The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most important events that shaped the history of the United States. The movement was a nonviolent social movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968, to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United States. As you may know, this movement was spearheaded by certain individuals who stood against discrimination and white supremacy through their struggle, commitment, and work, ensuring the advancement of civil rights in the country. Without any further ado, here are the 10 most prominent civil rights activists in America’s history.

Table of Contents

1. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a church minister and one of the most prominent civil rights activists in America’s history. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he sought to advance civil rights for black people in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience.

King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance On October 14, 1964. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. His death led to riots in more than one hundred U.S. cities.

2. Malcolm X

Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community.

While Martin Luther King Jr. preached a method of non-violent disobedience, Malcolm X was far more radical and violent in his methods. Malcolm X was a heavy advocate of black supremacy and actually was pro-segregation, believing the attempts at integration to be a futile endeavor. He was assassinated in New York City On February 21, 1965.

3. W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, Pan-Africanist, and one of the prominent civil rights activists in America’s history. He rose to national prominence as a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists. He was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Du Bois gained prominence for refusing the Atlanta Compromise and insisting on full civil rights and increased political representation. He primarily targeted racism in his polemic, which protested strongly against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly in the colonies.

4. Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. Parks’s act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation, collaborating with other civil rights leaders.

Rosa Parks participated in other several high-profile civil rights campaigns. Although widely honored in later years, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her job and received death threats for years afterward. The United States Congress, however, honored her as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”

5. Ella Baker

Ella Baker was one of the most prominent civil rights activists in America’s history. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer who worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists.

Baker criticized professionalized, charismatic leadership; she promoted grassroots organizing, radical democracy, and the ability of the oppressed to understand their worlds and advocate for themselves. Many people consider Baker the most important and influential woman in the civil rights movement.

6. Fred Hampton

Fred Hampton was an American activist. He came to prominence in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of Illinois. He also founded the anti-racist, anti-classist Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that included white, black, and Hispanic people working for social change.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered Hampton a radical threat and tried to subvert his activities in Chicago. In December 1969, Hampton was drugged, shot, and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police, and the FBI

7. Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights. He served as special counsel of the NAACP, and he became director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Marshall played a prominent role in the movement to end racial segregation in schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional.

8. A. Philip Randolph

A. Philip Randolph was an American labor unionist and one of the most prominent civil rights activists in America’s history. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American-led labor union. He was also the head of the March on Washington held in 1963.

Randolph’s continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against racist, unfair labor practices, eventually helped lead President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ban discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. He also inspired the “Freedom Budget”, which aimed to deal with the economic problems facing the black community.

9. John Lewis

John Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He fulfilled many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States.

Lewis participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, and the Freedom Rides, and was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966. He was also one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. He also led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.

10. Stokely Carmichael

Stokely Carmichael was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. He was a key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the SNCC, and the Black Panther Party, and last as a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

Carmichael was one of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961 under Diane Nash’s leadership. He became a major voting rights activist in Mississippi and Alabama after being mentored by Ella Baker and Bob Moses. Inspired by Malcolm X, he articulated a philosophy of Black Power and popularized it both through provocative speeches and sober writings.

10 Most Prominent Civil Rights Activists In America’s History