The Woozy Hall of Fame does not presume to represent all of the great Americans who deserve to be recognized in the cause of black freedom;
rather, this page is a love letter to a vital few who have touched our lives, lightened our burden and inspired us to continue their noble work.
TUNIS CAMPBELL
Tunis Campbell was one of the main organizers of the structure which would make Field Order #15 (40 acres and a mule), one of the manifest experiments in Black self-governance. He was a community organizer, teacher, abolitionist, anti-colonialist and an American, who rejected the concept that Blacks should be repatriated back to Africa.
Quote:"We should really determine ourselves what we're doing... This is our home... Beginning next week, I will divide up the land into forty acres for each of you... Order," said Campbell, "is Heaven's first law." Tunis Campbell was also an American reconstruction politician in Georgia. In 1867, with a goal to help freedmen vote, Campbell was appointed to the Board of Registration in Georgia. He was elected to congress as a senator in Georgia in 1868. He was able to return to office in 1871, but lost in 1872 and eventually imprisoned in a Georgia labor camp before fleeing the state.
THE GREENSBORO 4
TheWoozy.com's nominee for the most significant group in the entire civil rights movement. On February 4, 1960, 4 friends sat together and debated the issue of segregation. In the end, they decided that they were going to do something about the discrimination they were experiencing at the downtown Woolworth lunch counter. 4 friends were students at North Carolina A&T, Ezell Blair, David Leinhal, Alfred McNeil and Franklin McCain. At first the management just ignored them, hoping they would go away, but each day, more and more students came until soon, 300 students were involved in the protest. Soon copycat sit-ins were taking place across the south, in dozens of cities. By May, Woolworth's, under intense pressure, media attention and declining sales, desegregated their lunch counter. Efforts in other cities were also successful. With the success of the Greensboro sit-in, soon the protest moved on to buses, hotels, and other forms of public accommodation. In short order the most effective strategy -Civil Disobedience, ignited the Civil Rights movement. Historians, in assessment of that age, look at the the four black students from North Carolina A&T as the ones who unknowingly started a protest that sparked a new era.
HARRIET JACOBS
Harriet Jacobs fended off repeated sexual advances by her owner and resolved to run away, stowing herself away in the attic of her free grandmother's home for several years, convincing her master that she had escaped and was living in New York, before finally, she was able to make her way to freedom. Once in free parts, she wrote her autobiography with the help of noted feminist and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. Ms. Jacobs unflinching conviction in the strength of her moral position together with her pride, resolve and suffering, elevate her tome to one of the most remarkable of the slave narratives. As a mother, she risked capture in the south so that she could secure the freedom of her two children (The children's father was a white man who eventually became a congressman). Jacob's story continued in the north where she had to avoid slave catchers. Harriet Jacobs writing on the effect of the Fugitive Slave Act:
About the time that I reentered the Bruce family, an event occurred of disastrous import to the colored people. The slave Hamlin, the first fugitive that came under the new law, was given up by the bloodhounds of the north to the bloodhounds of the south. It was the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population. The great city rushed on in its whirl of excitement, taking no note of the "short and simple annals of the poor." But while fashionables were listening to the thrilling voice of Jenny Lind in Metropolitan Hall, the thrilling voices of poor hunted colored people went up, in an agony of supplication, to the Lord, from Zion's church. Many families, who had lived in the city for twenty years, fled from it now. Many a poor washerwoman, who, by hard labor, had made herself a comfortable home, was obliged to sacrifice her furniture, bid a hurried farewell to friends, and seek her fortune among strangers in Canada. Many a wife discovered a secret she had never known before--that her husband was a fugitive, and must leave her to insure his own safety. Worse still, many a husband discovered that his wife had fled from slavery years ago, and as "the child follows the condition of its mother," the children of his love were liable to be seized and carried into slavery. Every where, in those humble homes, there was consternation and anguish. But what cared the legislators of the "dominant race" for the blood they were crushing out of trampled hearts?
THE ABOLITIONIST
The abolitionist, whether they were in England and refused to eat sugar, or were from the America's and evolved into the first feminist and suffragist, were key in the overthrow of slavery. Slavery teaches that Whites made slaves of Blacks. What has been obscured is that if it were not for White abolitionist, slavery may still be in existence to this day. Blacks had no power, political or otherwise to end slavery. The key force, had to come from those in power. Abolitionist risked life, reputation amd freedom not because they simply believed in the cause, but because they had no other alternative. Like many great individuals in the history of humanity, they simply had no choice to turn a blind eye towards the most eggregious form of human injustice known to man. Perhaps the greatest abolitionist was Theodore Dwight Weld, the instigator of the Lane Seminary Debates, and author of the horrific, 'American Slavery As It Is' and husband of Angelina Grimke, one half of the abolitionist Grimke Sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke were the daughters of rich slave owners who became abolitionist and later were leaders of the feminist movement. Their nephew was Archibald Grimke, founder of the NAACP. Other famous Abolitionist were: William Lloyd Garrison, John Rankin, Elijah P. Lovejoy, Cassius Clay, Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Wendell Phillips.
Quote: "I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard."
ROBERT SMALLS
Robert Smalls is one of the most intelligent, adaptive and highly accomplished Blacks of the 19th and early 20th century. His accomplishments rival that of any American of his era. Born in 1839, Robert Smalls has the distinction of being a former slave who escaped to freedom, a decorated civil war veteran, a Captain of a U.S. vessel, a S.C. state legislator and U.C. Congressman, as well as Major General in the S.C. Militia.
Quote (from Harper's Weekly, 1862): "Robert Smalls, with whom I had a brief interview at General Benham's headquarters this morning, is an intelligent negro... adopted the idea of running the vessel, The Planter to sea from a joke which one of his companions had perpetrated."
ROBERT F. WILLIAMS
Robert F. Williams was a shining example of an uncompromising Black man, who dedicated his life to the acquisition of justice through his pen, his radioshow and his fearless protection of his community. From, "Negroes With Guns" Black children in Monroe were not allowed in the public swimming pool reserved for whites, and several Black children had drowned in unsupervised swimming holes. So in 1957, Williams asked the city to open the pool to Black children one day a week. City officials answered that this would be "too expensive" because "they would have to drain and refill the pool each time" after Black children swam in it. Williams then took a group of Black youth to the pool to try to get in and after this he started getting death threats. Robert Williams came up with a pathbreaking response that would send shockwaves through the South: he started organizing armed squads of Black people for self-defense. The KKK held meetings attended by thousands and would then get in their cars and drive through the Black community in their white robes and hoods. Williams decided it was necessary to arm the people: "We bought some guns in stores and later a church in the North raised money and got us better rifles." Later, Williams would travel to New York, to speak at Malcolm X's Mosque No. 7, to raise money for arms. And this approach of armed self-defense proved effective. The night of October 5, 1957, the Klan came rampaging into Newton, a Black section of Monroe, and were met by scores of armed Black men. The kluckers panicked and fled in every direction, and this was the last time they rampaged through Newton like this.
THE GRIMKE'S
The Grimke family's legacy in American History is of firsts. Their legacy is wide ranging and explosive. From southern plantation aristocracy, to the front lines of the abolitionist and feminist movement. The sisters were members of one of the first families in upper crust of Charleston, South Carolina plantation aristocracy. From this beginning, the sisters became internationally know for their abolitionist and feminist writings, speeches and newspaper articles. Both sisters wrote articles for William Lloyd Garrison and his abolitionist newspaper, THE EMANCIPATOR. The Grimke sisters were a major force in the abolitionist movement. Angelina also became one of the leading voices for feminism, woman suffrage and the equality movement. Their sisters challenged their own Presbyterian church to condemn slavery and When they refused, the sisters became Quakers. Angelina wrote the famous, Appeal to Christian Women of the South. Angelina and Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin carried on a mail correspondence. Beecher Stowe felt that women should not be political, as they were subservient to men. Angelina of course, fought for political action and women's rights. Of the two sisters, Angelina was considered a masterful public speaker. She later married Theodore Dwight Weld, author of American Slavery as it is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a compendium and catalogue of the numerous horrors of slavery. Their brother, Henry Grimke, lived with one of his slaves, Nancy Weston, as husband and wife. They had three children, Archibald Francis and John. Archibald Grimke was a lawyer, journalist, diplomat and community leader. He was a graduate of Historically Black Lincoln University and later, Harvard Law School. He was consul to the Dominican Republic and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. His daughter, Angelina W. Grimke was one of the first openly lesbian poet and was one of the first artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
HARRIET TUBMAN
With the strength of 1,000 mules and the cunning of a fox, this simple woman placed herself squarely between north and south, freedom and slavery and risked her life to lead former slaves to the promise of the north.
Quote: "We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped."
E.D. NIXON
Mostly unschooled, but fiercely determined, this simple man organized the civil rights movement from behind the scenes, which is the reason he is a little known figure.
Quote: "I'm from Montgomery, Alabama, a city that's known as the cradle of the confederacy, that had stood still for more than ninety-three years until Rosa L. Parks was arrested and thrown in jail like a common criminal. Fifty thousand people rose up and caught hold to the cradle of the confederacy and began to rock it till the Jim Crow rockers began to reel and the segregated slats began to fall out."
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
To describe Harriet Beecher Stowe and her accomplishments, it is best to quote, 'History is Biography'. for Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps the greatest and most influential book in the history of the United States is undoubtedly about the real life and the real times of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe, being a female author in a time when women had not attained the right of suffrage and were thought to be unsuited to make public statements before mixed company. Stowe was highly educated, with a strong philosophical and religious knowledge. The power she had been robbed of as a woman, she infused within the world of the novel, which in turn was devoured by the public thereby circumvented the standard avenues women had available to them to voice feminist perspectives. The age of Stowe was an age when a women's duty was to instill morality and sensitivity into their young. Stowe accepted this responsibility and expanded it to the education of a nation. Indeed, the beginnings of the feminist movement were inculcated within the abolitionist movement and it's earliest message in part was one of the need for the expansion of the established female role into politics. Stowe was the daughter of Henry Ward Beecher, a religious scholar who had assumed the first presidency of Lane Seminary in 1832. Her husband was Calvin Stowe, a religious scholar in his own right who taught Greek at Dartmouth and joined Stowe's father at Lane Seminary. Stowe also had 5 full brothers and 2 half brothers, 5 of which were ministers. Stowe's personal understanding of slavery was far beyond religion, legislation, letters and parlor-room discussions. Stowe had formed numerous personal relationships with former slaves, some of whom worked for her family.
W. E. B. DU BOIS
Du Bois became the leading figure in Black intelligensia. From his pulpit in Harvard, to his personal experiences in rural Tennessee, Du Bois took part in the creation of the Niagra Movement, The NAACP, and attempted to link American Blacks with the struggles of Africa.
Quote: "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."
PAUL ROBESON
Paul Robeson was an All-American athlete and top scholar who used his celebrity to advance the American ideals of freedom of speech, equal rights and political freedom around the world.
Quote: "I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed... I have sung my songs all over the world and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs as their own."
THEODORE DWIGHT WELD
Weld was one of the most tireless and intelligent speakers against slavery in the history of the United States. He was the major agitator in the Lane Seminary debates, and was well known to all of the major abolitionist of the time. He was a master community and grass roots organizer and one of the chief tacticians of the abolitionist movement. In his youth, he traveled by foot, horse, cart and stage across the north and mid-west to spread the work of abolitionism. In 1831 Arthur Tappan established the Anti-Slavery Society in New York. Weld joined and in 1834 left his studies to work as an agent for society. Weld often had his meetings broken up and in Troy, New York, he was stoned by a mob. An inspiring speaker, Weld made many converts, including James Birney and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Weld also wrote several pamphlets for the organization including The Bible Against Slavery (1837) and the most well-researched history of the horrors of slavery, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839). After his marriage to fellow campaigner and one of the original feminist theorist, Angelina Grimke, of the famous Grimke family, Weld joined the Society of Friends.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
William Lloyd Garrison, the son of a seaman, advocated "immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves". Garrison established the anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator. The newspaper only had a circulation of 3,000 but the strong opinions expressed in its columns gained Garrison a national reputation. Garrison's views were particularly unpopular in the South and the state of Georgia offered $5,000 for his arrest and conviction. Garrison was highly critical of the Church for its refusal to condemn slavery. Some anti-slavery campaigners began arguing that Garrison's bitter attacks on the clergy was frightening off potential supporters. They objected to the attacks on the US Constitution and the prominent role played by women in the society. Garrison became increasingly radical and in 1854 he created controversy by publicly burning a copy of the Constitution at a Anti-Slavery rally. In 1832 Garrison formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society. The following year he helped organize the Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison was influenced by AND influenced Susan Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and other feminists who joined the society. This was reflected in the content of the Liberator that now began to advocate women's suffrage.
A. PHILLIP RANDOLPH
The founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Randolph became the leading activist of his day.
Quote: "Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship."
CARTER G. WOODSON
From the dank, hot and dusty coal mines of West Virginia, to the hallowed halls of Harvard, Woodson is the author of the seminal book, The Mis-education of the Negro", a must read for all education minded Blacks.
Quote: "If the Negro area, however, is to continue as a district supported wholly from without, the inept dwellers therein will merit and will receive only the contempt of those who may occasionally catch glimpses of them in their plight."
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
This escaped slave became the most iconic figure for Black activism, as well as Black strength. Escaping to freedom with forged seamen's papers, Douglass did not settle for merely his own freedom.
Quote: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning."
THURGOOD MARSHALL
The chief architect of the NAACP legal strategy to fight segregation, the hopes of the entire Black nation sat squarely upon his shoulders as he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court.
Quote: "Even if all parties approach the court's mandate with the best of conscious intentions, ... that mandate requires them to confront and overcome their own racism on all levels a challenge I doubt all of them can meet."
NELSON MANDELA
From tribal leader to lawyer to activist, underground resistance leader, inmate to President. Nelson Mandela is a case study in persistance, flexibility, determination and indomitable will.
Quote:"As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
MARCUS GARVEY
A native Jamaican, Garvey's need for recognition and pride became the impetus for the uplift of the entire Black Community as his organization birthed the political consciousness of the Harlem renaissance.
Quote: "God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and eternity our measurement."
PAULO FREIRE
Freire's legacy is based in the fact that he brings compassion and the most powerful of problem solving devices, the human ear, as the centerpiece of his self-empowered, community based mode of inquiry and empowerment.
Quote: "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."
ROSA PARKS
One day in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 Rosa Parks decided she would not give up her seat at the front of the bus. So she was arrested. What followed was one of the largest and successful social protests in the history of the United States, known at the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted 1 year and 19 days when the Supreme Court affirmed that segregation on public transportation was against the law. Parks was a secretary for the local NAACP office, and was chosen by E.D. Nixon due to her strong will and determination. Martin Luther King helped to organized carpools so that African-Americans could get to work. After several months, they won the right to sit at the front of the bus.
REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Perhaps the most well-known Black man in the history of America, Dr. King won a Nobel Prize for his moving oration, his willingness to put it all on the line and his nonviolent approach, modeled after Gandhi. Most well known for his I HAVE A DREAM speech, his birthday is now a national holiday and an ever-present reminder of a time when Black people rose up to be counted.
TOMMIE SMITH & JOHN CARLOS
After finishing 1st and 3rd in the 400 meter race in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos shocked the world by standing on the podium, barefoot (to symbolize poverty) and with black gloves on their fists in a black power salute to show solidarity with the civil rights movement and to protest a nation that failed to guarantee the rights of citizenship to a race of people. They endured years of criticism for their actions, yet today, they are recognized as symbolizing the irrepressible spirit and solidarity of oppressed peoples on an international stage.
SATCHEL PAIGE
Satchel Paige was born in 1895 in Mobile Alabama in to a family of 12. By 1924 he was a professional baseball pitcher. Back in the time that a sharecropper made 40-50 cents a day, negro league players such as Satchel Paige were making $275 a month. Paige was a master showman who entertained as well as he pitched by injecting his own stunts, at times calling the outfielder and infielders to sit behind second base as he struck out the opposing teams best batter. Joe DiMaggio stated that Paige was the best and fastest pitcher he every faced. In 1948, the yaer after Jackie robinson broke the color barrier, 42 year old Paige was signed by the Cleveland Indians and helped them win a world series. Paige's pitching spanned 6 decades with his last professional pitch occurring in 1971, when he was inducted into the baseball hall of fame.
MUHAMMAD ALI
A young boxer named Cassius Clay (named after a famous white abolitionist) shocked the world in the Olympics, winning a gold medal in heavyweight boxing. When she returned home to the same racial prejudice, he became disenchanted with his gold medal and flung it into a river. Soon, the country called on him to fight another war, on foreign soil against the Vietnamese. He changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and refused to fight on the grounds that he himself oppressed, a Muslim and had no quarrel with Vietnamese. In response, he was stripped of his title. Many only knew Ali as the showman and athlete, yet, in numerous interviews, he showed himself to be humble, thoughtful and philosophical. Undeterred, Muhammad Ali soon was allowed to fight again. Ali was a master showman, with cunning intelligence in and out of the ring, transforming the art of self-promotion and public relations in the modern age. For his skill, showmanship and personality, he is known as, THE GREATEST OF ALL-TIME.
MADAME C.J. WALKER
Madame Walker was the daughter of two former slaves. She had a dream to make a series of products for Black women. From this simple dream rose an empire. She was the first African-American multi-millionaire. She was a fixture in the heart of Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. Her mansion was one of the largest, most beautiful estates in the United States along the Hudson. Her business allowed thousands of black women to earn from $5-15 per week, in an era where unskilled labor made $11 a week... Madame C.J. was an inspiration to millions and she re-defined the words, BEAUTY for African Americans. Her daughter was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance opening the Dark Tower Tea room. Madame Walker was a great philanthropist, leaving 2/3rds of her estate to charitable causes.
HATTIE MCDANIEL
Hattie McDaniel was an American actress and the first black performer to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). McDaniel was also a professional singer-songwriter, comedienne, stage actress, radio performer, and television star. Hattie McDaniel was in fact the first black woman to sing on the radio in America. Over the course of her career, McDaniel appeared in over 300 films, although she received screen credits for only about 80. McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
PRESIDENTIAL SLAVE OWNERS
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Johnson & Grant.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were not only the forefathers of the United States, they were also Slave-owners, and at least Jefferson was also the father of half-slave children. 12 of the first 18 U.S. Presidents were slave owners, and more than a few had 1/2 black children, most notably Harrison, who had several children living in his residence appearing so similar to him physically, that many visitors took instant notice. Despite the hypocrisy and abdication of parental affection, the great irony of American History is that when the Declaration of Independence was written, the words, WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT THAT ALL MEN WERE CREATED EQUAL. Were written after slavery had been in existence for 157 years. The U.S. Constitution explicitly condoned slavery and an additional 20 years of slave trade and also established the notorious 3/5th's Clause. it would't be until reconstruction when African-American's would gain the right of freedom, suffrage and citizenship within their homeland.
PINCKNEY BENTON PINCHBACK
Pinchback was born in May 1837 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Eliza Stewart, a biracial former slave, and William Pinchback, her former master. Pinchback lived in relatively affluent surroundings; his parents sent him north to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend Gilmore High School. In 1848, his father died. To evade the possibility of her children becoming slaves, Pinchback's fled to Cincinnati. After the war, Pinchback returned to New Orleans and became active in the Republican Party. In 1868, he was elected as a State Senator, where he became senate president pro tempore of a Legislature that included 42 representatives of African American descent (half of the chamber, and seven of 36 seats in the Senate). In 1871 he became acting lieutenant governor. In 1872, the incumbent Republican governor Henry Clay Warmoth, suffered impeachment charges, Pinchback, as lieutenant governor, succeeded as governor on December 9 and served for 35 days until the end of Warmoth's term. Warmoth was not convicted and the charges were eventually dropped.
1st BLACK U.S. SENATOR & REPRESENTATIVES
The 41st & 42nd Congress of the United States of American. Hiram Revels was the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. Since he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S. Congress as well. He represented Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during Reconstruction. As of 2009, Revels is one of only six African Americans ever to have served in the United States Senate.Benjamin Turner, a Representative from Alabama, elected as a Republican to the Forty-second Congress.>Robert De Large, a Representative from South Carolina, elected to the Forty-second Congress.Josiah Walls, elected to the Forty-second Congress, Forty-third Congress and Forty-fourth Congress. Jefferson Long, a Representative from Georgia, elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress Joseph H. Rainey, Rainey, born a slave in 1832 in Georgetown, became a freed black as his parents succeeded in buying their own freedom, was elected to the South Carolina state senate. In 1870 he assumed the U.S. Congress position and served four terms, finally losing election in 1878.