Thousands of ordinary men and women put their physical and economic safety on the line to march in demonstrations, show up for sit-ins or even do something as innocuous as voting in an election.
While we honor the titans of the movement, it’s important to recognize other individuals whose courage made progress possible. These five sites pay tribute to the lesser-known luminaries — ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things.
L.C. and Daisy Bates House Museum
Little Rock, Arkansas
The 1954 Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision was only the beginning of the battle to end racial segregation in schools, and the fight in Little Rock, Arkansas, was particularly fierce. The brick veneer two-bedroom home at 1207 West 28th Street may appear modest, but it served a crucial role in the efforts to desegregate Central High School.
“[Central] was considered to be the premier public institution that existed in Little Rock during that period of time and also was one of the most renowned on a national scale,” said Larry Hicks, tour consultant for the L.C. and Daisy Bates House Museum. “It was a school that people from all over the country wanted to have their children attend because they offered AP courses. That was extremely unusual for that time period, and it was creating an opportunity for young people to be able to make a seamless transition from public high school into college.”
Daisy Bates was the president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, and she spoke on behalf of the Black students who attempted to attend Central in 1957 and became known as the Little Rock Nine.
“Dr. Martin Luther King was a very good friend of Mrs. Bates,” Hicks said. “And she was the only woman who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington.”
Other important figures who visited were Thurgood Marshall, who became the Supreme Court’s first Black justice in 1967, and actors and activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.
The Bates’ activism was not appreciated by pro-segregationists, who burned crosses on the home’s lawn, shot through the windows and, on one occasion, targeted it with a bomb. Today, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Modjeska Monteith Simkins House
Columbia, South Carolina
One of South Carolina’s greatest human rights advocates has largely slipped from the pages of history. But in her time, Modjeska Monteith Simkins was both a powerhouse and a firebrand, passionately devoted to civil rights and determined to make her place in the movement. Born in 1899 and trained as a teacher, Simkins began working in public health as the director for South Carolina Tuberculosis Association before being fired, largely as a result of her increased involvement with the state’s NAACP.
“When people look back on the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina, they remember key male figures for the most part,” said Katharine Allen, director of education and interpretation for Historic Columbia. “There were male organizers who did a lot of amazing work. But in their own recollections, they did not discuss her role in the movement.”
Simkins’ role in working for full civil rights was significant. One of the founders of the state NAACP conference, she was elected to the first executive board and was the first chair of the state programs committee. She also worked closely with Joseph DeLaine on the school lawsuit for desegregation of Clarendon County Schools — one of the cases that challenged the “separate but equal” doctrine in the Brown v. Board of Education case in Topeka, Kansas.
“I think what a lot of people would be surprised to know that are visiting from out of state is that, of the cases that make up Brown v. Board of Education, the one filed in South Carolina came first,” Allen said. “Simkins was instrumental in organizing and getting the parents in Clarendon County organized. There’s amazing photographs of that period, including the petition that was signed, not just by the parents, but by the kids themselves.”
The exhibits in Simkins’ home, which she bought with her own money in 1932 and lived in until her death 60 years later, focus largely on primary sources. Group tours are available and can be combined with the Mann-Simons Site, a collection of spaces owned and operated by the same Black family from at least 1843 until 1970.
Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Statue & Gardens
Ruleville, Mississippi
“Nobody is free until everybody is free.”
These were the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, a woman born into deep poverty who nonetheless became a passionate humanitarian and a fierce advocate for civil rights. The youngest of 20 children, Hamer worked as a sharecropper until the age of 44, when she attended a 1962 meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an experience that led her to becoming a voting rights activist and a tireless crusader for human rights. A brutal beating in 1963 at the hands of police — who also forced Black prisoners to participate — didn’t silence Hamer. She helped established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and spoke on its behalf the following year at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.
Hamer, whose early life was shaped by hunger, established the Freedom Farm Cooperative to tackle hunger and poverty, and she was also instrumental in the formation of the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) to expand opportunities for women’s political participation.
Hamer died of breast cancer in 1977 at the age of 59. A driving tour of Ruleville, Mississippi, allows visitors to see the church where she attended her first civil rights meeting and other important stops, including the memorial park where she and her husband are buried and where a bronze statue honors her tireless legacy.
Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex
Mims, Florida
It was Christmas night, 1951, and educator and civil rights activist Harry Moore was at home with his wife, Harriette, who was also an educator and activist, celebrating the couple’s 25th wedding anniversary. A bomb that had been planted under their bedroom floor exploded and killed Harry almost instantly. Harriette died nine days later. No one was arrested for the couple’s killing; it would be more than 50 years before the case was reopened and four members of the Ku Klux Klan were identified as being involved in the murders.
“The Moores were pioneer civil rights leaders in Florida whose work laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement before it gained national attention in the ’50s and the ’60s,” said Sonya Mallard, coordinator of the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Mims, Florida. “They dedicated their lives to justice, equality and education for African Americans. The Moores didn’t wait for history to change. They risked their lives to change it. Their legacy challenges us to stand for justice — even when it comes at a cost.”
Harry Moore served as the executive director of the Florida NAACP, fighting for equal pay for Black and white schoolteachers and working with legal counsel Thurgood Marshall to successfully overturn the conviction of four Black males (two of whom were teens) wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. Marshall went on to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice, and the state of Florida posthumously exonerated the “Groveland Four” in 2021.
Today, a replica of the yellow frame home where the Moores lived is part of a complex that honors the couple’s work for equality. The complex also includes a 12-acre park and a 5,000-square-foot cultural center.
Whitney M. Young Jr. Birthplace
Simpsonville, Kentucky
Soldier, social worker, educator, urban planner and presidential confidant: Whitney M. Young Jr. played all these roles and more. Born in Simpsonville, Kentucky, just 20 miles from Louisville, Young grew up on the campus of the Lincoln Institute, where his father presided over a prestigious boarding school for Black students established by Berea College. After serving in the Army, Young studied social work and became president of the Urban League’s Omaha, Nebraska, branch before serving as dean of social work at Atlanta University and rising to the rank of state president of Georgia’s NAACP and national president of the Urban League.
“Whitney M. Young Jr. was very instrumental in working with John F. Kennedy and encouraging the president to support the March on Washington,” said Janette Marson, CEO and president of ShelbyKY Tourism. “He was an incredibly powerful civil rights leader and spoke at the march. He was influential with three presidents, helping to author President Johnson’s War on Poverty. And when he died, President Nixon delivered his eulogy.”
Tours are available by appointment only through the Lincoln Foundation at 502-585-4733.
