Leaders & Activists

Benjamin Franklin

Born: January 17 [Jan. 6, Old Style], 1706

Died: April 17, 1790

Benjamin Franklin was many things: a printer, writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, civic leader, and diplomat.

As a scientist, he is best known for his experiments with electricity. As a writer, he is known for Poor Richard's Almanac and his autobiography. He was the oldest figure of the American Revolution. Franklin also was the only person to sign the three documents that established the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War, and the Constitution

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born: January 15, 1929

Died: April 4, 1968

If you wanted to protest something, how would you go about it? What's the best strategy? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in the use of peaceful demonstrations, acting with love and calm. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, King became 20th century America's most compelling and effective civil rights leader. He entered the civil rights movement, which worked toward political and social equality for people of all races, in 1955. By that time, he was already a Baptist minister, a husband, and a father.

During that same year, 1955, civil rights activists asked King, the young, newly married pastor of a Montgomery, Alabama, church, to lead a bus boycott aimed at ending segregation (a separation of facilities by race) on public transportation in Montgomery. The boycott was initiated by the refusal of a woman named Rosa Parks to give up her bus seat to a white passenger; she was arrested. For more than a year, African Americans, a majority of the bus riders in the city, stayed off the bus in protest of Parks's arrest. Finally the boycott brought about the desegregation King and the protesters sought when, in December 1956, the Supreme Court banned segregation on public transportation, and the boycott ended.

That was just the beginning. King asked civil rights activists to remain nonviolent as they worked to lift racial oppression. His advice was to use sit-ins, marches, and peaceful demonstrations to bring attention to issues of inequality. The commitment and moral integrity of activists who remained calm in the face of violent opposition inspired national admiration. Even in jail, King continued preaching this message. He was arrested while protesting in Alabama to desegregate lunch counters.

In 1963, King participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech to a crowd of 250,000. You've probably heard some of this powerful speech. It emphasized King's belief that the movement would create a society in which character, rather than color, prevailed. For his efforts, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Tragically, King was assassinated in 1968, but his ideals live on and his words continue to inspire. Do you think America has come any closer to creating the society that King envisioned?

Portrait of Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Born: 1596 (exact date uncertain)

Died: March (exact date uncertain) 1617

Have you seen the animated film "Pocahontas"? It tells the story of the daughter of Powhatan, the most powerful Indian chief of coastal Virginia in the early 1600s. Even today, her story fascinates people.

Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, an important chief of the Algonquian Indians (the Powhatans) who lived in the Virginia region. Her real name was "Matoaka." "Pocahontas" was a nickname meaning "playful" or "mischievous one."

Pocahontas was only about 10 years old when her world changed forever. English settlers arrived from far across the ocean and created a settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. These new English settlers looked and acted very differently from Powhatan's tribe. Some of Pocahontas's people were afraid or even hateful of the newcomers. But the chief's daughter had a curious mind and a friendly manner. She wanted to know more about these newcomers.

Pocahontas is most famous for reportedly saving the life of English Captain John Smith. Throughout her short life (she died at the age of 22), however, she was important in other ways as well. Pocahontas tried to promote peace between the Powhatans and the English colonists. She even converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe, a Jamestown colonist, a union which helped bring the two groups together. Her untimely death in England hurt the chance for continued peace in Virginia between the Algonquians and the colonists.