was started by a white man.
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