The Most Important People of Color in American History
1. Frederick Douglass
Abolitionist, gifted orator, and adviser to President Lincoln. Fun fact: He was born Frederick Bailey. “Douglass,” which he adopted after he escaped from bondage and settled in Massachusetts, is taken from a character in Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Lady of the Lake.”
2. Martin Luther King Jr.
Not-so-fun fact: As a child, he was recruited to appear onstage, dressed in a slave costume, for the gala premiere in Atlanta of Gone With the Wind.
3. Barack Obama
You know that if you became the first African American president in U.S. history but still finished only third on this list, those other two guys must really be giants.
4. W.E.B. Du Bois
Sociologist, writer, and champion of civil rights—a public intellectual par excellence. Check out these chillingly relevant words, which Du Bois issued in 1905: “Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”
5. Thurgood Marshall
The first Black justice to serve on the Supreme Court. An absolute hero of American jurisprudence. If only he’d stayed on the court until he died—one week into Bill Clinton’s presidency—most Americans would still have no idea who this Clarence Thomas guy was.
