SIX LEADERS WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE
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Jacob Sechler Coxey Sr. (also Jacob Coxey or Jacob S. Coxey; sometimes known as General Coxey) (born April 16, 1854 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; died May 18, 1951) of Massillon, Ohio, was a socialist American politician, who ran for elective office several times in Ohio. He twice led Coxey's Army (in 1894 and 1914), bands of unemployed men, on marches from Massillon to Washington, D.C. to demand that the United States Congress appropriate money to create jobs for the unemployed. [READ MORE] |
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Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist leader. Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.In 1912, Alice Paul joined the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and was appointed Chairman of their Congressional Committee in Washington, DC.[2] Iin 1913, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage. Their focus was lobbying for a constitutional amendment to secure the right to vote for women. [READ MORE] |
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Walter W. Waters was a former Army Sergeant in the United States Army who, in May 1932, led the 10,000-strong army of World War I veterans called the Bonus Army on their march to Washington, D.C.. The veterans were seeking pensions promised to them by Congress in a 1924 act. The army camped in the suburb of Anacostia (namesake of the Battle of Anacostia Flats) where Waters made his remark, "We're here for the duration and we're not going to starve." Waters was forced to tell his army the bad news that the Senate had defeated a bill that would give the veterans their bonuses immediately. On July 28, the United States government ordered the evacuation of the veterans from government property. Waters and his army went home after a brief skirmish. |
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Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was a huge victory for labor and especially for African-American labor organizing.Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokesmen for African-American civil rights. In 1941, he, Bayard Rustin, and A. J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries. The march was canceled after President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Fair Employment Act. [READ MORE] |
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Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968), was one of the pivotal leaders of the American civil rights movement. King was a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time. He became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956) and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), serving as its first president. His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. [READ MORE] |
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John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American politician.He is a Vietnam Veteran, and was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he returned home from service. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).On April 22, 1971, Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress about the war. The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with 800 other veterans in which he and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the United States Capitol building to dramatize their opposition to the war. [READ MORE] |