randolph, blackwell, randolph, blackwell, march, 1927, 1981, american, activist, civil, rights, movement, serving, martin, luther, king, southern, christian, leadership, conference, amongst, other, organizations, coretta, scott, king, described, unsung, giant,. Randolph T Blackwell March 10 1927 May 21 1981 was an American activist of the Civil Rights Movement serving in Martin Luther King Jr s Southern Christian Leadership Conference amongst other organizations 1 2 3 Coretta Scott King described him as an unsung giant of nonviolent social change 4 Randolph BlackwellRandolph Blackwell Former Director 1977 1979 of the Minority Business Development Agency Born 1927 03 10 March 10 1927Greensboro North CarolinaDiedMay 21 1981 1981 05 21 aged 54 NationalityAmericanOccupationDirector of the Office of Minority Business EnterpriseKnown forVeteran of the Civil Rights MovementSpouseElizabeth Knox BlackwellChildren1In the late 1920s and early 1930s Blackwell s father was active in Marcus Garvey s United Negro Improvement Association Randolph attended association meetings with his father and visited the prison where Garvey was held In 1943 inspired by hearing Ella Baker speak he founded a youth chapter of the NAACP in Greensboro As a student in sociology at North Carolina A amp T University from which he graduated in 1949 he made an unsuccessful run for the state assembly 4 He earned a law degree from Howard University in 1953 took an assistant professorship at Winston Salem Teacher s College and then became an associate professor in 1954 at Alabama A amp M College where he taught government 1 2 3 While at Alabama A amp M Blackwell became a leader of the 1962 student sit ins in nearby Huntsville Alabama He left academia in 1963 and became a field director in the Voter Education Project an organization that promoted voter registration among blacks in the South 2 3 In March 1963 while attempting to register black voters in Greenwood Mississippi with Bob Moses and Jimmy Travis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee the car they were driving was fired on Blackwell and Moses escaped injury but Travis was shot and hospitalized 5 the shooting brought national media attention to the struggle in the south energized the civil rights movement and forced the Kennedy administration to investigate 6 Blackwell became the program director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1964 but after a disagreement with Hosea Williams he left the organization in 1966 and became the director of Southern Rural Action an anti poverty organization in the Deep South 1 2 3 7 8 From 1977 to 1979 in the presidency of Jimmy Carter Blackwell was director of the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in the U S Department of Commerce 2 3 but was beset there by charges of mismanagement 9 In 1976 the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change gave him its Martin Luther King Jr Nonviolent Peace Prize and in 1978 the National Bar Association gave him their Equal Justice Award 2 3 References edit a b c Chafe William H 1981 Civilities and civil rights Greensboro North Carolina and the Black struggle for freedom Oxford University Press p 21 ISBN 0 19 502625 X Retrieved 2020 08 27 via Google Books a b c d e f Blackwell Randolph T Biography March 10 1927 to May 21 1981 King Encyclopedia Stanford The Martin Luther King Jr Research and Education Institute Retrieved 2020 08 27 a b c d e f Blackwell Randolph Chafe William H 1973 05 05 Oral History Interview with Randolph Blackwell by William Chafe Civil Rights Greensboro University of North Carolina at Greensboro Retrieved 2020 08 27 a b Campbell Colin 1981 05 23 Randolph T Blackwell a Leader in Helping Poor Blacks in South The New York Times p 21 Retrieved 2020 08 27 Shooting angers rights leader big campaign set in Mississippi Times News United Press International 1963 03 02 p 1 Retrieved 2020 08 27 via Google News Lytle Mark H 2006 America s uncivil wars the Sixties era from Elvis to the fall of Richard Nixon Oxford University Press p 133 ISBN 978 0 19 517497 7 Retrieved 2020 08 26 via Internet Archive Rural Action Helps to Give Poor Southern Blacks Jobs and Pride The New York Times 1972 05 08 p 55 Retrieved 2020 08 27 Mitchell Grayson January 1975 Southern Blacks Help Themselves Ebony Vol XXX no 3 pp 78 87 Retrieved 2020 08 27 via Google Books Anderson Jack 1978 01 27 Blackwell A Good Man in the Wrong Job The Hour United Feature Syndicate p 3 Retrieved 2020 08 27 via Google News Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Randolph Blackwell amp oldid 1151679069, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
