LtoT
Jean-Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy
  
- Botanist, Natural Philosopher, Zoologist and Astronomer. 
- Born 1755 on the Ile de France(Mauritius in the Indian Ocean). 
- His mother was the grand-daughter of an African king of Galam. 
- At the age of fifteen he was placed in the Engineering Corps where he became
  expert at drafting and designing.  While there he developed maps of Ile de
  France and gave minute descriptions of the highest mountains of the Island. 
- In 1781 he was made Guardian of Maps and Plans. 
- Lislet-Geoffroy was then elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. 
- 1794 - The British administration, after having taken over the governance of the
  Island designated him Chief of the Engineer Commission. 
- He died in 1836 

Patrice Lumumba
- Born 1925 in the colony then known as the Belgium Congo(now Zaire). 
- A dynamic speaker and propagandist, his politcal career began when he was
  elected president of the African Staff Association at Stanleyville. 
- In June 1960, he became the 1st Congolese Prime Mininster when his country
  gained independence. 
- He showed himself a strong supporter of  President of Ghana, Kwame
  Nkrumah's stance against neo-colonialism and his propensity for
  Pan-Africanism, thus frightening the powerful multinational UNION MINIERE
  DU HAUTE KATANGA(UMHK) which eventually helped the Katanga province
  to secede. 
- After trying to politcally stop the resulting regime he was abandoned by
  Congolese President Kassavubu. 
- He was arrested in February, 1961.  Assassimated in 1965. 

Thurgood Marshall

- Born July 2,1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. 
- Memorized the Constitution of the United States by the time of his High School
  graduation. 
- In 1930 he receives a B. A. degree from Lincoln, University in Pennsylvania. 
- Enters Howard University Law School that same year and  graduates in 1933
  with honors. 
- Establlishes a law practice in Baltimore, specializing in problems relating to civil
  rights. 
- Becomes Special Council to the NAACP in 1938. 
- While Special Council his team of lawyers won 29 out of 32 Supreme Court
  cases. 
- In 1954 he along with co-workers won the famous case of Brown v the Topeka
  Board of Education(in it the Supreme Court ruled that segregated school
  violated the Constitution)(disavowing the separate but equal idea). 
- President John F Kennedy appointed him to the second Court of Appeals in
  1962. 
- President Lyndon Baines Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall Solicitor
  General in 1965. 
- Nominated as  Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by LBJ in 1967. 
- Died in 1993. 

BACK  TO TOP
Gabriel Prosser
(Prosser's Rebellion)
A. (Asa) Phillip Randolph
- Labor and Civil RIghts leader, Socialist. 
- Born 1889 in Crescent  City, Florida. 
- Studied at the College of New York. 
- Co-founded the socialist weekly newspaper, The Messenger, in 1917, while
   teaching at the Rand School of Social Sciences. 
- In 1921 he ran unsuccessfully for the Secretary of State of New York, on the
  Socialist Platform. 
- A. Phillip Randolph organised the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. 
- 10 years later a collective bargaining agreement was reached with the Pullman
  Palace Car Company. 
- He helped to influence President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to form the Fair -
  Employment Practice Committee in 1941. 
- In 1947 he formed the League for Non-violent Civil Disobedience in the Armed
  Forces. 
- He was appointed to the New York Housing Authority in 1942. 
- In 1955 he was appointed to the AFL-CIO executive council. 
- Randolph became the Vice-President of the AFL-CIO in 1957. 
- In 1966 he founded the Negro American Labor Council. 
- He helped organize and lead the March on Washington for jobs, in 1963. 
- Founded the A. Phillips Randolph Institute. 
- Died in 1979.  

Hiram Rhodes Revels
- Born free in Fayetteville County, North Carolina on September 23, 1822. 
- Son of an African-American preacher and a Scottish mother. 
- Ordained a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Baltimore,
  Maryland, in 1845. 
- Enrolled in Union County Quaker Seminary as the only negro student.  Later
  attended negro seminary.  Scholarship student at Knox Academy in Galegurg,
  Illinois, 1856-57. 
- Imprisoned, then released in 1854 for preaching "Gospel to the negro". 
- Moved to Baltimore, MD. in 1858, after traveling, preaching and learning in the
  'free' states of Indiana, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. 
- In 1861 he help to organize the 1st two African-American regiments for the
  United States military. 
- Moved to Mississippi in 1865. 
- Revels became an Alderman for the city of Natchez, MS. in 1868. 
- In 1869 he becomes a compromise candidate for the MS. state senate.
- Elected during a debate over who would fill the vacant seats left by those leaving
  to fight in the Civil War, Revels was nomninated as a compromise candidate
  between the 3rd and 4th ballots.  He was appointed to fill one of the seats for the
  Republican Party. 
- After 3 days of bitter debate in the U.S. Senate his credentials were accepted on
  February 25, 1870 and he was allowed to take the seat left vacant by Jefferson
  Davis. 
- Revels' short term ended March 3, 1871. 
- One of his last acts in the U.S. Senate was  to  appropriate $50, 000 to help build
  the Negro College, Alcorn A&M.  In 1872 he was invited to be, and he accepted
  the presidency of that institution. 
- In 1873 he left to take the job of Secretary of State in Mississippi. 
- Rejoining Alcorn A&M in 1875, he resigned as president in 1882. 
- Hiram R. Revels died on January 16, 1901. 

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