Lloyd Lionel Gaines was the plaintiff in Gaines v. Canada (1938), one of the most important early court cases in the 20th-century U.S. civil rights movement. After being denied admission to the University of Missouri School of Law because he was African American, and refusing the university's offer to pay for him to attend a neighboring state's law school that had no racial restriction, Gaines filed suit. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in his favor, holding that the separate but equal doctrine required that Missouri either admit him or set up a separate law school for black students.
Charles Hamilton Houston was an American lawyer. He was the dean of Howard University Law School and NAACP first special counsel. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Houston played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws, especially attacking segregation in schools and racial housing covenants. He earned the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. (ΩΨΦ) is a historically African-American fraternity. The fraternity was founded on November 17, 1911, the first at a historically black university, by three Howard University students, Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper and Frank Coleman, and their faculty adviser, Dr. Ernest Everett Just. Since its founding the organization has chartered over 750 undergraduate and graduate chapters.
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (ΑΦΑ) is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved into a fraternity with a founding date of December 4, 1906. It employs an icon from Ancient Egypt, the Great Sphinx of Giza, as its symbol. Its aims are "Manly Deeds, Scholarship, and Love For All Mankind," and its motto is "First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All." Its archives are preserved at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is a national memorial located in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It covers four acres (1.6 ha) and includes the Stone of Hope, a granite statue of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. carved by sculptor Lei Yixin. The inspiration for the memorial design is a line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." The memorial opened to the public on August 22, 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising, and construction.
Alpha Phi International Women's Fraternity is an international sorority with 172 active chapters and over 250,000 initiated members.
Fred David Gray is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, activist, and state legislator from Alabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases, such as Browder v. Gayle, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1970, along with Thomas Reed, both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century. He served as the president of the National Bar Association in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar.
Belford Vance Lawson Jr. was an American attorney and civil rights activist who made at least eight appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the first African-American man to win a case before the Supreme Court and the first African-American president of YMCA. His wife, Marjorie McKenzie Lawson, was also an attorney who served as the first African-American female judge to receive senatorial confirmation to the newly-created Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia.
Sigma Pi Phi (ΣΠΦ), also known as The Boulé, founded in 1904, is the oldest fraternity for African Americans among those named with Greek letters. The fraternity does not have collegiate chapters and is designed for professionals at mid-career or older. Sigma Pi Phi was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Thurgood Marshall School of Law (TMSL) is an ABA-accredited law school at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. It awards Juris Doctor and Master of Law degrees. Thurgood Marshall School of Law is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Association of American Law Schools.
Franklin Hall Williams was an American lawyer and civil rights activist. As an assistant to Thurgood Marshall, he represented the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People before courts in criminal cases throughout the American South. In 1950, he was appointed director of the NAACP's western region, where he directed drives involving open housing, school desegregation and civil rights.
The World Policy Council of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity is a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank established in 1996 at Howard University to expand the fraternity's involvement in politics and social and current policy to encompass important global and world issues. They describe their mission as to "address issues of concern to our brotherhood, our communities, our Nation, and the world."
William Robert Ming Jr. was an American lawyer, attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and law professor at University of Chicago Law School and Howard University School of Law. He presided over the Freeman Field mutiny court-martials involving the Tuskegee Airmen. He is best remembered for being a member of the Brown v. Board of Education litigation team and for working on a number of the important cases leading to Brown, the decision in which the United States Supreme Court ruled de jure racial segregation a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
John Saunders Chase Jr. was born in Annapolis, Maryland, to John Saunders Chase and Alice Viola Hall. He was an American architect who was the first licensed African American architect in the state of Texas. He was also the only Black architect licensed in the state for almost a decade. He was also the first African American to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which reviewed the design for the United States Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Alpha Man: The Brotherhood of MLK is a television documentary film that reveals the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fraternity days as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Produced by Rainforest Films, the half-hour special originally aired August 28, 2011 on BET. The documentary special was scheduled to debut on the same day as the much-anticipated official dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial statue on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The statue's dedication, which was to coincide with the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and King’s "Dream" speech, was postponed until October 16, 2011, due to Hurricane Irene.
Mu Beta Phi Military Fraternity, Inc. (ΜΒΦ) also known as the "Mighty Beta Kings", is an international military fraternity that caters to all 50 states and overseas in Southeast Asia and Europe. The motivation to serve, support and defend the men and women in the local and veteran communities amplified the passion to give back and provide an outlet for men of the Armed Services of all nationalities, continued service within the community, leading to the establishment of Mu Beta Phi Military Fraternity Inc.
Norris Bumstead Herndon was a prominent African-American businessman, Harvard Business School MBA graduate, philanthropist, member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and second President of the historic African-American-owned Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
Romeo Marcus Williams was an American civil rights attorney who organized large-scale student protests against segregation in Marshall, Texas. He was also a junior partner of Dallas, Texas civil rights attorney, William J. Durham, who served as lead counsel on two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, Sweatt v. Painter, and Smith v. Allwright.
