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The mission of The Radical Agenda is to show every child that they belong in the pages of history and they are capable of making a difference in their communities, and what better way than to highlight the lesser-highlighted Civil Rights activists?

You are probably familiar with some of the biggest names of the Civil Rights movement: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and Rosa Parks. But you might not have heard about the other important activists of the time.

This list of Civil Rights activists is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully can act as a starting point to learning more about the people who used their talents to fight for equality for all.

The History of the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights movement started during the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War in 1865, as Southern Sympathizers reacted restrictive laws to maintain white supremacy legally, called the Jim Crow era. Though activists fought for equality, the movement did not begin to gain much traction until after World War II, when Black soldiers were deployed overseas and realized how differently they were treated overseas compared to at home in the United States. When the G.I. Bill went into effect, those brave Black soldiers were limited in their ability to access their benefits.

Big turning points around this time were Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in professional baseball in 1947, Thurgood Marshall successfully arguing Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 in front of the Supreme Court, and President Eisenhower sending in the National Guard to Little Rock High School in 1957.

Once the movement attracted leaders like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis, participation skyrocketed, with the most famous demonstration being the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, when Dr. King gave his iconic “I have a dream” speech.

The violence of the counter-movement gained national awareness on Bloody Sunday, named for the horrific bloodshed at the hands of the police officers as peaceful protestors walked across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma, Alabama.

As the movement grew from the 1950s-1970s, so did the group of activists. Hopefully this blog post will introduce you to at least a few new people!

Civil Rights Activists You Should Know About

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Thurgood Marshall

As mentioned above, Thurgood Marshall was the attorney who represented Oliver Brown, a Black man in Topeka Kansas who claimed his daughter was denied entry to a white public school. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS ruled in favor of Oliver Brown, declaring segregated schools to be in violation of the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Thurgood Marshall went on to become the first Black Supreme Court Justice.

Claudette Colvin

We all learned about Rosa Parks in school, and her bravery for refusing to give up her seat on the bus. But what you might not have learned is that Rosa Parks was not the first – it was actually teenage activist Claudette Colvin who first refused to give up her seat. She was ultimately not chosen to be the face of the Montgomery bus boycotts for a variety of reasons, including her age and, most unfortunately, her darker complexion.

Georgia Gilmore

The Montgomery bus boycotts were a huge community effort to coordinate and maintain for over a year, from December 5, 1955 – December 20, 1956, with a goal of ending segregation of public transportation. In order to avoid using the busses, activists coordinated ride shares using their cars to take everyone everywhere. This required a lot of money to help cover car maintenance and gas. One of the women behind the fundraising effort was a Mrs. Georgia Gilmore, who sold pies and other baked goods and donated the proceeds to the cause. My boys and I first learned about her when we read “Pies from Nowhere,” titled because when people would ask where the pies came from, she and her team of bakers would answer “oh, nowhere.”

Freedom Riders

Who were the Freedom Riders? In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on busses was unconstitutional. While this was a victory on paper, the ruling was not enforced by the government and violence against Black people on busses continued. In 1961, a group of Black and white young adults boarded a bus in Washington D.C. with a goal of riding buses all the way south to New Orleans, Louisiana. Along the way they encountered anticipated violence, which was broadcast to the media. The media coverage allowed everyone to bear witness to the violence that was often done in secret. Their bravery highlighted the Civil Rights movement and attracted many more activists.

Sit-Ins

The courage and determination of the Freedom Riders sparked others to activism as well. “Sit-ins” became a form of protest as Black activists sat calmly at restaurant counters, waiting to be served. They often encountered resistance from the white people in the area, who harassed the non-violent protestors by spitting on them (or on their food, if they did get served), or pouring ketchup and mustard on them.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was a Black gay man who was a Civil Rights activist as an organizer. He was an early adopter of the nonviolent resistance movement, laying the groundwork for activism like the Freedom Rides later in the movement. He served as a mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr., despite the pushback from the strong homophobia of the culture. While he worked behind the scenes mostly because he was openly gay, because Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in him, he was placed in charge of the largest rally of the Civil Rights Era, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963.

Josephine Baker

As a native St. Louisan myself, I was so happy to learn that I share this city with multi-talented hero Josephine Baker. Josephine was biracial, and bisexual, and unapologetically herself. Her early story is one of survival, as she became a live-in maid at age eight and was married for the first time at age fourteen. She was divorced twice by age twenty, and found huge success as a performer in Paris, France. During World War II, she even served as an Allied spy, carrying message on sheets of music written in invisible ink.

Upon her return to the United States, she joined the Civil Rights movement, advocating for the end of segregation in the United States. Her fame helped the movement get more attention. She refused to perform in segregated spaces, and her passion for the cause led her to become one of the few women speakers at the March on Washington.

Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples joined her family’s gospel choir at age eight and began performing around the country. As their family’s fame grew, so did their influence. So when they met the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., their family’s mission shifted from singing only gospel songs to also singing songs of hope that bore witness to events like Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. Mavis eventually continued on with a solo career, and as of August 2025 is actively touring the world, still gracing us with her voice and her songs.

Alton Yates

Alton Yates was perhaps one of the most fascinating activists I learned about. He joined the military as a way to provide for his family in the newly-integrated Air Force. Once in the Air Force, he partnered with Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Stapp as part of a study focusing on protecting human bodies in high-speed situations. These experiments served to help guide the researchers of NASA as they began the space race.

After the Air Force, he became an activist for the Civil Rights movement after experiencing the extreme racism of the Jim Crow laws on a road trip trying to get back to his sick father. He helped organize the youth movement of the NAACP, which included sit-ins at the segregated lunch counters. During one such sit-in, he and the others were attacked by a mob of angry white people, and he was struck across the back of his head with the handle of an ax, creating a scar Mr. Yates still carries.

Bob Zellner

I first learned about Bob Zellner when I watched the movie Son of the South, which happened to be released in February 2021 during the Black Lives Matter marches of 2020-2021, after the murder of George Floyd. Son of the South is based on Zellner’s memoir account of being a white Civil Rights activist.

Bob Zellner was a white student in the deeply segregated south during the Civil Rights Movement, who became the field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, of which Freedom Rider and future Congressman John Lewis was a member. Zellner’s memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, details how he broke free from the racist rules of the time and put himself on the line for what he believed in.