Big Six (civil rights)

The chairmen, presidents, or co-founders of some of the civil rights organizations active during the height of the American Civil Rights movement, likely mockingly named the "Big Six" by Malcolm X, include:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968): the chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was a Baptist minister, activist, and the most famous leader of the Civil Rights Movement. King won the Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom before his assassination in 1968. For his promotion of nonviolence and racial equality, King is considered a peacemaker and martyr by many people around the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States was established in his honor.

• James Farmer (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999): In 1942 Farmer founded the Congress of Racial Equality or CORE, a pacifist organization dedicated to achieving racial harmony and equality through nonviolence, and stayed active in the Civil Rights Movement through the 1950s and 1960s. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, shortly before his death in 1999.

• John Lewis (born February 21, 1940): Became a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement as president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and as a participant with other leaders—such as Diane Nash, James Bevel, and Bernard Lafayette—in the Nashville Student Movement (1959–62). He represented SNCC with a speech at the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. Lewis has represented the 5th District of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives since 1987, a district which includes almost all of Atlanta.

• A. Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a socialist in the labor movement and the U.S. civil rights movement. In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor union for the employees of the Pullman Company, which was a major employer of African Americans.

• Roy Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. In 1955, Wilkins was named executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He had an excellent reputation as an articulate spokesperson for the civil rights movement. He participated in the March on Washington (1963), the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965), and the March Against Fear (1966).

• Whitney Young (July 31, 1921 – March 11, 1971) spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the South and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively fought for justice.

Malcolm X, who may have coined the term "The Big Six", commented: "…the Negro civil rights leaders have now been permanently named the Big Six (because of their participation in the Big Fix?)".

See also

• Civil liberties
• Political freedom
• Freedom (political)
• Liberty