Educator and activist Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was born on July 10, 1875, in Mayesville, South Carolina. She founded a private school for African Americans and was a member of several African American women’s organizations, sometimes called the “Female Booker T. Washington.”
Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the first African American Supreme Court Justice and served 24 years on the bench.
Patricia Roberts Harris was born on May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, Illinois. Harris achieved several firsts in her life. She was the first black woman to serve as an American ambassador, serve in the US Cabinet, be dean of a law school, and sit on the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company.
US Chief Justice Earl Warren was born on March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, California. He’s considered one of the nation’s most influential Supreme Court justices, with his time on the court referred to as a “Constitutional Revolution.”
Journalist and civil rights activist Oswald Garrison Villard was born on March 13, 1872, in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was an editor of the New York Evening Post and a founding member of the NAACP.
On February 12, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in New York City. It’s America’s oldest and largest civil rights group.
On January 20, 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed as a federal holiday after a decades-long battle.
Statesman Everett McKinley Dirksen was born on January 4, 1896, in Pekin, Illinois.
First Lady Lady Bird Johnson was born on December 22, 1912, in Karnack, Texas.