1. DO NOW
February 2016

2. Feb 1st: Martin Luther King Jr. (Jan 15, 1929- April 4, 1968)
Minister, activist, and Civil Rights leader (nonviolent civil disobedience).
Founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the marches on Selma, Birmingham, and Washington, (“I have a dream” speech).
Won the Nobel Peace Prize 1964.
Assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

3. Feb2nd: Booker T. Washington (April 5, 1856- Nov 14, 1915)
Teacher, political advisor and writer; former slave.
1881- founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama which focused on training African Americans in agriculture.

4. Feb 3rd: Medgar Evers (July 2, 1925- June 12, 1963)
Civil rights activist
1st state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi.
Organized voter-registration efforts, demonstrations, and boycotts of discriminatory companies
Investigated hate crimes.
Assassinated in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.

5. Feb 6th: George Washington Carver (Jan 1864- Jan 1943)
Former slave from Missouri.
Scientist, inventor, and teacher.
Taught at the Tuskegee Institute.
Devised over 100 products using peanuts (dyes, plastics, gasoline)

6. Feb 7th: Frederick Douglass (Feb 7,1817- Feb 20, 1895)
Abolitionist leader/ writer/ lecturer/ intellectual.
Born into slavery in Maryland.
Advised presidents and gave lectures (abolition, women’s rights, Irish home rule).
Wrote an autobiography describing his experiences in slavery and his life after the Civil War.

7. Feb 8th: Jesse Jackson (b. October 8, 1941)
Civil rights activist; minister; journalist
Marched with MLK in Selma
Founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition
Leading national spokesman for African Americans in the 1980s
Special envoy to Africa
Awarded the 2000 Presidential Medal of Freedom

8. Feb 9th: W.E.B. Du Bois (Feb 23, 1868- Aug 27, 1963)
Scholar, civil rights activist.
st African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard.
Wrote about social equality.
Co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

9. Feb 10th: Roy Wilkins (August 30, 1901- September 8, 1981)
Civil rights activist, editor, journalist.
Editor of the Kansas City Call
Executive director of the NAACP
Helped organized the 1963 March on Washington.

10. Feb 13th: Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908- January 24, 1993)
Civil rights activist; supreme court justice
Counsel to the NAACP
Won the Brown v. Board of Education case (1954) which ended segregation in public schools.
1st African American Supreme Court Justice.

11. Feb 14th: James Meredith (b. June 25, 1933)
Civil rights activist
First African American to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Had to be escorted onto campus with 500 US Marshals and National Guard officers because of rioting.

12. Feb15th: Mae C. Jemison (b. October 17, 1956)
Doctor
Astronaut
First African-American woman astronaut in the US.
Flew into space aboard the Endeavour

13. Feb 16th: Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928-May 28, 2014)
Author/poet, actress, activist.
Served as the SCLC's northern coordinator.
First African American woman to have her screenplay produced.
1993- wrote a poem for Clinton's inauguration.
Author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Earned a NAACP Award, a Tony nomination, Emmy Award, and is a NY Times' best-seller.

14. Feb 17th:Ella Baker (December 13, 1903-December 13, 1986)
Civil rights activist.
Organized the Young Negroes Cooperative League in NYC
National director- NAACP
Member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

15. Feb 21st: Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1910- Aug 24, 1987)
Civil rights activist; close adviser to MLK
Helped establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Organized the 1963 March on Washington.
President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute for civil rights ( ).

16. Feb 22nd : Malcolm X (Malcom Little) (May 29, 1925- Feb 21, 1965)
Civil rights activist
Black nationalist leader.
Spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
Encouraged African Americans to fight racism "by any means necessary”
Shot to death 15 times in front of his family at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan before giving a speech; he was 39.

17. Feb 23rd: Jackie Robinson (Jan 31, 1919- Oct 4, 1972)
Baseball player for the Dodgers.
First African-American to play major league baseball.
Rookie of the Year in 1947
National League MVP 1949
World Series champ in 1955.

18. Feb 24th: Ida B. Wells-Barnett (July 16,1862- March 25, 1931)
Civil rights activist; journalist.
Led an anti-lynching crusade (1890s).
Formed the National Association of Colored Women.
Worked with the National Equal Rights League to end discriminatory hiring practices for government jobs.
Created the first African-American kindergarten in her community and fought for women's suffrage.

19. Feb 27th : Mary McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875- May 18, 1955)
Educator/activist
Believed education would provide the key to racial advancement.
Founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute (now Bethune- Cookman College).

20. Feb 28th: Ruby Bridges (b. Sept 8, 1954)
1st African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.
Awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton in