african american leaders Essay -- essays research papers

Jesse capital of Mississippi, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B DuBois are all African American leaders. All of these workforce were leaders in their own time and their own sense, living in different eras with different views, but they all shared common ground. All quaternary were African Americans trying to overcome obstacles and become influential leaders in their society.Jesse capital of Mississippi was an African American civil rights activist and political leader. He was innate(p) in Greenville, South Carolina in 1941. Jackson overcame numerous childhood insecurities. He was shunned and taunted my classmates and neighbors. However, instead of letting this adversity defeat him, Jackson developed his exceptional fight off and understanding for the oppressed. He worked hard in school, finishing 10th in his class while actively involved in sports. His academic and athletic soil earned Jackson a football scholarship at the University of Illinois in Chicago. It was here Jackson realized discrimination was inescapable. After 3 years he left the University and attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, an institution for African-American students. He proved himself to be scholar athlete.Soon after college Jesse Jackson began his civil rights quest. He founded two groups, the PUSH operation and the rainbow coalition, in order to promote racial and economic justice in the United States. Then, in 1984 and 1988 Jackson campaigned as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Even today, Jackson is renowned spokesman and continues to work for racial and economic justice.Mumia Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist in Philadelphia, known as "the voice of the voiceless". He was born in Philadelphia on April 24, 1954. Mumia Abu Jamal was the Minister of Information for the Philadelphia grisly Panthers at a very primal age. By the age of 15 he had attracted such(prenominal) attention through his protests and thus, the FBI began keeping a file on him. He worked as a gull and radio journalist who had aired on National Public Radio and National Black Network. He had also served as president of the Philadelphia Society of Black Journalists. Jamals style of journalism allowed the voices of ordinary people to be broadcast.He was an African American that was put on trial for a murder charge. However, Jamals case has been much publicized for reasons t... ...can Americans, and believed strongly in integration. W.E.B DuBois eventually moved to Ghana and gave up his American citizenship.Martin Luther King wrote on W.E.B DuBois by saying, "History cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois because history has to smoothen truth and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth close his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense vo id. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of the man." Although DuBois was labeled a radical his ideas and literary works live on today. All these men, although from different times and situations, changed the world in influential ways. Not only did they overcome a great deal of adversity, but they made countless lives better from their ideas, courage and strength. If not for the influential dreams and actions of men such as this, the lives of so many may have been altered but these men had the courage and conviction to stand up for what they believed in, and the world will constantly be a better place for it.