Inspirational Figures

David Walker (September 28, 1796 – August 6, 1830) was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well (partus sequitur ventrem). In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge (later named Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Jurisdiction of Massachusetts), he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,[4] a call for black unity and a fight against slavery.

The Appeal brought attention to the abuses and inequities of slavery and the responsibility of individuals to act according to religious and political principles. At the time, some people were aghast and fearful of the reaction that the pamphlet would provoke. Southern citizens were particularly upset with Walker's viewpoints and as a result there were laws banning circulation of "seditious publications" and North Carolina's "legislature enacted the most repressive measures ever passed in North Carolina to control slaves and free blacks".

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Source: www.wikipedia.com

Ida B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1] Wells dedicated her lifetime to combating prejudice and violence, the fight for African-American equality, especially that of women, and became arguably the most famous Black woman in the United States of her time.[2]

Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her infant brother in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. She went to work and kept the rest of the family together with the help of her grandmother. Later, moving with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, Wells found better pay as a teacher. Soon, Wells co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Her reporting covered incidents of racial segregation and inequality.

In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States in articles and through her pamphlets called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases, and The Red Record, investigating frequent claims of whites that lynchings were reserved for Black criminals only. Wells exposed lynching as a barbaric practice of whites in the South used to intimidate and oppress African Americans who created economic and political competition—and a subsequent threat of loss of power—for whites. A white mob destroyed her newspaper office and presses as her investigative reporting was carried nationally in Black-owned newspapers. Subjected to continued threats, Wells left Memphis for Chicago. She married Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895 and had a family while continuing her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights and the women's movement for the rest of her life.

Wells was outspoken regarding her beliefs as a Black female activist and faced regular public disapproval, sometimes including from other leaders within the civil rights movement and the women's suffrage movement. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. A skilled and persuasive speaker, Wells traveled nationally and internationally on lecture tours.[3] Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, in Chicago, and in 2020 was posthumously honored with a Pulitzer Prize special citation "for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching."

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Source: www.wikipedia.com

Abraham H. Galloway (February 8, 1837 – September 1, 1870) was an American politician who served as a Republican state Senator in North Carolina.[1]

Born in Smithville (now Southport, North Carolina) in 1837. A former slave who played an important role in supporting the Union Army's success in North Carolina, he served in the North Carolina senate during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. His death in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1870 was honored by attendance from more than 6,000 people.

He is remembered, in part, by a historical marker placed in Wilmington in 2012,[2] a project spearheaded by a local committee, now known as the "Friends of Abraham Galloway", as recorded in the Wilmington Journal.[3]

Although he was a driving force in shaping local and state political direction during his brief lifetime, Abraham Galloway left no record of his own thoughts and ideas, being unable to read or write. William Still, abolitionist and corresponding secretary for the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, records the escape of Galloway and his friend Richard Eden from Wilmington to Philadelphia, stowed among the cargo of a schooner carrying naval stores: pine tar and turpentine. Due to the hazards of this particular journey, Still counts Galloway and Eden as "classed among the bravest of the brave".[4] The Vigilance Committee provided passage to Canada for the two men.

Within the 20th century, historians and writers have uncovered Galloway's story, and continue to strengthen knowledge of this Civil War personality through two books, The Watermans Song, published in October 2001,[5] and The Fire of Freedom, published in February 2015.[6] These books bring the story of Abraham Galloway to life. An article by Phillip Gerard, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, in Our State magazine also highlights his place in the history of North Carolina.[7] Galloway was known as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

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Source: www.wikipedia.com