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Showing results 11 – 20 of 24

Glossary Term – Organization

Freedom Riders

The Freedom Riders were young black and white activists who in 1961 compelled the federal government to enforce a Supreme Court ruling against segregation in interstate travel and interstate travel facilities. On May 4, 1961, the first Freedom Riders set out in two buses from Washington, DC, toward New Orleans. The riders were attacked and beaten by white mobs throughout the South, and they were jailed multiple times. The violence prompted US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to call in US marshals, and in late May Kennedy finally ordered...

Glossary Term – Person

William Tecumseh Sherman

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) was an important strategist and Union general during the American Civil War. Sherman graduated from West Point in 1840. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not see military action in the Mexican-American War. In 1859 he served as the superintendent of the Louisiana Military Seminary. Sherman left Louisiana when the state seceded from the Union in 1861 and was commissioned as a colonel in the Army. After initial faltering, Sherman rose through the ranks as he served under Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman led...

Glossary Term – Person

Hiram Revels

Glossary Term – Person

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis graduated from West Point in 1828 and served in Iowa under Colonel Zachary Taylor. He left the Army in June 1835 to marry Taylor’s daughter Sarah (against her father’s wishes) and begin a career as a planter in Mississippi, though Sarah soon died of malaria. Davis entered the US House of Representatives in 1845 but resigned the following year to join a Mississippi volunteer regiment (of which he was elected colonel) in the Mexican-American War. In Mexico, Davis once again served under Taylor. He was wounded in the heel while...

Glossary Term – Person

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) was an African American activist and journalist whose work focused on exposing and putting an end to violent crimes against African Americans, especially lynching. Wells was born in Mississippi and began her career in journalism after suing the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad for forcibly removing her from a whites-only railroad car. In 1889, she bought an interest in and became editor of the Memphis Free Speech. In 1892, after a triple lynching in Memphis, Wells began an editorial campaign to address the...

Glossary Term – Person

Emmett Till

Emmett Till (1941–1955) was a fourteen-year-old African American from Chicago who was brutally murdered in rural Mississippi in 1955. Till was in Mississippi to visit relatives, and on August 24, 1955, he spoke to or whistled at a female grocery store cashier. Four days later the woman’s husband and his half brother abducted Till and beat him severely before shooting him and dumping his body into a river. The murderers were quickly arrested, but they were acquitted at trial by an all-white, all-male jury.