Social Justice Activists

One of the most highly famed civil rights activists, Rosa Parks, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She attended local segregated schools, and after the age of 11, the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. As a child, Rosa became fully aware of the racism which was deeply embedded in Alabama.

On December 1st, 1955, Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the section reserved for blacks in the back of the bus. As the bus continued, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up with passengers. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several whites boarded with no seats to accompany them. Once the driver noticed a number of white passengers were standing in the aisle, he immediately stopped the bus and asked four passengers, including Rosa Parks, to give up their seats. Three agreed; Rosa did not.

Police then arrested Rosa Parks at the scene. She was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code, even though she technically had not taken up a white-only seat, she had been in a colored section. E.D. Nixon and Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the evening of December 1st. The Montgomery Bus Boycott occurred as a result of Rosa Park’s actions and was a huge success. The city of Montgomery lifted its enforcement of segregation on public buses on December 20th, 1965.

Rosa Parks received numerous accolades during her lifetime after the boycott, including the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

Rosa Parks passed peacefully in her Detroit, Michigan apartment in 2005 at the age of 92. She will forever leave a mark of justice and integrity on the hearts of those forced to succumb to segregation and unfair treatment.

Horace Julian Bond, the son of Horace Mann Bond and Julia Bond, was born January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee.  At the time of his birth, Julian’s father was president of Fort Valley State College in Fort Valley, Georgia.  Coming from a family that highly prized education (Julian’s mother was a librarian) Bond, an avid reader, enrolled at Morehouse College in 1957 as an English Major.  At Morehouse he helped found The Pegasus, a literary magazine and interned at Time magazine.

Bond’s social activism began at Morehouse when he became one of the founding members of the Committee on appeal for Human Rights.  In Atlanta he led non-violent protests against segregation and, later, in 1960, in Raleigh, North Carolina, he helped form the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) where, in 1961, he would become the Committee’s communications director.

In 1965, Bond ran for and won election to the Georgia House of Representatives.  The State Congress, however, refused to seat him because Bond endorsed SNCC’s anti-Vietnam War platform.  Martin Luther King, Jr. rallied for Bond and, in 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bond on the basis of freedom of speech.  Bond finally took his seat in the Georgia House in 1967.  From there, Bond went on to win election to and serve in the Georgia State Senate from 1975 to 1986.

From 1971 to 1979, Julian Bond served as the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  He also served as president of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP, eventually becoming the National Chairman of the organization; a position he held from 1998 to 2010.

Julian Bond was also a commentator for NBC’s Today Show as well as a contributor to a number of newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and The Nation.  Bond also held a professorship of history at the University of Virginia and was an adjunct professor at American University.

Julian Bond died August 15, 2015.

In 1961, folk singers Peter (Yarrow), Paul (Stookey) and Mary (Travers) began a career that spanned nearly five decades.  Known by many for light-hearted songs like “Puff the Magic Dragon” and the now-standard “Wedding Song (There is Love),” the five-time Grammy award winners also raised their voices in support of human rights at concerts, rallies, marches, and protests.  Most notable was the 1963 March on Washington where they joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to further the cause of civil rights.  In the song “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Dylan1963) they asked the assembled crowd of a quarter million, “… how many years can a people exist before they’re allowed to be free?” 

 In the cover liner for the album Carry-It-On, Mrs. Coretta Scott King declared, “Peter, Paul, and Mary are not only three of the greatest artists ever, but also three of the most outstanding champions of social justice and peace” (King2003). 

Malcolm X (originally Malcolm Little) was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska.  As a child, his father was murdered as were four of his uncles.  His mother was sent to a mental institution, and Malcolm was sent to a foster home.  At the age of 13, Malcolm was charged with delinquency and spent time in juvenile detention.  He dropped out of school when he was fifteen.

Malcolm later moved to Boston and fell further into a life of crime committing acts that included gambling, selling drugs and burglary.  In 1946, Malcolm was sentenced to ten years in prison for burglary.  It was while in prison that Malcolm began to take a more political/religious stance in life.  He started following the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, The Black Muslims leader.  After Malcolm was released from prison in 1952, he was accepted into The Black Muslims movement and took on the name of Malcolm X. 

Due to his readings in prison, Malcolm X developed a high proficiency for public speaking and soon became the national spokesman for The Black Muslims.  The philosophy of The Black Muslims emphasized the need for racial separation.  This proved volatile, especially at a time when the United States was pushing for racial integration. 

In March 1964, Malcolm X left The Black Muslims and formed two new organizations: Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. After spending some time abroad, Malcolm X returned to America with a new outlook regarding race.  From then on, he stated that his organizations were willing to work beyond African American-centric groups and instead, welcome all races.

Malcolm X began progressively spreading his new message around Harlem, NY, holding meetings and speeches.  On February 21, 1965, at one such meeting, Malcolm X was assassinated.

Maya Angelou (originally Marguerite Annie Johnson) was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri.  Due to a tumultuous and difficult childhood, Angelou stopped speaking for five years.  When she began to speak again, she was in high school and excelled in her studies of dance and drama.  During her senior year, she got pregnant and became a single mother.

In 1952, she married Anastasios Angelopulos.  Around the same time, she became a nightclub singer and took on the professional name of Maya Angelou.  Her marriage did not last, but her career soared.  She composed song lyrics and poems for several years and eventually moved to New York joining the Harlem Writers Guild.  It was here that she took her place amongst numerous young black writers associated with the Civil Rights Movement.  For many years, she travelled abroad honing her writing skills and strengthening her propensity for political activism. 

Sojourner Truth, original name Isabella Baumfree, was a major figure for abolitionists and women’s rights activists. It is unknown when she was born, but it is speculated that she would have been born in the year 1797. The lack of a birth date was very common among slaves. A Dutch Patroon in Swatekill, NY within Ulster County owned her and her family, but in 1827, she escaped. Before her escape, she had five children. Of the five children, she managed to leave with one daughter.  

In 1829, she moved to New York City, NY, served households, and around the same time embraced the evangelical religion and took on a career as a street corner preacher.  During this time, she told stories and sang songs to spread and teach messages of abolition and women’s rights, by 1843 took on the name Sojourner Truth. She also wrote a narrative about her life, which provided a small income for her to live on.

 Dred Scott was born into slavery in Southampton County, Virginia in 1795. Shortly after Scott was married, his owner, John Emerson, moved around to a few different states where slavery was prohibited. In 1846, when his owner died, Scott tried to buy his and his wife’s freedom from Emerson’s widow, however, she refused.

Scott then made history by launching a legal battle to gain freedom for him and his wife. The fact that Scott lived in multiple free states with his owner became the basis for his case.

In 1846, Scott lost in his initial suit in a local St. Louis, Missouri district court. However, he then won in a second trial, only to have that decision overturned by the Missouri State Supreme Court.

In 1854, Scott gained support from local abolitionists and filed another suit in federal court in 1854, against John Sandford, the executor of his former owner’s estate. When this case was decided in favor of Sandford, Scott had no choice but to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford was issued. Seven of the nine judges agreed with the outcome delivered by Chief Justice Roger Taney, who announced that slaves were not citizens of the United States and therefore had no rights to sue in Federal courts.

Because of the controversy surrounding the case, Mrs. Emerson returned Dred Scott and his wife to their previous owners, who granted them their freedom in May 1857. Dred Scott found work as a porter in a local hotel and passed away only a little over a year after he was granted his freedom on September 17, 1858.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in February of 1818 as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County Maryland.  As a child, Douglass was selected to live in the manor house of the plantation.  Around the age of ten, Douglass was sent (or sold) to the Auld family of Baltimore.  There, Mrs. Auld taught Douglass to read in opposition to laws that prohibited the teaching of reading to slaves.  It was through reading, however, that Douglass’ opposition to slavery began to emerge.

Douglass avidly read newspapers, political writing, literature, etc.  And, while hired out by the Aulds to William Freeland, Douglass taught other slaves on Freeland’s plantation to read, giving lessons at weekly church services.

In September 1838, with the help of Anne Murray, a free Black woman from Baltimore, Douglass escaped slavery making his way to New York to the home of abolitionist David Ruffles.  Shortly thereafter, Douglass married Anne Murray and the couple adopted the name Douglass as their married name.  They later settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

In New Bedford, Douglass, attending abolitionist meetings, was asked to tell his story.  A gifted orator, he quickly became an anti-slavery lecturer.  Upon hearing Douglass speak, William Lloyd Garrison wrote of Douglass in his anti-slavery paper The Liberator.  In 1845, at Garrison’s urging, Douglass wrote and published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.  Douglass went on to publish three more versions of his autobiography in 1855, 1881, and finally, in 1892, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.  During this time, he also published a number of abolitionist newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, Douglass’ Monthly, and New National Era.

Douglass also championed women’s rights, attending, in 1848, the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York.  Douglass’ strong support for women’s rights prompted Victoria Woodhull to choose him as her running mate on the Equal Rights Party’s presidential ticket in 1872.  His nomination marked the first time an African American appeared on a presidential ballot.

Among the prominent positions which Douglass attained after the Civil War were as president of the Freedman’s Savings Bank, charge d’affaires for the Dominican Republic, and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti.

Frederick Douglass died on February 20, 1895, and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

James T. Rapier was born on November 13, 1837 in Florence, Alabama to John and Susan Rapier.  James’ father was a successful barber and the family was among a small group of African Americans not enslaved in the South.

At the age of 19, Rapier’s father sent him to live in North Buxton, Ontario, Canada where a number of former (fugitive) slaves lived and where he could continue his education at the Buxton Mission School and, later, at Montreal College where he studied law.  Rapier also traveled to Scotland to attend Glasgow University before returning to the United States to attend Franklin College in Nashville, Tennessee and obtaining a teaching certificate in 1863.

After the Civil War, Rapier returned to Alabama and became an advocate for civil rights.  In 1867, he served as a delegate to Alabama’s Constitutional Convention avidly promoting an alliance between former slaves and poor whites.  He played a prominent role in the formation of Alabama’s Republican Party, writing its first platform, which called for labor unions, a free press, and public education.

As an advocate for Black economic empowerment, Rapier, in 1869, represented Alabama at the National Negro Labor Union Convention where he became the Union’s vice-president.  In this role, he helped found the Labor Union of Alabama, which urged the establishment of a federal agency to help former slaves acquire land.  At this time, Rapier also established the Montgomery Republican State Sentinel, Alabama’s first African American owned and operated newspaper.

In 1872, Rapier was elected to the House of Representatives from Alabama’s second congressional district.  In the House, Rapier strongly and eloquently supported the Civil Rights Bill of 1875.  Standing before the House of Representatives, Rapier stated that even as a member of that body, “there is not an inn between Washington and Montgomery . . . that will accommodate me . . .”

Rapier lost a re-election attempt in 1874 but was appointed as an IRS collector by the Republican Presidential Commission, a post he held until shortly before his death.  James T. Rapier died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1883 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.

Jesse Jackson was born October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. While an undergraduate, Jackson became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1964, Jackson graduated from college with a degree in sociology. The next year he went to Selma, Alabama, to march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eventually becoming a worker in King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1966, he moved his wife, children, and himself to Chicago, where he did graduate work at the Chicago Theological Seminary. Jackson never finished his studies but was later ordained by the minister of a Chicago church. In addition, King, who was impressed with the young leader’s drive and passion, appointed him director of Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the SCLC. He formally resigned from the organization in 1971.

The same year Jackson left the SCLC, he founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). Jackson created the organization, based in Chicago, in order to advocate black self-help and, in a sense, serve as Jackson’s political platform. In 1984 Jackson established the National Rainbow Coalition, whose mission was to establish equal rights for African-Americans, women, and homosexuals. The two organizations merged in 1996 to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

In 1984 Jesse Jackson became the second African-American to run for the U.S. presidency. Jackson placed third in the Democratic primary voting and garnered a total of 3.5 million votes, surpassing Chisholm’s ballot success.

In 1990 he won his first election, when he captured one of two special unpaid “statehood senator” posts created by the Washington City Council in order to lobby the U.S. Congress for statehood for the District of Columbia.

In 2000 President Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That same year, he received a Master of Divinity degree from the Chicago Theological Seminary.

A noted author, his books include Straight from the Heart (1987) and Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty (1995).

Born to a slave on April 5, 1856, Booker Taliaferro Washington’s life had little promise early on. At an early age, Booker went to work carrying sacks of grain to the plantation’s mill. He frequently saw elite, white children sitting in school; he wanted to do what those children were doing, but it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write.

After the Civil War, Booker and his mother moved to Malden, West Virginia, where she married freedman Washington Ferguson. The family was very poor, and 9-year-old Booker went to work in the nearby salt furnaces with his stepfather instead of going to school; however, Booker’s mother noticed his interest in learning and got him a book which explained how to read and write basic words.

In 1872, Booker T. Washington left home and walked 500 miles to Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. He convinced administrators to let him attend the school and took a job as a janitor to help pay his tuition. The school’s founder and headmaster, General Samuel C. Armstrong soon discovered the hardworking boy and offered him a scholarship.

Booker T. Washington graduated from Hampton in 1875 with flying colors. In 1879, he was chosen to speak at Hampton’s graduation ceremonies, where afterward General Armstrong offered Washington, a job teaching at Hampton. In 1881, the Alabama legislature approved $2,000 for a “colored” school, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now known as Tuskegee University). General Armstrong was asked to recommend a white man to run the school, but he instead recommended Booker T. Washington.

Under Booker T. Washington’s leadership, Tuskegee became a leading school in the country. At his death, it had more than 100 well-equipped buildings, 1,500 students, a 200-member faculty teaching 38 trades and professions, and a nearly $2 million endowment. Washington put much of himself into the school’s curriculum, stressing the virtues of patience, creativity, and thrift. Booker T. Washington remained the head of Tuskegee Institute until his death from congestive heart failure on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59.

Joan Baez is an American Folk singer and activist born on January 9, 1941 in Staten Island, New York.  Joan spent her childhood singing in local choirs. After graduating from High School in Los Angeles, she moved back east with her family and attended Boston University. She eventually dropped out to sing in local coffee houses and in the famous Club 47 in Boston. Joan was a key player in the revival of folk music & she helped Bob Dylan become popular, who she had a very public relationship with.

Joan became widely popular due to her performances at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and 1960. In 1963, Joan sang “We Shall Overcome” at the March on Washington alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem of the civil-rights movement. In addition to supporting civil rights, Baez also participated in the antiwar movement, calling for an end to the conflict in Vietnam. Many of her songs promote social justice and civil rights.

Joan sang at many civil rights marches and rallies in the mid 1960’s. She made free concert appearances on behalf of UNESCO and other civil rights organizations. In 1965, she founded the Institute for the Study of Non-Violence in Carmel, California.

Born in 1822 as Araminta Ross in the County of Dorchester on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Harriet Tubman played many roles as a Social Justice Activist.  She was an abolitionist, a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, a nurse, a social reformer, and even a spy.  She took the name of her mother Harriet Ross in 1844.  At around the same time she married a free black named John Tubman.  Harriet Tubman has been credited in recent historical research with helping seventy to eighty slaves to their freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Tubman was born to parents who were also slaves: Harriet Green and Ben Ross.  As a child, Harriet Tubman showed her disdain for the system of slavery by consistently and valiantly refusing to cooperate.  She ran away for a period of five days when she was a young girl.  As a teenager, when ordered to help tie down another slave as punishment, she refused.  The overseer threw a two pound weight at her, striking her and causing an injury that would result in a lifetime of narcoleptic seizures.  Despite the threat of physical violence, Harriet Tubman refused to take part in violence inflicted upon fellow slaves.  This resolve would last throughout the rest of Harriet Tubman’s life.

During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a nurse, helping injured soldiers.  She also helped women who were former slaves gain their independence by encouraging them to aid in the war effort by washing and cooking for the soldiers.  Tubman was also responsible for sending information on storage, ammunition, and other military spy material to the Union forces while she was traveling through the Confederacy.  Her appearance and experience as a former slave aided her in sneaking through the Confederate States.  While traveling, she was able to connect to various networks and aid the escape of slaves.  Harriet Tubman remained in poverty for her entire life, but only personally.  Her reputation and the high esteem in which she was held in made it easy for her to raise money for her altruistic causes.  Harriet Tubman passed away in 1913 in Auburn, New York.

The Underground Railroad was the efforts of abolitionists aiding the transit of escaped African American Slaves through to the northeast and Canada roughly between the years of 1840 and 1860.  The term is a metaphor for the entirety of a semi-organized system of aiding slaves in escaping.  The Underground Railroad was not an actual railway; rather it was a connection of underground networks between people with the common goals of abolition and helping slaves escape to freedom.  The Railroad consisted of a number of different routes and safe havens.  Contributors to the effort included free whites, abolitionist groups, Quakers, free blacks and enslaved blacks.  The movement was indeed an interracial effort against the injustices and cruelty of slavery.

For as secret as the activities of the railroad had to be in order to ensure safety, there was just as much notoriety.  The Underground Railroad became a catalyst for propaganda as both the abolitionists and slave owners used tales of escape to gain popular support for their cause.  The abolitionists used the stories of successful escapes to rally to action those who supported the causes of equality and freedom.  Slave owners used the Railroad as a fear tactic to incite anger and persuade other slave owners to increase opposition to those that played roles in the Underground Railroad.  Southern plantation owners used these tactics to garner support against the northern portion of the United States while tensions grew between the two factions.

Many slaves escaped towards freedoms due to the efforts of the people involved with the Underground Railroad.  Some estimates run as high as 100,000 slaves.  The Underground Railroad acts as an enduring legacy of freedom through cooperation and bravery for those who contributed, and it stands as an example of strength in the resolve of those who fight for equality and justice.

Doris (Dorie) Miller is the rarely acknowledged hero of Pearl Harbor, who gave his life in service of the United States.

Born in 1919, Miller worked on his family’s farm until he joined the Navy in 1938 as a mess attendant (Kelly, 2012). Segregation meant that black Americans like Miller could not participate fully, and were not allowed in combat positions (Kelly, 2012).

However, on December 7, 1941, Miller changed the course of history. When Japanese planes began bombing the ship, Miller sprang into duty, collecting bodies of the injured and dead (Kelly, 2012). Miller realized that the Japanese were continuing their attack, and he picked up an anti-aircraft machine gun, shooting down several of their aircraft (Kelly, 2012). Miller’s feat was impressive, considering he had received no training on the weapon (Kelly, 2012).

Miller’s courageous efforts were almost lost, were it not for the journalism of the Pittsburgh Courier, who discovered his identity and shared his heroic efforts (Kelly, 2012). He received the Navy Cross in 1942 for his actions during the Pearl Harbor bombing (Kelly, 2012). Unfortunately, Miller did not live to see a much-deserved military retirement, as he died serving on the USS Liscome Bay in 1943 (Kelly, 2012).

Few hold the prestigious title of astronaut, and even fewer hold the title of first. Two of the first include Guion Bluford, who holds the title as the first black astronaut to enter space, and Mae Jemison, who was the first black female to enter space.

Bluford, born in 1942, was encouraged from an early age to pursue knowledge. He graduated with an aerospace engineering degree in 1964 (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). After winning multiple medals for his service during the Vietnam War, Bluford continued his education, earning both a Masters and a Ph.D. (Biography.com Editors, n.d.).

Jemison, born in 1956, was equally driven. She entered Stanford University on scholarship at just 16 years old (Redd, 2012). She subsequently earned a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in African and African American studies and then received her Ph.D. in medicine from Cornell (Redd, 2012). Jemison spent time in the Peace Corps before returning home to work as a doctor (Redd, 2012).

Bluford entered space a mere nine years before Jemison, his 1983 to her 1992 (Biography.com Editors, n.d.; Redd, 2012). Both, though, made history with their missions.

Since his retirement from NASA in 1993, Bluford has worked for various private companies and was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame (1997) and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame (2010) (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). Jemison also left NASA in 1993, and after teaching at Dartmouth, she founded her own company, “seeking to encourage a love of science in students and bring advanced technology around the world” (Redd, 2012).

William Lloyd Garrison was born December 10, 1805, in Newburyport, Massachusetts.  As his father abandoned his family when he was 3 years old, Garrison was no stranger to poverty.  His struggle for survival inspired him to live by the Franklinian ideals of hard work and self-reliance.

From the beginning, his mother, a devout Baptist, struggled to provide for him and his siblings. In an effort to provide for him, he was sent to live with a Baptist deacon acquainted with his family. While there, he received a rudimentary education.  At 8 years old, he was reunited with his mother and family.  Soon after William became an apprentice to a shoemaker, but the work proved too physically demanding. Instead, he tried his hand at cabinetmaking but again was unsuccessful.  Though unorthodox today, at just 13 years old, he was appointed to a seven-year apprenticeship as a writer and editor under Ephraim W. Allen, the editor of the Newburyport Herald.  “It was during this apprenticeship that Garrison would find his true calling.” (“William Lloyd Garrison Biography,” n.d.)

Garrison pursued positions in papers that specifically championed the social issue of abolition, because of his strong feelings on the subject.  William is quoted as saying, “Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”  (“William Lloyd Garrison,” n.d.) He believed and advocated for the immediate emancipation of slaves and the provision of equal rights for every human being.

In 1830, at the age of 25, Garrison started his own abolitionist paper, The Liberator. As published in its first issue, The Liberator’s motto read, “Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind.” Further on in the issue, he stated, “I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — and I WILL BE HEARD.” (Sparks, 1980).

Joseph “Black Joe” Hodge is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, non-native settlers in the Buffalo area.  Although a former slave who was captured by the Seneca Indians during the Revolutionary War, Hodge became a successful businessman.  (Mingus, 2003, p, 15).  He married a Seneca woman, and they moved to the area in the early 1770s.  (Mingus, 2003, p. 15).

Hodge’s fluency in the Seneca language allowed him to trade easily and successfully with the Native Americans.  (Mingus, 2003, p. 15).  He also acted as an interpreter between other settlers and the native peoples living and trading in the area.  (Mingus, 2003, p. 15).  Hodge opened a prosperous trading post and tavern on Buffalo Creek near the Niagara River.  (Eiss, 2015).  His tavern, opened in 1789, was the first of its kind in the area. (Eiss, 2015).  Most believe Hodge and his wife left Buffalo in the early 1800s, but the exact details of his life are very scarce.  (Mingus, 2003, p.16).

Although there is not much written about Hodge, it is clear that he was an important figure in the early settlement of Buffalo.  He triumphed over his past as a slave and became one of the first non-native settlers and business owners in the Buffalo area.  His accomplishments are beyond just the personal, as he was clearly an integral part in shaping Buffalo as a future trading center.

Matthew Henson (b. 1866) is not a name frequently heard, and one fewer would likely recognize (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). It was not until decades after he reached the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary that he received acknowledgment for his contributions to exploration (Biography.com Editors, n.d.).

Born to “two freeborn black sharecroppers”, Henson lost his parents at a young age, and ended up working on a ship, where he “learned literacy and navigation skills” (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). From there, he joined Peary for a series of expeditions that would eventually lead north. After many trips to Greenland, some more successful than others, Henson and Peary began their efforts to reach the elusive North Pole (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). They likely could only imagine the challenges that lay ahead of them. Although many lives were lost in their attempts, and others gave up, Henson and Peary, along with a small group of Eskimos, reached the North Pole in April of 1909 (Biography.com Editors, n.d.).

Even as Peary received accolades, he also was the victim of doubt due to his lack of proof (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). However, Henson received almost no recognition and ended up as an employee at a federal customs house (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). In 1912, his book, titled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, came out, but another 25 years would pass before he received some of the recognition he deserved (Biography.com Editors, n.d.). [In 1937,] “the highly regarded Explorers Club in New York accepted him as an honorary member, and the U.S. Navy awarded him a medal in 1946” (Biography.com Editors, n.d.).

Henson passed away in 1955; however, it was many more years before Henson was re-interred in the Arlington National Cemetery, his much-deserved final resting place (Biography.com Editors, n.d.).