The name of Emmett Till is widely known across the United States, something that would not have been possible without the perseverance of his mother Mamie, who refused to endure the atrocity of her son’s death in silence.

Who was Mamie Till-Mobley?

Born on 23 November 1921 in Webb, Mississippi at the height of the Jim Crow era in the southern states, Mamie was the only child of Alma and John Carthan. The family followed the Great Migration in 1924, a period when hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved to the northern states, when John got a job at the Corn Products Refining Company in Illinois.

At the age of 12, Mamie’s parents divorced. This news devastated Mamie, who threw herself into school work as a distraction. Excelling in her studies and encouraged by her mother, who worked as a nurse, Mamie became the first African American student to make the ‘A’ honour roll and the fourth to graduate her mostly white school.

Louis Till

In 1940, Mamie met Louis Till. Louis was an amateur boxer working for the Argo Corn Company. He was also charismatic and popular with other women, and because of this Mamie’s parents disapproved of the match. But Louis was persistent and on 14 October that year, they were married. Just 9 months later on 25 July 1941, their only child was born: Emmett Louis Till.

However, the family did not stay together for long. Louis was repeatedly unfaithful to Mamie and their relationship grew increasingly violent. Eventually, Mamie had a restraining order placed against Louis, which he ignored leading a judge to force him to choose between time in prison or enlistment in the US Army. Louis chose enlistment.

Several years later, towards the end of World War Two, Mamie received a letter from the War Department. The letter said Louis Till had been executed by the army for “wilful misconduct”. Despite trying to wrestle more information from the army bureaucracy, it was only 10 years later that Mamie learned Louis had been executed for the rape and murder of an Italian woman, a crime he vehemently denied committing.

Emmett was just four years old at the time of his father’s execution. Now a single parent, Mamie worked a series of jobs to support her small family.

The murder of Emmet Till

Emmett Till was a bright, curious and funny child who loved to learn. In August of 1955, Mamie made the difficult decision to allow Emmett to travel from Chicago to Mississippi to visit his great-uncle, Moses Wright. Emmet’s cousins were also travelling south, but Mamie was reluctant to let her son (who she nicknamed ‘Bobo’) go with them.

The southern states had unwritten rules about race relations that Emmet would not have been familiar with growing up in Chicago. Mississippi in particular had a long, terrible history of violence against its black population. Between 1877 and 1950, as documented by the Equal Justice Initiative, more than 600 black victims were lynched in Mississippi – the highest number of any state nationwide.

Mamie’s worst fears were realised on 24 August 1955. Emmett was kidnapped from his great-uncle’s home in the middle of the night by two white men. The men beat Emmett, gouged out his eye and shot him in the head before throwing his body into the Tallahatchie River.

Shortly after arriving in Mississippi, a white woman called Carolyn Bryant accused Emmett of whistling at her in her family grocery store. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law J. W. Milam, abducted and killed Emmett, a crime they later admitted to in an 1956 interview with Look magazine, then protected by double jeopardy.

When Emmett’s body was recovered from the river three days later, it was terribly mutilated and unrecognisable. Mamie courageously decided to have an open-casket funeral for her son, despite the advice of friends and family who urged her to keep the casket closed. She wanted to show the brutal reality of racism in the United States; “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby”.

What is Mamie Till-Mobley remembered for?

The photographs of Emmett’s mutilated body, which were published in newspapers and magazines across the country, sparked outrage and horror. Mamie’s decision to have an open-casket funeral helped to galvanise the Civil Rights Movement, as people across the country were moved by the brutality of the crime and the courage of Emmett’s mother.

Mamie became a public figure in the aftermath of her son’s murder, giving interviews to newspapers and television programmes and speaking at rallies and protests. She worked tirelessly to seek justice for her son, testifying at the trial of Bryant and Milam and travelling to Washington, DC to meet with government officials and civil rights leaders.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against them, Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Emmett’s murder by an all-white jury after just 67 minutes of deliberation. Mamie’s quest for justice did not end with the trial, however. She continued to speak out against racism and injustice for the rest of her life, working with civil rights organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), who asked Mamie to tour the country relating the events of her son’s life, death and the trial of his murderers. It was one of the NAACP’s most successful fundraising campaigns.

When in 1956, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white man, she later said in that moment she thought of Emmett and his mother’s courage.

“Her pain united a nation”

Mamie Till-Mobley’s bravery and determination made her a hero of the Civil Rights Movement. A large part of her work and activism centred around education, including establishing ‘The Emmett Till Players’, a theatre group that encouraged children to learn and perform famous speeches by civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.

On 6 January 2003, Mamie Till-Mobley died of heart failure aged 81. She was buried near her son in Burr Oak Cemetery, where her monument reads, “Her pain united a nation.” In the years since her death, Mamie has been recognised across the United States for her courage. Till, a 2022 film from director Chinonye Chukwu, spotlights Mamie’s decision to have an open-casket funeral for her son as a turning point in the struggle for racial justice, mobilising the movement and bringing the issue of racism to the forefront of American consciousness.

Congress awarded Mamie and Emmett Till a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal in 2022, which will be displayed at the National Museum of African American History. In 2023, a statue of and dedicated to Mamie Till-Mobley is planned to be unveiled in front of the Argo Community High School, where she graduated as an honour roll student and her passion for education began.

Mamie’s legacy endures as the movement for racial justice in the United States and beyond continues.

Born to a large, politically-minded family, Rustin campaigned for civil rights from an early age, such as protesting against racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws as a teenager. However, Rustin’s personal life bled into and often overshadowed his activism, since his homosexuality meant that his character was frustratingly referred to as ‘perverted’ or ‘immoral’ by critics and fellow activists alike.

It was only in the years after his death that the full impact of his work and activism has been recognised: amongst other achievements, former US President Barack Obama posthumously honoured Rustin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

So who was Bayard Rustin?

1. He campaigned against Jim Crow laws as a youth

Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was raised by his maternal grandparents as one of twelve children. He believed his grandparents to be his parents; however, his real mother was actually his supposed sister, Florence Rustin.

Rustin’s grandmother was a Quaker and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), meaning that members W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson were frequent guests in the Rustin household. As a result of these influences, Rustin campaigned against racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws as a youth.

2. He was expelled from university

In 1932, Rustin entered Wilberforce College, where he was active in a number of organisations. He was expelled in 1936 after organising a strike. He later attended the Cheyney State Teachers College, but didn’t graduate with a degree. After completing an activist training program held by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), he then moved to Harlem in 1937 to study at the City College of New York. In all, he had obtained five years of university schooling without obtaining a formal degree.

3. He advocated for nonviolent protest

In 1941, Rustin was hired as a race relations secretary at the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the ‘largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organisation in the United States.’ The group campaigned for both domestic and international issues, and emphasised nonviolent methods of protest and the rights of conscience. He also organised the New York branch of another reformist group, the Congress on Racial Equality, in 1941.

Rustin and Cleveland Robinson of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 7, 1963

Image Credit: New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Fernandez, Orlando, photographer., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

4. He was an accomplished singer

Rustin was a talented tenor vocalist, which helped earn him admission to both Wilberforce University and Cheyney State Teachers College. In Harlem, he earned a living as a nightclub and stage singer, and in 1939 was cast in a Broadway musical. He also later joined gospel and vocal harmony group ‘Josh White and the Carolinians’, with whom he made several recordings. He also became a regular performer at the Café Society in Greenwich.

5. He was the main organiser of the March on Washington

In 1941, Rustin was one of the main organisers of the March on Washington Movement, which advocated for an end to racial discrimination in employment. As well as organising labour union president and socialist A. Philip Randolph, the march leader, he influenced young activists to take part, drilled off-duty police officers as marshals, instructed bus captains to redirect traffic and scheduled the podium speakers. On 6 September 1963, a photograph of Rustin and Randolph appeared on the cover of Life magazine, which identified them as the ‘leaders’ of the march.

6. He was a close advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the mid-1950s, Rustin became a close advisor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He helped to organise the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and promoted the idea of nonviolent resistance and protest, which he had observed as an effective method after working with Gandhi’s movement in India. He also organised Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals.

King at a press conference in March 1964

Image Credit: Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

7. He was imprisoned for being gay

In 1953, Rustin was arrested in California after being discovered having sex with a man. He served 50 days in jail and was registered as a sex offender. Rustin’s sexuality – or at least, the public criminal charge – was criticised by both Rustin’s opponents and some of his fellow pacifists and civil rights leaders. As a result, he was attacked as a ‘pervert’ throughout the rest of most of his career, and took on less of a public, visible role within the civil rights movement, acting instead as an advisor. In 2020, Rustin was pardoned for his 1953 conviction.

8. He was involved with the Socialist movement

In 1972, Rustin became an honorary chairperson of the Sociality Party of America, before it changed its name to Social Democrats, USA. After the name change, Rustin served as national co-chairman.

Bayard Rustin in 1965

Image Credit: New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Wolfson, Stanley, photographer., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

9. He became a public advocate for queer and humanitarian causes

Rustin didn’t engage in any gay rights activism until the 1980s, after being urged to by his partner Walter Naegle. He became a public advocate for gay and lesbian causes. In addition, he served on many humanitarian missions such as aiding refugees from Communist Vietnam and Cambodia. Indeed, he was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti when he died in 1987.

10. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 2012, Rustin was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor display which celebrates LGBTQ+ history and people. On 20 November 2013, former US President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2021, Michelle and Barack Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Productions, announced the production of Rustin, a biopic about Rustin’s life.

She was born into Jim Crow America, a period of violence and segregation targeted at black Americans in the South following the Civil War. It continued throughout Bethune’s lifetime and she fought tirelessly against it. This devotion to securing integration and equality for black lives would eventually stretch beyond the borders of her county, state and nation.

So, who was Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, and what exactly is she remembered for?

Student

Mary Jane McLeod was born on 10 July 1875 in a small cabin near Mayesville, South Carolina. She was the 15th of Samuel and Patsy McLeod’s 17 children, and unlike her parents and all but one of her siblings, Bethune was born free of slavery.

Patsy continued working for her former owner after the Civil War while Samuel farmed cotton. However, the McLeods were eventually able to buy their own farm and by age 9 Bethune could pick 250 pounds of cotton a day.

Born free and encouraged by her deeply religious parents, Bethune soon left the fields to attend Maysville School, a Presbyterian Mission School for African Americans. She was the only McLeod child to go to school and walked 5 miles each day to and from classes.

But it was while studying on a hard-won scholarship at Scotia Seminary for Girls that Bethune recognised the autonomy education gave women. As she prepared to leave study, Bethune resolved she would become a Christian missionary in Africa.

Yet with her experience of learning among the black population of South Carolina, Bethune reconciled there was enough need for her mission right on her doorstep.

Teacher

In 1894, aged 23, Mary married fellow teacher Albertus Bethune. The pair settled in Daytona, Florida with their son, Albert. Daytona at the turn of the century was full of promise: the city had become a popular tourist destination and businesses thrived.

Eventually, in 1904, Bethune opened the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. In October, she began by renting a small house for $11 a month and made benches and desks from discarded crates. The school opened with just 6 students: 5 girls and Bethune’s son Albert.

Bethune with girls from her school in Daytona, 1905.

Image Credit: State Archives of Florida / Public Domain

Bethune, the students’ parents and local church members helped fund the school by making and selling sweet potato pies and ice cream to crews working at the dump next door. Students even made ink for pens from elderberry juice when money was tight.

Bethune later wrote, “I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a loving God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.”

A few years later in 1907, her tumultuous marriage ended. Albertus deserted the family and returned to South Carolina while Bethune listed herself as a widow in the 1910 census despite her estranged husband not dying until 1918.

Entrepreneur

A teacher and now single mother, Bethune was also a savvy businesswoman. Always seeking donations to keep her school open, Bethune was fundraising wherever she went. Critical to Daytona Normal’s survival was her ability to court Daytona’s wealthy white population.

Influential white men were invited to sit on the school’s board of trustees and donors would eventually include John D. Rockefeller, who gave $62,000, as well as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, providing access to a powerful and progressive network of supporters.

Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt and others at the opening of Midway Hall, one of two residence halls for black students, May 1943.

Image Credit: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration / Public Domain

The popularity of Daytona Normal also helped Bethune negotiate its merging with the Methodist Cookman Institute for Men in 1923. She became Bethune-Cookman College’s first president from 1923 to 1942 (and again in 1946-1947), one of America’s few female college presidents at the time.

Bethune’s resolve was tested during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Alongside the civil rights advocate Blake R. Van Leer, Bethune lobbied alongside other Florida institutions for federal funding. Thanks to their tireless efforts, the Bethune-Cookman School stayed open throughout the Depression.

Political activist

Alongside establishing and running the Bethune-Cookman College, Bethune’s continued work with local, county and national educational boards cemented Bethune’s status as a leader of the black community and civil rights movement.

In 1924 she was elected President of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). As the NACW’s leader, Bethune advocated moving beyond traditional self-help and instead agitating for integration and attacking racial discrimination within the Federal government.

However, Jim Crow had a tight hold on the US government and, frustrated by the NACW’s internal politics, Bethune left in 1935. She founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and its flagship publication, Aframerican Women’s Journal, with an explicit civil rights focus.

Bethune had also become a Democratic Party supporter in the 1930s, and her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt had also provided Bethune with proximity to the President, who charged her in 1936 with joining the National Youth Administration (NYA).

In 1939, she became Director of Negro Affairs. Bethune used her platform so that the NYA employed hundreds of thousands of young African Americans and established a  fund supporting some 4,000 black students through higher education.

Political activist: The Black Cabinet

Facilitated by her close relationship with the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Bethune had become part of an informal committee advising the President on issues the Black American community faced. She called it ‘The Black Cabinet’.

The Black Cabinet worked on matters including welfare, trying to ban the poll tax of the South, anti-lynching legislation, creating jobs for black Americans and during World War Two, ending the exclusion of black Americans in the armed forces and defence industry.

Exemplifying her belief that “we must not fail America and as Americans, we must not let America fail us”, Bethune served as a special assistant to the Secretary of War for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. She was responsible for recruiting black women for army officer training and established a school to do so.

After the war’s end and the death of President Roosevelt, Bethune served as an associate consultant to help draft the United Nations charter. Her focus was enshrining the rights of colonised populations, yet Bethune left the conference feeling deeply let down. The concessions of freedom, human rights and self-determination for colonised peoples she demanded had not been a priority, and her demands were left unanswered.

Legacy

Bethune died of a heart attack on 18 May 1955, just 7 months before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began which would secure a momentous victory for the Civil Rights movement. In the years preceding her death, Bethune was recognised across the world for her contributions to black liberation.

In 1949, she was invited to Haiti to receive their highest civilian honour, the Medal of Honour and Merit, and while representing President Truman in Liberia, she received Commander of the Order of the Star of Africa.

The moon sets behind the Mary McLeod Bethune statue at Lincoln Park.

Image Credit: CC / Ezra Wolfe

Bethune was the first black woman to have a national monument dedicated to her in Washington DC, and since 1955, schools, roads and parks have been named in her honour. Nonetheless, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune’s greatest legacy remains Bethune-Cookman University, a symbol of empowerment through education.

In the hours, days, months and years following the assassination of her husband, Jackie Kennedy cultivated an enduring myth around her husband’s presidency. This myth was centred around one word, ‘Camelot’, which came to encapsulate the youth, vitality and integrity of JFK and his administration.

Why Camelot?

Camelot is a fictional castle and court that has featured in literature about the legend of King Arthur since the 12th century, when the citadel was mentioned in the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ever since, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have been used as a symbol of courage and wisdom in politics.

For centuries, King Arthur and Camelot have been referenced by monarchs and politicians hoping to align themselves with this famed myth of a romanticised society, typically one led by a noble king where good always wins. Henry VIII, for example, had the Tudor rose painted on a symbolic round table during his reign as a way of associating his rule with the noble King Arthur.

After the death of JFK in 1963, Jackie Kennedy once again employed the myth of Camelot to paint a romanticised image of his presidency, immortalising it as pioneering, progressive, even legendary.   

Kennedy’s Camelot

In the early 60s, even before his death, Kennedy symbolised power and glamour in a way that American presidents had not before. Both Kennedy and Jackie had come from wealthy, socialite families. They were both attractive and charismatic, and Kennedy was also a World War Two veteran.

Additionally, when he was elected, Kennedy became the second-youngest president in history, aged 43, and the first Catholic president, making his election even more historic and feeding into the notion that his presidency would somehow be different.

The couple’s early days in the White House reflected a new visible level of glamour. The Kennedys went on trips via private jets to Palm Springs, attending and hosting lavish parties that boasted royalty and celebrity guests. Famously, these guests included members of the ‘Rat Pack’ such as Frank Sinatra, adding to the image of the Kennedys as young, fashionable and fun.

President Kennedy and Jackie attend a production of ‘Mr President’ in 1962.

Image Credit: JFK Library / Public Domain

Building the myth

The term Camelot has been used retrospectively to refer to the Kennedy administration, which lasted between January 1961 and November 1963, capturing the charisma of Kennedy and his family.

Camelot was first publicly used by Jackie in a Life magazine interview, after she invited the journalist Theodore H. White to the White House just days after the assassination. White was best known for his Making of a President series about Kennedy’s election.

In the interview, Jackie referred to the Broadway musical, Camelot, which Kennedy apparently listened to often. The musical had been written by his Harvard schoolmate Alan Jay. Jackie quoted the ending lines of the final song:

“Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot. There’ll be great presidents again… but there will never be another Camelot.”

When White took the 1,000-word essay to his editors at Life, they complained the Camelot theme was too much. Yet Jackie objected to any changes and herself edited the interview.

The immediacy of the interview helped cement the image of Kennedy’s America as Camelot. In that moment, Jackie was a grieving widow and mother in front of the world. Her audience was sympathetic and, more importantly, receptive.

Jackie Kennedy leaves the Capitol after the funeral ceremony alongside her children, 1963.

Image Credit: NARA / Public Domain

It wasn’t long before the images of Kennedy’s Camelot era were being shared and reproduced throughout popular culture. Family photographs of the Kennedys were everywhere, and on television, Mary Tyler Moore’s Dick Van Dyke Show character Laura Petrie often dressed like the glamorous Jackie.

Political realities

Like many myths, however, Kennedy’s Camelot was a half-truth. Behind Kennedy’s public image as a family man lay the reality: he was a serial womaniser who surrounded himself with a ‘cleaning crew’ who prevented news of his infidelities from getting out.

Jackie was determined to ensure her husband’s legacy was not one of misdemeanours and unfulfilled promises but integrity and the ideal family man.

The myth also glossed over the political realities of Kennedy’s administration. For example, Kennedy’s election victory over Vice President Nixon in 1960 was one of the narrowest in presidential history. The final result showed Kennedy won with 34,227,096 popular votes to Richard Nixon’s 34,107,646. This suggests that in 1961, the idea of a younger celebrity president was not as overwhelmingly popular as the Camelot narrative suggests.

In foreign policy, during his first year as president Kennedy ordered a failed overthrow of the Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, the Berlin Wall went up, polarising Europe into the Cold War ‘East’ and ‘West’. Then in October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis saw the US narrowly avert nuclear destruction. Kennedy may have had a flexible response but his presidency also featured diplomatic failures and stalemates.

A New Frontier

In 1960, the presidential candidate Kennedy had made a speech describing America as standing at a ‘New Frontier’. He referred back to the pioneers of the west who lived on the frontier of an ever-expanding America and faced the issues of establishing new communities:

“We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier – the frontier of the 1960s – a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils.”

While more of a political slogan than a distinct set of policies, the New Frontier program embodied Kennedy’s ambitions. There were some great successes, including setting up the Peace Corps in 1961, creating the man-on-the-moon program and devising the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed with the Soviets.

However, neither Medicare and federal aid to education got through Congress and there was little legislative progress for civil rights. Indeed, many rewards of the New Frontier came to fruition under President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had originally been tasked by Kennedy with getting the New Frontier policies through congress.

President Kennedy delivering a speech to Congress in 1961.

Image Credit: NASA / Public Domain

These factors do not diminish the successes of Kennedy’s short presidency. More so, they highlight how the romance of Kennedy’s Camelot removed nuance from the history of his administration.

Perhaps the myth is more useful when examining the years following Kennedy’s assassination rather than his years of presidency before it. America held onto the narrative of Kennedy’s idyllic presidency as the 1960s presented the challenges that Kennedy’s New Frontier speech had alluded to: the continuation of the Cold War and escalation of conflict in Vietnam, the need to address poverty and the struggle for civil rights.

The murder of prominent figures has historically sparked soul-searching, mass outpourings of grief and even conspiracy theories, as people struggle to come to terms with the consequences of assassinations.

Here are 10 assassinations from history that shaped the modern world.

1. Abraham Lincoln (1865)

Abraham Lincoln is arguably America’s most famous president: he led America through the Civil War, preserved the Union, abolished slavery, modernised the economy and bolstered the federal government. A champion of black rights, including voting rights, Lincoln was disliked by Confederate states.

His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a Confederate spy whose self-professed motive was to avenge the Southern states. Lincoln was shot at point-blank range whilst he was at the theatre, dying the following morning.

Lincoln’s death damaged relations between the North and South of the USA: his successor, President Andrew Johnson, presided over the Reconstruction era and was lenient on Southern states and granted amnesty to many former Confederates, to the frustration of some in the North.

2. Tsar Alexander II (1881)

Tsar Alexander II was known as the ‘Liberator’, enacting wide-ranging liberal reforms across Russia. His policies included the emancipation of serfs (peasant labourers) in 1861, the abolition of corporal punishment, the promotion of self-government and the ending of some of the nobility’s historic privileges.

His reign coincided with an increasingly volatile political situation in Europe and in Russia, and he survived several assassination attempts during his rule. These were mainly orchestrated by radical groups (anarchists and revolutionaries) who wanted to overthrow Russia’s system of autocracy.

He was assassinated by a group named Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will) in March 1881, bringing an end to an era which had promised ongoing liberalisation and reform. Alexander’s successors, worried they would meet a similar fate, enacted much more conservative agendas.

An 1881 photograph of Tsar Alexander II’s body lying in state.

Image Credit: Public Domain

3. Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)

In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by a Serbian named Gavilo Princip in Sarajevo. Frustrated by the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia, Princip was a member of a nationalist organisation entitled Young Bosnia, which aimed to free Bosnia from the shackles of external occupation.

The assassination is widely believed to have been the catalyst for the outbreak of World War One in August 1914: underlying factors were exacerbated in the political fallout of the Archduke’s death and from 28 June 1914, Europe began an inexorable path to war.

4. Reinhard Heydrich (1942)

Nicknamed the ‘man with the iron heart’, Heydrich was one of the most important Nazis, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. His brutality and chilling efficiency earned him the fear and loyalty of many, and unsurprisingly, many loathed him for his role in anti-Semitic policies across Nazi Europe.

Heydrich was assassinated on the orders of the exiled Czechoslovak government: his car was bombed and he was shot at. It took Heydrich a week to die from his injuries. Hitler ordered the SS to wreak revenge in Czechoslovakia in an attempt to hunt down the assassins.

Many consider Heydrich’s assassination a major turning point in Nazi fortunes, believing that had he lived, he may well have achieved major victories against the Allies.

5. Mahatma Gandhi (1948)

One of the earliest heroes of the civil rights movement, Gandhi spearheaded non-violent resistance to British rule as part of the Indian quest for independence. Having successfully helped campaign for independence, which was achieved in 1947, Gandhi turned his attention to trying to prevent religious violence between Hindus and Muslims.

He was assassinated in January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who viewed Gandhi’s stance as too accommodating towards Muslims. His death was mourned around the world. Godse was caught, tried and sentenced to death for his actions.

6. John F. Kennedy (1963)

President John F. Kennedy was America’s darling: young, charming and idealistic, Kennedy was welcome with open arms by many in the US, particularly due to his New Frontier domestic policies and staunchly anti-Communist foreign policy. Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas. His death shocked the nation.

Despite serving less than 3 full years in office, he is consistently ranked as one of the best and most popular presidents in American history. His assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended, but was killed before he could be tried: many have viewed this as symptomatic of a wider cover up and a sign of conspiracy.

JFK’s assassination cast a long shadow and had a huge cultural impact in America. Politically, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, passed much of the legislation set in place during Kennedy’s administration.

7. Martin Luther King (1968)

As the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in America, Martin Luther King met with plenty of anger and opposition over his career, including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958, and he regularly received violent threats. Reportedly after hearing about JFK’s assassination in 1963, King told his wife that he believed he would die by assassination too.

King was shot dead on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. His killer, James Earl Ray, initially pled guilty to the charge of murder, but later changed his mind. Many, including King’s family, believe his assassination was planned by the government and/or the mafia in order to silence him.

8. Indira Gandhi (1984)

Another victim of religious tensions in India, Indira Gandhi was the 3rd Prime Minister of India and remains the country’s only female leader to date. A somewhat divisive figure, Gandhi was politically intransigent: she supported the independence movement in East Pakistan and went to war over it, helping create Bangladesh.

A Hindu, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after ordering military action in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, one of the most important sites for Sikhs. Gandhi’s death resulted in violence against Sikh communities across India, and it’s estimated over 8,000 were killed as part of this retaliation.

Indira Gandhi in Finland in 1983.

Image Credit: Finnish Heritage Agency / CC

9. Yitzhak Rabin (1995)

Yitzhak Rabin was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel: first elected in 1974, he was re-elected in 1992 on a platform that embraced the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Subsequently, he signed various historic agreements as part of the Oslo Peace Accords, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

He was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing extremist who opposed the Oslo Accords. Many view his death as also being the demise of the kind of peace he had envisaged and worked towards, making it one of the most tragically effective political assassinations of the 20th century, in that it killed off an idea as much as a man.

10. Benazir Bhutto (2007)

The first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority country, Benazir Bhutto was one of Pakistan’s most important political figures. Killed by a suicide bomb at a political rally in 2007, her death shook the international community.

However, many were not surprised by it. Bhutto was a controversial figure who had been tarred consistently by allegations of corruption, and Islamic fundamentalists opposed her prominence and political presence. Her death was mourned by millions of Pakistanis, particularly women, who had seen the promise of a different Pakistan under her tenure.

Its founders believed civil disobedience (boycotts, non-violent protests and breaking unjust laws) had run its course in the struggle for black liberation. Instead, they advocated for armed patrols of city streets to defend against police violence (known as ‘copwatching’),  developed social programs for communities and encouraged self-defence and racial pride.

From wartime migration to providing a visible black challenge to rampant police brutality, the origins of the Black Panther Party are a vital part of modern history.

The Second Great Migration

During World War Two, the American population experienced its second greatest movement of people in the county’s history. From 1940, the demand for labour drew millions of black Americans from the southern states to the north and west. Cities such as Portland, Los Angeles and Oakland offered skilled and much better-paid jobs in the wartime industry.

These cities also offered the prospect of escaping the Jim Crow discrimination that black Americans faced daily in the South, where many lived in sharecropping plantations that exploited their labour.

As they settled, mostly in cities, the migrants built up black communities as well as black political influence, which strengthened civil rights groups such as The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The migration dramatically changed the predominantly white demographic of the northwest, and racial tensions soon bubbled up as both black and white areas became overcrowded.

While the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s had dismantled the legal Jim Crow system of segregation in the south, the prejudices of the north remained largely the same. With more and more people crowding into cities, housing shortages created ghettos where black Americans had reduced access to higher education, political representation and economic advancement.

Founding the Black Panther Party

Recognising that the days of civil disobedience which had served civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. well were gone, two students at Merritt College in Oakland decided on a new course of action. In October 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence.

Newton and Seale had met in 1962 and both had been members of various black power organisations. They were well-read, experienced debaters familiar with the black nationalism and anti-imperialism of Malcolm X.

Portrait of Huey Newton wearing the Black Panther Party uniform and holding both a rifle and a traditional spear.

Image Credit: Library of Congress / Public Domain

Following the assassination of Malcolm X and the murder of a black teen, Matthew Johnson, by the police, Newton and Seale knew they needed a new approach to challenge racism and police brutality.

A visiting talk at Berkeley’s 1966 Black Power Conference by activist Stokeley Carmichael called for ‘black power’ and promoted the armed efforts of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a black political party that used the panther as its logo.

Newton and Seale adopted the panther as their party’s symbol, deciding on the black beret and leather jacket as a uniform.

Policing the police

As their first course of action, Newton studied Californian gun laws, discovering you could legally carry arms if they were visible. By reselling copies of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book to socialist students at Berkeley, Newton and Seale raised enough money to buy a couple of shotguns.

Armed party members began following the police to record acts of brutality. The Panthers followed at a distance and, when confronted by police officers, stated their legal right to carry guns and to bring the officers to court if they violated their rights. The visibility and numbers of the party steadily grew in 1967, especially when the party provided an armed escort for Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X.

In May 1967, the California State Assembly Committee on Criminal Procedure met in Sacramento to discuss the ‘Mulford Act’, which would make carrying loaded firearms in public illegal. The Panthers sent 26 members to protest the meeting – armed. The protest drew massive attention and led to co-founder Bobby Seale’s arrest along with 5 other members.

A group of armed Black Panther Party members protesting.

It was this image of the Panthers – armed, clad in black leather uniforms – that fed the stereotypes of black hostility and dominated the media narrative of the organisation for years to come.

In September 1968, FBI Director Edgar Hoover even claimed the Black Panthers were “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” at the time, and began focusing the bureau’s efforts towards disbanding the party.

“Serve the people”

Yet from the beginning, the Black Panther Party was part of a much wider and radical movement grounded in black pride. Newton and Seale drew on Marxist ideology for the party’s manifesto, writing the party views and political objectives in a Ten-Point Program.

The Ten-Point Program called for an immediate end to police brutality, employment for black Americans and land, housing and justice for all. In principle, the program did not discriminate on the basis of race, sexuality, or gender. It was first published in the party newspaper, The Black Panther Newspaper, in May 1967 after the Sacramento demonstration.

Inspired by Mao’s advice in The Little Red Book, Newton called on the Panthers to “serve the people”. As a result, the party started several successful community programs, such as free breakfast programs for school children, originally run out of a church in Oakland, and free health clinics in 13 communities across the country.

These services not only demonstrated a successful model of free meals and healthcare, but gave the Panthers a space to educate young people in liberation and black history.

While the organisation later struggled because of internal tensions, deadly shootouts and the FBI’s continued counterintelligence strategy targeting them, the Black Panther Party was undoubtedly a short but important part of the ongoing civil rights struggle. At its peak in 1968, the party had grown to roughly 2,000 members, including famous political activist Angela Davis.

Combining successful social programs, a visible challenge to police brutality and a revolutionary attitude to inclusivity, the Black Panther Party built strong foundations for a continued black liberation campaign, which endure in equal rights movements today.

Du Bois was a prolific activist, campaigning for African Americans’ right to a full education and equal opportunities in the US. Similarly, as a writer, his work explored and criticised imperialism, capitalism and racism. Perhaps most famously, Du Bois wrote Souls of Black Folk (1903), a major landmark of black American literature.

The US government took Du Bois to court for his anti-war activism in 1951. He was acquitted, though the US later denied him an American passport. Du Bois died a Ghanaian citizen in 1963 but is remembered as a key contributor to American literature and the American Civil Rights movement.

Here are 10 facts about the writer and activist W. E. B. Du Bois.

1. W. E. B. Du Bois was born on 23 February 1868

Du Bois was born in the town of Great Barrington in Massachusetts. His mother, Mary Silvina Burghardt, belonged to one of the few black families in town that owned land.

His father, Alfred Du Bois, had come from Haiti to Massachusetts and served during the American Civil War. He married Mary in 1867 but left his family just 2 years after William was born.

2. Du Bois first experienced Jim Crow racism at college

Du Bois was generally treated well in Great Barrington. He went to the local public school, where his teachers recognised his potential, and played alongside white children.

In 1885 he started at Fisk University, a black college in Nashville, and it was there that he first experienced the racism of Jim Crow, including the suppression of black voting and lynching prevalent in the South. He graduated in 1888.

3. He was the first black American to earn a PhD from Harvard

W. E. B. Du Bois at his Harvard Graduation in 1890.

Image Credit: Library of Massachusetts Amherst / Public Domain

Between 1888 and 1890 Du Bois attended Harvard College, after which he gained a fellowship to attend the University of Berlin. In Berlin, Du Bois thrived and met several prominent social scientists, including Gustav von Schmoller, Adolph Wagner and Heinrich von Treitschke. After returning to the US in 1895, he earned his PhD in sociology from Harvard University.

4. Du Bois co-founded the Niagara Movement in 1905

The Niagara Movement was a civil rights organisation that opposed the ‘Atlanta Compromise’, an unwritten deal between Southern white leaders and Booker T. Washington, the most influential black leader at the time. It stipulated that southern black Americans would submit to discrimination and segregation while surrendering their right to vote. In return, black Americans would receive basic education and due process in law.

Although Washington had organised the deal, Du Bois opposed it. He felt black Americans should fight for equal rights and dignity.

A Niagara Movement meeting in Fort Erie, Canada, 1905.

Image Credit: Library of Congress / Public Domain

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt dishonourably discharged 167 black soldiers, many near retirement. That September, the Atlanta race riot broke out as a white mob brutally killed at least 25 black Americans. Combined, these incidents became a turning point for the black American community who increasingly felt that the terms of the Atlanta Compromise weren’t enough. Support for Du Bois’ vision for equal rights rose.

5. He also co-founded the NAACP

In 1909, Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), a black American civil rights organisation still active today. He was editor of NAACP’s journal The Crisis for its first 24 years.

6. Du Bois both supported and criticised the Harlem Renaissance

During the 1920s, Du Bois supported the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement centred in the New York suburb of Harlem in which the arts of the African diaspora flourished. Many saw it as an opportunity to promote African American literature, music and culture on a global stage.

But Du Bois later became disillusioned, believing that whites only visited Harlem for a taboo pleasure, not to celebrate the depth and importance of African American culture, literature and ideas. He also thought artists of the Harlem Renaissance shirked their responsibilities to the community.

Three women in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, 1925.

Image Credit: Donna Vanderzee / Public Domain

7. He was tried in 1951 for acting as an agent of a foreign state

Du Bois thought capitalism was responsible for racism and poverty, and he believed socialism could bring racial equality. However, being associated with prominent communists made him a target for the FBI who at the time were aggressively hunting anyone with communist sympathies.

Also making him unpopular with the FBI, Du Bois was an anti-war activist. In 1950, after World War Two, he became chairman of the Peace Information Centre (PIC), an anti-war organisation campaigning to ban nuclear weapons. The PIC were told to register as agents working for a foreign state. Du Bois refused.

In 1951 he was brought to trial, and Albert Einstein even offered to give a character witness, although the high level of publicity convinced the judge to acquit Du Bois.

8. Du Bois was a citizen of Ghana

Throughout the 1950s, after his arrest, Du Bois was shunned by his peers and pestered by federal agents, including having his passport held for 8 years until 1960. Du Bois then went to Ghana to celebrate the new independent republic and work on a new project about the African diaspora. In 1963, the US refused to renew his passport and he instead became a Ghanain citizen.

9. He was most famously a writer

Among plays, poems, histories and more, Du Bois wrote 21 books and published over 100 essays and articles. His most famous work remains Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of essays where he explored themes around black American lives. Today, the book is considered a major landmark of black American literature.

10. W. E. B. Du Bois died on 27 August 1963 in Accra

After moving to Ghana with his second wife, Shirley, Du Bois’ health worsened and he died at his home aged 95. The next day in Washington D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. gave his seminal I Have a Dream speech. A year later, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, embodying many of Du Bois’ reforms.

His eloquent speeches were a part of his appeal: full of memorable quotes and aspirational rhetoric, they hooked audiences across the world. But which of them sum up JFK’s politics and image best? Here are five famous John F. Kennedy quotes.

1. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”

Aged just 43, JFK was elected in one of the closest presidential races in US history. In his inaugural address, he focused on themes such as service and sacrifice, urging Americans to selflessly fulfil their civic responsibilities and duties in the name of democracy and freedom.

Moreover, given the nature of Cold War politics, the reference to ‘your country’ reminded those listening that America was a country of which its citizens should be proud. A nation one which gave them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unlike the perceived tyranny of communism which threatened the West.

This speech earned him a 75% approval rating amongst Americans: something he was in need of given the close-run nature of the election itself.

President Kennedy gives address at Cheney Stadium, Tacoma, Washington.

Image Credit: Gibson Moss / Alamy Stock Photo

2. “Mankind must put an end to war – or war will put an end to mankind”

Foreign policy played a defining part in JFK’s political legacy, and he addressed the United Nations in September 1961, at what some would argue was the height of the Cold War.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had seized power in Cuba in 1959, and America was becomingly increasingly concerned about a communist nation being so close to their shores.

In April 1961, Cuban exiles – backed by US funds – attempted to invade the Bay of Pigs. They were captured and interrogated, further destroying relations between the US and Cuba as the truth about their financial backing became apparent.

Despite these words of peace and optimism, tensions continued to increase, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which is deemed to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war.

3. “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened”

Civil rights had become an increasingly important political issue throughout the 1950s, and the Kennedys’ choice to embrace a pro civil rights policy hugely helped their campaign. They won an endorsement from Martin Luther King after Robert Kennedy helped release him from jail in 1960.

However, JFK was concerned about alienating the Southern states. So whilst he pursued a pro civil rights agenda in many aspects of policy, advocating for the desegregation of schools and appointing African Americans to high-level administration positions, he continued to maintain a degree of caution in wider policy.

There were several major escalations of racial tensions in the South: two of the most notable examples in Mississippi and Alabama were centred around integration on university campuses. In both cases, the National Guard and other troops were mobilised to keep law and order.

Whilst the Kennedy administration did work for a civil rights bill, it lacked the momentum or will power to push it through. It was only in 1964, under Lyndon Johnson, that the Civil Rights Act passed. This proved to be a landmark piece of legislation which forbade discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, and prohibited the unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination.

4. “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it”

JFK married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. ‘Jackie’, as she is popularly known, played an influential role in constructing JFK’s image of a youthful, family-orientated, modern president. The couple had 3 children, Caroline, John Jr, and Patrick (who did not survive infancy).

Under Jackie’s watchful eye the White House was renovated and redecorated. When she opened up the interior for a televised tour in 1962, it was met with critical acclaim and large audiences. The couple were closely linked with popular culture, and some have dubbed their time in the White House as the ‘Camelot era’, an unmatched golden time.

Jackie Kennedy was fluent in French and Spanish, and accompanied her husband on multiple trips abroad. She won a warm welcome in Latin America and France, where her linguistic skills and cultural knowledge impressed those around her.

John and Jackie Kennedy in a motorcade in May 1961.

Image Credit: JFK Presidential Library / Public Domain

5. “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on”

America’s youthful, hopeful new president had his time in office – and his life – brutally cut short. On 22 November 1963, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone gunman. Given the apparent lack of motive by Oswald and the heightened political tensions of the time, a wide array of conspiracy theories have gained traction.

However, JFK’s legacy lives on and continues to shape American politics to this day. His ability to successfully cultivate an image in the popular media and imagination set the standard extremely high for his successors. Never more so than in today’s world of 24 hour media coverage and immense scrutiny.

Similarly, the Kennedy family embodied aspects of the American Dream which remain pertinent today. A family of Irish Catholic emigres, they rose to become one of the most famous, powerful and charismatic political dynasties of the 20^th century through their own hard work and ability. The idea that hard work pays, and that no matter your background, America is a land of opportunity is one which remains potent in the American psyche.

Finally, JFK channelled optimism, rather than cynicism in his rhetoric. Elected at the start of a new decade, and with speeches which inspired hope and a sense of civic duty and responsibility, many felt that his administration could be a turning point. His assassination may have cut his life short, but it allowed his ideas and image to live on untainted by the gritty reality of politics.