In 1838 Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Maryland and fled to freedom in New Bedford, Mass. He became a prominent abolitionist, author, public speaker, and newspaper publisher. Following the Emancipation Proclamation he continued to work for voting rights for blacks and women's suffrage. He was the most photographed man of the 19thcentury.

Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were co-workers and friends. They first met in Atlanta while still in school and formed a partnership in the struggle for Civil Rights.

The Children’s Campaign was the voluntary involvement of children in civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham. Thousands of young people marched, were arrested, attacked by police dogs and tortured with water hoses.

The Rev. James Reeb was a Unitarian minister living in Boston with his wife and 4 children.He responded to Martin Luther King’s call to clergy from around the country to join the march from Selma to Montgomery.

For the Rev. James Lawson, the civil rights activity of the 1960’s was not just a political movement but “a moment in history when God saw fit to call America back from the depths of moral depravity and onto His path of righteousness.”