Category: Activist / page 8

Charlotte Forten Grimké
Charlotte Forten Grimké


Charlotte Forten Grimké was an African American teacher, author, abolitionist and suffragist. Born on August 17, 1837, to a family of prominent Philadelphia abolitionists, Charlotte Forten Grimké receive an excellent education from tutors as she was barred from attending a segregated school. At the age of 17, she was sent to Salem, Massachusetts, to be educated further at the Higginson Grammar school and then the Salem Normal School, where she enjoyed great success. After graduation, she found a job as a teacher at Eppes Grammar School. It was in Salem […]
Sarah Moore Grimké
Sarah Moore Grimké


For information on her sister, Angelina Grimké Weld, visit her profile at awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/angelina-grimke-weld-2/ . Sarah Moore Grimké was a nineteenth-century abolitionist, suffragist and orator. Born on November 26, 1792, to a family of wealthy slaveholders in Charleston, South Carolina, Grimké learned the evils of slavery at an early age. As a child, she tried to teach some of the enslaved people how to read on their plantation until her father discovered and forbade her from continuing. After an 1819 visit to Philadelphia with her father where she met several Quaker […]
Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer


Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was the first woman from Mississippi to be an official delegate at a national party convention and the first African American since the Reconstruction period. Hamer was born on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of 20 children in a family of sharecroppers. She attended school through the sixth grade, then dropped out to work as a sharecropper. In 1961, without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilized as part of Mississippi's plan […]
Suzan Shown Harjo
Suzan Shown Harjo


Susan Shown Harjo is an Indigenous writer and policy advocate. She is the president of The Morning Star Institute and a columnist at Indian Country Today. In 2014, Harjo was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor by Barack Obama. Harjo was born on June 2, 1945, in El Reno, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Cheyenne and Hudulgee Muscogee Nations. She received an honorary doctorate in humanities in 2011 from the Institute of American Indian Arts. From 1976-1979, Harjo served as a special assistant for Indian legislation and liaison […]
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper


Frances Ellen Watkins (Harper) was an abolitionist and poet born free in 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland. Harper's mother died before she was three years old, leaving her an orphan. Harper was raised by her uncle, William Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a radical political figure in civil rights. Watkins was a major influence on Harper's political, religious and social views. Harper attended the Academy for Negro Youth, and the rigorous education she received, along with the political activism of her uncle, affected and influenced her […]
Ida Husted Harper
Ida Husted Harper


Ida Husted Harper was an author, journalist and suffragist. Harper was born on February 18, 1851, in Fairfield, Indiana. She attended Indiana University for one year, but left to become a teacher and high school principal. She married in 1871 and soon after began her career as a journalist, writing articles for Terre Haute and Indianapolis newspapers under the pseudonym of "Mrs. John Smith." She did not begin using her own name on her work until 1881. For twelve years, she wrote a column for the Terre Haute Saturday Evening […]
Dorothy Height
Dorothy Height


Dorothy Irene Height was an educator and civil rights and women's rights activist. President of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, Height was one of the most influential women in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912, and raised in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Graduating from high school in 1929, she won a national public speaking contest with the prize of a four-year college scholarship. She was admitted to Barnard College but was denied entrance due to the […]
Anita Hill
Anita Hill


Anita Hill is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of Brandeis' Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Hill became a national figure in 1991 when she testified at the Senate confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas that he had sexually harassed her when he was her boss at the United States Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hill was born July 30, 1956 in Lone Tree, Oklahoma. She received a bachelor's degree in […]
Colleen Holcomb
Colleen Holcomb


Colleen Holcomb served as vice president of government relations of Eagle Forum, the conservative grassroots organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly, from 2020-2022, and as executive director of Eagle Forum’s Washington, D.C. office from 2008-2013. Holcomb was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College, her juris doctorate from Regent Law School, and a master’s degree in communications from Regent University. During her undergraduate studies, Holcomb served in various government offices at the local, state and federal levels, including work with the city of […]
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker


Isabella Beecher Hooker, woman's rights advocate and suffragist, is best known for her suffrage work in Connecticut and New England. Introduced to suffrage by Caroline Severance, Hooker helped found the New England Woman Suffrage Association and formed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, serving as president from 1869 to 1905. She joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, spoke at their conventions, and lobbied and testified before Congress. One of 13 children of the famous Beecher family, her brother was celebrated preacher Henry Ward Beecher, and Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe […]