This list contains the names of notable African American civil rights activists and thinkers who pushed for emancipation, equality, and racial justice during the 19th century.[1]
Although not often highlighted in American history, before Rosa Parks changed America when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus in December 1955, 19th-century African-American civil rights activists worked strenuously from the 1850s until the 1880s for the cause of equal treatment.