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    (CNN Student News) -- The following profiles feature prominent African Americans in the fields of politics, law, sports, civil rights and entertainment. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the minds of many Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King's name is synonymous with civil rights. The Atlanta-born Baptist minister began his civil rights activities in the mid-1950s, when he led the black boycott of segregated city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. He soon rose to become the main leader of the American civil rights movement. Dr. King's outstanding speaking ability allowed him to effectively express the black community's demands for social justice. His eloquent speeches and philosophy of nonviolent resistance won the support of millions worldwide, and earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Dr. King was assassinated a few years later. His legacy of pursuing equal rights for all Americans lives on. Rosa Parks Rosa Parks is often called "the mother of the civil rights movement." In 1955, as a young seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks became famous for an act of civil disobedience. While riding on a crowded bus, she refused to give up her seat for a white passenger. She was arrested, and the city's black population launched a bus boycott that would become a key event in the American civil rights movement. The boycott ended 381 days later, when the Supreme Court ruled segregation on public transportation was illegal. When Parks died in 2005, she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Harriet Tubman A runaway slave from Maryland, Harriet Tubman earned a reputation as "the Moses of her people." She's credited with leading more than 300 slaves to freedom through the "Underground Railroad" -- a secret network that provided housing for runaway slaves as they journeyed to the free north. Tubman eventually became a leading abolitionist. During the Civil War, she served as a spy, a scout and a nurse for the Union army. Shirley Chisholm In 1968, a largely black district in Brooklyn elected a powerful voice to Congress, Shirley Chisholm, the legislature's first black female representative. Throughout seven terms in the House of Representatives, she championed the causes of women and minorities. Chisholm ran for president in 1972, winning more than 150 democratic delegates. In her book, "The Good Fight," she wrote that her campaign demonstrated "sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." This founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus died in 2005 at the age of 80. Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall changed the face of the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1908, Marshall went on to study law at Howard University. He later served as chief counsel for the NAACP, challenging racial segregation, especially in education. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court -- the first African American ever to hold the post. As a justice, Marshall wrote many key decisions on freedom of expression and equal protection, urging the high court to secure the rights of minorities and the poor. Althea Gibson Althea Gibson first picked up a tennis racket in Harlem when the sport was mainly a country club pursuit. Later, she integrated tennis all over the world. Gibson was the first black person to play the U.S. Open, in 1950, and Wimbledon, in 1951. Eventually, she won both several times, plus championships at the French and Australian opens, finishing with 11 grand slam titles. By breaking the color line, Gibson paved the way for stars like Arthur Ashe and Venus and Serena Williams. Marcus Garvey Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, after traveling the world and discovering shabby treatment of black people everywhere. The man who once said "a race without authority and power is a race without respect," saw the UNIA as a means to improve the economic and political clout of subjugated blacks. In the Negro World newspaper, which Garvey published from 1918 to 1933, he encouraged blacks to create a unilateral economy and culture, and return to Africa to take over their home continent. Paul Robeson A prominent singer and actor in the 1930s and '40s, Paul Robeson had a law degree, excelled in sports, spoke multiple languages and vigorously fought racial inequality. He portrayed Joe in the Broadway musical "Showboat," singing "Ol' Man River," changing the words to avoid racial stereotypes. He also gained prominence as the first black man to play Othello on Broadway. Robeson openly embraced communism, which he believed helped snuff out racism. But in the anti-communism hysteria of the 1940s and '50s, his career was hurt and it never fully recovered. |
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