Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, "muck-raking" journalist, and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in the United States of America at the turn of the twentieth century. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography. He endorsed the implementation of "model tenements" in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. He was an early proponent of the newly practicable casual photography and one of the first to adopt photographic flash. While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the poor living conditions of poor people by exposing these conditions to the middle and upper classes.
Bertha Ethel Knight Landes was the first female mayor of a major American city, serving as mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1926 to 1928. After years of civic activism, primarily with women's organizations, she was elected to the Seattle City Council in 1922 and became council president in 1924.
Mary Williams Dewson (1874–1962) was an American feminist and political activist. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1897, she worked for the Women's Educational and Industrial Union. She became an active member of the National Consumers League (NCL) and received mentorship from Florence Kelley, a famous advocate for social justice feminism and General Secretary of the NCL. Dewson's later role as civic secretary of the Women's City Club of New York (WCCNY) led to her meeting Eleanor Roosevelt, who later convinced Dewson to be more politically active in the Democratic Party. Dewson went on to take over Roosevelt's role as head of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Campaign Committee. Dewson's "Reporter Plan" mobilized thousands of women to spread information about the New Deal legislation and garner support for it. In connection with the Reporter Plan, the Women's Division held regional conferences for women. This movement led to a historically high level of female political participation.
Marian Wright Edelman is an American activist for civil rights and children's rights. She is the founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund. She influenced leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, and Hillary Clinton.
Leschi is a neighborhood in the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. Located on the western shore of Lake Washington, the residential neighborhood was named by its 19th-century developer for Chief Leschi of the Nisqually tribe, who was executed by territorial authorities in 1858 in Pierce County, Washington.
Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television writer and producer. She is one of the founders of Sesame Workshop, the organization famous for the creation of the children's television show Sesame Street, which was co-created by her. Cooney grew up in Phoenix and earned a Bachelor of Arts in education from the University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the State Department in Washington, D.C., and as a journalist in Phoenix, she worked as a publicist for television and production companies in New York City. In 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New York's first educational TV station WNET. Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys.
Marie Antoinette Wright, better known by her stage name, Free, is an American media personality, television producer, choreographer, rapper, and philanthropist. She became known as the first host of Black Entertainment Television's 106 & Park until 2005. She was later as a disc jockey at KKBT 100.3 The Beat in L.A., serving as a morning drive co-host at WPGC-FM in Washington, D.C., and is the former co-host of The Ed Lover Morning Show on Power 105.1 in New York.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a leading African-American civil rights activist, on April 4, 1968, Washington, D.C., experienced a four-day period of violent civil unrest and rioting. Part of the broader riots that affected at least 110 U.S. cities, those in Washington, D.C.—along with those in Chicago and in Baltimore—were among those with the greatest numbers of participants. President Lyndon B. Johnson called in the National Guard to the city on April 5, 1968, to assist the police department in quelling the unrest. Ultimately, 13 people were killed, with approximately 1,000 people injured and over 6,100 arrested.
The Brown Berets is a pro-Chicano paramilitary organization that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s. David Sanchez and Carlos Montes co-founded the group modeled after the Black Panther Party. The Brown Berets was part of the Third World Liberation Front. It worked for educational reform, farmworkers' rights, and against police brutality and the Vietnam War. It also sought to separate the American Southwest from the control of the United States government.
The Poor People's Campaign, or Poor People's March on Washington, was a 1968 effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States. It was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and carried out under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy in the wake of King's assassination in April 1968.
Sylvia Mary Burwell is an American government and non-profit executive who was the 15th president of American University from June 1, 2017 to June 30, 2024. Burwell is the first woman to serve as the university's president. Burwell earlier served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. President Barack Obama nominated Burwell on April 11, 2014. Burwell's nomination was confirmed by the Senate on June 5, 2014, by a vote of 78–17. She served as Secretary until the end of the Obama administration. Previously, she had been the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2013 to 2014.
Margaret Murray Washington was an American educator who was the principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. She also led women's clubs, including the Tuskegee Woman's Club and the National Federation of Afro-American Women. She was the third wife of Booker T. Washington. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1972.
Virginia Foster Durr was an American civil rights activist and lobbyist. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1903 to Dr. Sterling Foster, an Alabama Presbyterian minister, and Ann Patterson Foster. At 22 she married lawyer Clifford Durr, with whom she had 5 children, one of whom died in infancy. Durr was a close friend of Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was sister-in-law of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who sat on many crucial civil rights cases. Her circle of friends extended to Alger Hiss. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 2006.
The Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) serves to present and preserve the connections between the Pacific Northwest and people of African descent and investigate and celebrate Black experiences in America through exhibitions, programs and events. The museum is located in Seattle, Washington's historically African-American Central District neighborhood in the former Colman School, with official status as a City of Seattle landmark. The building also contains 36 units of affordable housing.
Marion Nzinga Stamps was an African-American community activist who fought for equal rights of public housing residents in the Cabrini-Green housing project on the Near-North Side of Chicago, Illinois. She helped to elect Chicago's first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, by organizing a massive voter registration drive in 1983. She was aggressive in her fights to make sure that residents of housing developments had voices regarding their violent and harsh living conditions in public housing. In 1993, Stamps began working with many gang leaders throughout Chicago to help end growing violence. In 1994 she and others successfully navigated what remains the only citywide gang truce in Chicago's history.
Nellie A. Goodhue made pioneering contributions to the education of handicapped and exceptional children. Working with the University of Washington Goodhue participated in studies to evaluate the background and educational abilities of children with special needs and conducted clinics to assist in the development of special classes.
Joyce Bernhardt Siegel is a Montgomery County, Maryland, community leader and activist primarily in the area of equal opportunity housing.
Roberta Byrd Barr was an American civil rights activist, television personality, educator, and librarian. From the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, she hosted a weekly Seattle television show, Face to Face, which featured guest speakers discussing issues such as race, education, and welfare. In 1973 she became the first woman principal of a high school in Seattle.
Margaret Prescod is an activist, author, journalist and radio host. She was a founder of The Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and of Black Women for Wages for Housework. Prescod is on the executive board of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health, at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health.
Flo Ware Park is a public park in Seattles Central District / Leschi neighborhoods, in the U.S. state of Washington. It was named for Flo Ware in 1982.
