James Baldwin
Credit: Allan Warren (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature LGBTQ+ pioneers in a variety of areas.

The Black novelist, essayist, and playwright James Baldwin (1924-1987) has gained fame for his works about racial injustice and sexual identity. Baldwin was born in the United States, but he lived much of his life in France. Whether writing in the United States or abroad, he offered fiery protests against racial inequality.

Baldwin promoted civil rights and encouraged people to accept social differences in several powerful essay collections. These include Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). These five collections and other nonfiction pieces were compiled in The Price of the Ticket (1985).

Baldwin also explored interracial conflict in his fiction and drama, including the novel Another Country (1962), the play Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), and the short-story collection Going to Meet the Man (1965). In his novel Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968), Baldwin presented his most detailed portrayal of civil rights activities during the 1960′s.

James Arthur Baldwin was born on Aug. 2, 1924, in the Harlem district of New York City. He was a minister as a teenager, and many of his works use the rich language and tone of Biblical scripture, Black sermons, and gospel and blues music. His early writings explore the characters’ psychological struggles with their religious faith and relationships. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), and first play, The Amen Corner (1955), portray tensions within Black families and churches. Baldwin explored the subject of homosexuality in his second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956), and in other works of fiction.

Baldwin’s other works include the novels If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). A motion picture adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk was released in 2018. Baldwin also wrote poetry and nonfiction with other writers and civil rights activists. He wrote one children’s book, Little Man, Little Man, that portrays the world of a black child growing up in Harlem during the 1970′s. The book was originally published in 1976 and reissued in a new edition in 2018. His essays were gathered in Collected Essays (published by the Library of America in 1998) and The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2010). The Library of America also published two volumes of Baldwin’s fiction, Early Novels & Stories (1998) and Later Novels (2015). Baldwin died on Dec. 1, 1987.

February is Black History Month, an annual observance of the achievements and culture of Black Americans. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature Black pioneers in a variety of areas.

Barbara Rose Johns
Credit: Library of Virginia

Can you imagine inspiring all the students in your school? Maybe you already have. You might have inspired them to establish a recycling program. You might have urged students to talk with teachers and administrators about having a more diverse curriculum.

In 1951, at the age of 16, the Black civil rights activist Barbara Johns (1935-1991) inspired all the students in her school. She led a walkout of her segregated high school in protest of poor and unequal school conditions. Segregation is the separation of people by race. Johns’s walkout helped launch the desegregation movement in the United States.

Barbara Rose Johns was born on March 6, 1935, in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. During World War II (1939-1945), Johns moved to Prince Edward County, Virginia, to live with her grandmother. Johns attended the segregated Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The school’s facilities were inadequate to handle its students. Although the school was constructed to hold about 200 students, more than 400 students attended. Classes were held in school buses and in the auditorium. When parents asked the school board for additional space, several tar-paper shacks were built.

In the 11th grade, after years of frustration, Johns began mobilizing students to protest the poor and unequal school conditions. On April 23, 1951, the students—led by Johns—left the school and did not return for two weeks. The protest attracted the attention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Lawyers from the organization agreed to help the students, as long as the students agreed to sue for an integrated (combined) school, rather than simply improved conditions at the all-Black school. The students agreed, and the suit became known as Dorothy E. Davis et al v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia. It became one of several cases consolidated into the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In that case, in 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

After organizing the walkout, Johns began receiving death threats. So, she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to live with relatives and finish school. Johns married William Powell in 1954. She became known as Barbara Johns Powell. The couple raised five children. Johns attended Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, before earning a master’s degree in library science from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1979. She became a librarian in the Philadelphia public school system. Johns died of bone cancer on Sept. 25, 1991.

In 2020, it was announced that a statue of Barbara Johns would be placed in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol, representing the state of Virginia. It was to replace a statue of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which was removed for its association with racism and the legacy of slavery.

Six-year-old Ruby Bridges is escorted by United States deputy marshals at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 1960. The first-grader was the only Black child enrolled in the school, where parents of white students boycotted the court-ordered integration law.
Credit: AP/Wide World

Ruby Bridges (1954-…) is another important figure in the history of integrated schools. She became one of the first Black children to integrate an elementary school in the Deep South region of the United States. In 1960, as a 6-year-old first-grader, she was the only Black student to enter the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. On Nov. 14, 1960, federal marshals escorted Bridges on her first day of school. The child was met by angry mobs. Parents of white students boycotted the court-ordered integration and took their children out of the school.

Bridges was taught by a white teacher named Barbara Henry, and she was the only student in her class for the entire school year. By the time Bridges entered second grade, Frantz Elementary had been successfully integrated. There were no more protests, and Bridges was able to attend the school unescorted.

American civil rights leader John R. Lewis
Credit: Office of John Robert Lewis

The world lost a major voice for the rights of African Americans on Friday, July 17, with the death of the American politician and civil rights leader John Lewis at the age of 80. A Democrat from Georgia, Lewis was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020. He became nationally known in the early 1960’s for organizing student protests against segregation (the enforced separation of African Americans) and racial discrimination in the South. Throughout his life, Lewis worked to promote the rights and political involvement of African Americans.

John Robert Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940. Lewis attended segregated schools, and later graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. As a university student in 1961, Lewis volunteered as a “Freedom Rider,” challenging segregation at bus terminals throughout the South.

In 1960, Lewis became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which organized student protests, such as sit-ins at lunch counters. In 1963, Lewis was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1965, Lewis was a leader in the voting rights protest march from Selma, Alabama. He and other marchers were attacked by state troopers in an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis also suffered beatings by angry mobs and was arrested by police dozens of times.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis to help lead ACTION, a federal agency that directed volunteer programs. In 1981, Lewis was elected to the City Council of Atlanta, Georgia. He served from 1982 to 1986, when he was elected to his first term in Congress.

Lewis was also the author of several books centered on his involvement in the civil rights movement. In 2011, Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by a U.S. president.

Lewis died on the same day as C. T. Vivian, a civil rights organizer and leader under King. Lewis’s death took on added significance in the wake of protests against police use of force against African Americans sparked by the killing of George Floyd and others.

February 14, 2020

Tomorrow, February 15, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the women’s rights activist and reformer Susan B. Anthony in 1820. She is best known for helping organize the woman suffrage movement, which worked to get women the right to vote. Anthony, who was arrested for voting in 1872, died on March 13, 1906. In 1920, 100 years ago, her lifelong dream came true as the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States became law, giving women the right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony was born 200 years ago on Feb. 15, 1820. Credit: Library of Congress

Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts. Her family were Quakers, who became known for their belief in the equality of men and women. Anthony’s family supported major reforms, such as temperance, the campaign to abolish alcoholic beverages, and the abolition of slavery.

From 1839 to 1849, Anthony taught school. She then joined the temperance movement. But most temperance groups consisted of men who did not allow women to help the movement. In 1852, she attended a temperance rally in Albany, New York, but was not allowed to speak because she was a woman. Soon after, she formed the Woman’s State Temperance Society of New York.

The Anthony dollar, minted for circulation in 1979 and 1980, honored woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. A profile of Susan B. Anthony is on the front and the American eagle is on the reverse. Credit: WORLD BOOK photo by James Simek

Through her temperance work, Anthony became increasingly conscious of the disparity in rights between men and women. In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leader of the women’s rights movement. The two women became close friends and co-workers. Soon, Anthony devoted herself completely to women’s rights and became a leader of the movement.

Before and during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Anthony and Stanton supported abolitionism. After the war, however, they broke away from those who had been involved in the abolitionist movement. Many of these people showed little interest in woman suffrage and supported the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment gave the vote to black men, but not to women. In 1869, Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and worked for a woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution. In 1872, Anthony voted in the presidential election and was arrested and fined $100 (a large sum at the time), but she vehemently refused to pay it.

From 1881 to 1886, Anthony and Stanton coedited three volumes of a book called History of Woman Suffrage. Anthony published a fourth volume of the book in 1902. In 1904, she established the International Woman Suffrage Alliance with Carrie Chapman Catt, another leader of the suffrage movement.

January 20, 2020

Yesterday, January 19, was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nonpartisan organization devoted to defending the rights and freedoms of people in the United States. The ACLU works mainly by providing lawyers and legal advice for individuals and groups in local, state, and federal courts. ACLU officials also testify before state and federal legislative committees, advise government officials, and conduct educational programs. The chief goal of the ACLU is to protect the fundamental rights of individuals as described in the Constitution of the United States.

Click to view larger image
ACLU logo. Credit: © ACLU

In 1917, a group of social activists founded the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) to support the Bill of Rights. The NCLB was led by Roger Baldwin, a social worker and civil rights champion, and Crystal Eastman, a lawyer and leader in the woman suffrage and equal rights movements. The NCLB became the ACLU in 1920, the same year that women in the United States won the right to vote.

The ACLU has defended the constitutional rights of a wide range of individuals and groups. It played an important part in Supreme Court rulings that guaranteed legal aid to poor people. The group has supported fair treatment of conscientious objectors, people whose conscience does not allow them to take part in war. The ACLU urged the desegregation of schools and promoted the African American civil rights movement. One of the current goals of the ACLU is the abolition of capital punishment. The group also calls for further restrictions on government investigative agencies and for stricter separation of church and state. In addition, it seeks greater protection for the rights of immigrants who enter the United States without the required papers and for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

The ACLU has played a significant part in some of the landmark civil rights cases in American history. The ACLU backed both biology teacher John Scopes and attorney Clarence Darrow in the Scopes trial of 1925, which challenged a Tennessee law that outlawed the teaching of evolution in schools. During World War II (1939-1945), the ACLU fought against the internment of Japanese Americans. In 1954, the ACLU joined with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to challenge racial segregation in public schools. The ACLU defended individual freedom of speech in 1968 and women’s reproductive rights in 1973. In 1978, the ACLU famously defended the free speech of an American Nazi group who wanted to march in Illinois. The ACLU believes that constitutional rights apply to everyone regardless of individual ideology.

February 23, 2018

World Book’s celebration of Black History Month continues with happy birthday wishes for African American leader W. E. B. Du Bois <<doo BOYS>>, who was born 150 years ago today on Feb. 23, 1868. During the first half of the 1900′s, Du Bois was the leading black opponent of racial discrimination in the United States. He also won fame as a historian and sociologist. Modern day historians still use Du Bois’s research on blacks in American society.

W. E. B. Du Bois was born 150 years ago today on Feb. 23, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

Du Bois was one of the first African Americans to express the idea of Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is the belief that all people of African descent have common interests and should work together to conquer prejudice. In 1900, Du Bois predicted that humanity’s chief problem of the new century would be “the color line.”

Credit: © African American History Month

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on Feb. 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He graduated from Fisk University in 1888. In 1895, he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. degree at Harvard University. From 1897 to 1910, Du Bois taught history and economics at Atlanta University. In 1900, he attended the First Pan-African Conference in London, England. He later organized Pan-African conferences in Europe and the United States.

To fight racial discrimination, Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement in 1905. In 1909, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). From 1910 to 1934, he was editor of the NAACP magazine, The Crisis. Du Bois left the NAACP in 1934 and returned to the faculty at Atlanta University. From 1944 to 1948, he again worked for the NAACP. After 1948, Du Bois became increasingly dissatisfied with the slow progress of race relations in the United States. He moved to the west African country of Ghana in 1961. Du Bois died in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, on Aug. 27, 1963.

August 17, 2015

Julian Bond, lifelong champion for civil rights, died on Saturday, August 15, at the age of 75. Handsome and charismatic, with an intolerance for injustice ofttimes obscured by his calm demeanor, Bond took up the banner for equal treatment for African Americans as a teenager in Atlanta, Georgia, and carried it through to the end of his days.

Julian Bond served as chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1998 to 2010. Before taking the NAACP post, Bond had worked for civil rights as a university professor, a Georgia state legislator, and a student protester. (© Frederick M. Brown, Getty Images)

Horace Julian Bond was born in 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of a librarian mother and an educator father. As a 17-year-old student at Morehouse College, Bond led protests against racial discrimination in Atlanta parks and other public places. In 1960, Bond helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which led peaceful protests and demonstrations against segregation and voter suppression in the American South.

Bond won election as a Democrat to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 but was initially barred from taking office. In January 1966, Georgia legislators refused to seat Bond, accusing him of allegiances inconsistent with the Georgia Constitution after he endorsed a SNCC statement equating the work of soldiers drafted to serve in Vietnam with the travails of workers in the Civil Rights Movement. A ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States later sided with Bond on free-speech grounds, and Bond served in the body from 1967 through 1975.

Bond added his passionate voice to the clamor at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where proponents of reform vied for recognition with defenders of old-guard party politics. Bond led a group that challenged the seating of the Georgia delegation hand-picked by avowed segregationist Governor Lester G. Maddox. The dispute was settled by giving each of the two delegations half of Georgia’s votes.

In 1971, Bond helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was the organization’s president from 1971 to 1979. In 1977, Bond showed his lighter side when he hosted—with musical guests Tom Waits and Brick—the comedy sketch program “Saturday Night Live.”

Bond served in the Georgia Senate from 1975 to 1986, when he resigned to run for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. In a stunning upset, Bond lost the bid to John Lewis, a fellow black civil rights leader, in a heated primary runoff election to represent most of Atlanta in Congress.

In 1998, Bond was elected chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He held the position for several years. In his later years, Bond taught at several universities and made his presence felt at demonstrations on topics ranging from corporate outsourcing to the Keystone XL pipeline. In 2009, he won the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor given by the NAACP.

Other World Book articles

• Democratic Party (1968-a Back in time article)
• Election (1986-a Back in time article)
• Vietnam War

In a landmark decision this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage. The ruling establishes a new civil right in a long and hard-fought battle for the gay rights movement and makes the United States the 21^st country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Supporters of same-sex marriage celebrate outside of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2015, after the court ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage. © Jacquelyn Martin, AP Photo

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. “[The hope of same-sex couples] is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions,” he wrote. “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, however, wrote that the decision had nothing to do with the Constitution. “If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal,” he wrote. “Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

Speaking at the White House later this morning, President Barack Obama said “America should be very proud” because “small acts of courage” … “slowly made an entire country realize that love is love.”

Today’s decision came nearly 46 years to the day after a riot at New York City’s Stonewall Inn ushered in the modern gay rights movement. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. In October 2014, the Supreme Court justices refused to hear appeals from rulings allowing same-sex marriage in five states. That non-decision delivered a tacit victory for gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states allowing same-sex marriage to 24, along with the District of Columbia. By 2015, more than half of all American states had legalized same-sex marriage.

Additional World Book articles:

• Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
• Civil rights (2010-a Back in Time article)
• Civil rights (2012-a Back in Time article)
• Civil rights (2014-a Back in Time article)
• Supreme Court of the United States (2013-a Back in Time article)
• Supreme Court of the United States (2014-a Back in Time article)

April 11, 2014

At a summit celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964, United States President Barack Obama praised President Lyndon Baines Johnson for “opening new doors of opportunity and education” for him and millions of other Americans. Johnson “knew that he had a unique capacity as the most powerful white politician from the South to not merely challenge the convention that had crushed the dreams of so many but to ultimately dismantle for good the structures of legal segregation,” President Obama said. The summit was held in Austin, Texas, at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum. Johnson, who served as president from 1963 to 1969, signed the landmark measure on July 2, 1964, the day it was finally passed by Congress. The law was a major accomplishment of the civil rights movement, the main domestic issue in the United States in the 1950′s and 1960′s. Other speakers at the summit included former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (AP/Wide World)

One of the nation’s strongest civil rights laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed to address the widespread political, economic, and educational oppression of African Americans and other minority groups. Beginning in the late 1800′s, blacks in the South increasingly suffered from segregation, the loss of voting rights, and other forms of discrimination. These practices were designed to keep the vast majority of African Americans in the South in a form of slavery known as peonage. This was especially true of blacks who worked as sharecroppers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 transformed American society by banning discrimination because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. It opened to all Americans hotels, motels, restaurants, and other businesses that serve the public. At that time, many businesses, especially in the South, refused to serve blacks.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act also outlawed discrimination against minority voters, which included numerous state and local laws as well as violent intimidation, and guaranteed equal job opportunities for all. Johnson, a former U.S. senator skilled in dealing with legislators, pushed the law through Congress, overcoming fierce opposition by some members.

Additional World Book articles:

• Jim Crow
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Civil rights (1964) (a Back in Time article)

August 28, 2013

The civil rights march held on Aug. 28, 1963, known in full as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, became a turning point in the movement to end racial discrimination in the United States.

The ringing of bells, marches, commemorations, Twitter streams, and a major address by President Barack Obama are helping the international community mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the “I Have a Dream” speech given by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The site was well chosen, as King referenced President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in his speech. In King’s speech—one of the most significant in United States history—he outlined his dream for the nation. He dreamed of a future when his children, and all children, would be judged on their character and not their skin color; a time when the sons of slaves and the sons of slaveholders would sit down together in brotherhood; a time when justice would become a reality for all. King also called on the government to improve the economic conditions of both black and white Americans.

The march and speech inspired U.S. legislators to pass new laws to improve racial equality. The Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex, was passed in 1964. The Voting Rights Act, which states that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting … shall be imposed … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,” was passed in 1965.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (© Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Today, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, the hour at which King gave his speech, bells rang from sites, including New Hampshire, California, and Stone Mountain in Georgia, that were called out when he demanded that freedom be allowed to ring. Bells rang in nearly every U.S. state and from many places in Washington, D.C. At the Lincoln Memorial, a bell was rung by President Obama, who was joined by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, members of King’s family, and Georgia representative John Robert Lewis. Lewis was a keynote speaker at the march in 1963. In his speech, President Obama paid tribute to the heroes of the civil rights movement, arguing that their sacrifices benefitted all Americans. Stressing the link between liberty and livelihood, the president also decried growing economic inequality and called on Americans to work toward equal opportunity for all.

Internationally, commemorations will be held in London, at Trafalgar Square, as well as in such countries as Japan, Switzerland, and Liberia.

Additional World Book articles:

• “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Protestantism (a back in time article-1963)