1925

Willie T. Barrow (Willie Beatrice Taplin) (b. December 7, 1924, Burton, Texas - d. March 12, 2015, Chicago, Illinois) was a civil rights activist who devoted her life to championing the rights of African Americans and working to improve their circumstances, both on the front lines of public demonstrations and as a mentor to generations of young activists.  Barrow engaged in her first act of protest as a child, when she sought to change the rule that required African American children to walk to school while European American children rode on school buses.  When she was 16 years old, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she worked as a shipyard welder and attended Pacific Bible College (since 1959 Warner Pacific College).  She also organized and led an African American Church of God congregation.  Barrow relocated (in 1945) to Chicago and attended Moody Bible Institute.  By the 1950s, she had become a civil rights filed organizer for such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  She participated in such campaigns as the March on Washington (1963) and the Selma March (1965).  In the mid-1960s, she helped found the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, which focused on increasing the hiring and promotion of African Americans.  Barrow worked with civil rights leader Jesse Jackson when he founded Operation PUSH (which also had the goal of economic empowerment in black communities), and she later served as the organization's executive director.  After the 1996 merger that created the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, she headed that group's governing board for 10 years.  In addition, Barrow was a vocal feminist and a supporter of gay rights.

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Etta Drucille Guyse, known as Sheila Guyse, (July 14, 1925 – December 28, 2013) was a popular African-American singer, actress, and recording artist, performing on stage and screen during the 1940s and 1950s.

Guyse was often compared to Dandridge and it has been said that some critics thought Guyse was a better actress than the more well-known Dandridge. It may be argued that if Sheila had been allowed the opportunity to make an impact in the Hollywood cinema, she would have been stiff competition for the more established actress.

Guyse had a sultry "girl-next-door" appeal which she showcased in three independent all-Black films (so-called "race films") of the late 1940s: Boy! What a Girl! Boy! (1947), Sepia Cinderella (1947, co-starring with Billy Daniels), and Miracle In Harlem (1948) giving impressive performances in all of them. She also appeared in the "Harlem Follies of 1949" and in a 1957 television adaptation of the play The Green Pastures. 

Guyse was not an experienced or trained actress but she was a natural talent. She appeared in many Broadway stage productions such as Lost in the Stars and Finian's Rainbow which were both long-running. She contributed to cast recordings for these productions, and her singing voice was said to be as beautiful as she was; divine, sweet, easy on the ears whether singing jazz, pop, or gospel.

She died of Alzheimer's disease on December 28, 2013 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

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B.B. King, byname of Riley B. King  (b. September 16, 1925, Itta Bena, near Indianola, Mississippi — d. May 14, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada), American guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the development of the blues and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration.

King was reared in the Mississippi delta, and gospel music in church was the earliest influence on his singing. To his own impassioned vocal calls, King played lyrical single-string guitar responses with a distinctive vibrato; his guitar style was influenced by T-Bone Walker, by delta blues players (including his cousin Bukka White), and by such jazz guitarists as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. He worked for a time as a disk jockey in Memphis, Tennessee (notably at station WDIA), where he acquired the name B.B. (for Blues Boy) King. In 1951 he made a hit record of “Three O’Clock Blues,” which led to virtually continuous tours of clubs and theaters throughout the country. He often played 300 or more one-night stands a year with his 13-piece band. A long succession of hits, including “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” enhanced his popularity. By the late 1960s rock guitarists acknowledged his influence and they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions.

King’s relentless touring strengthened his claim to the title of undisputed king of the blues, and he was a regular fixture on the Billboard charts through the mid-1980s. His strongest studio albums of this era were those that most closely tried to emulate the live experience, and he found commercial success through a series of all-star collaborations. On Deuces Wild (1997), King enlisted such artists as Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, and Eric Clapton to create a fusion of blues, pop, and country that dominated the blues charts for almost two years. Clapton and King collaborated on the more straightforward blues album Riding with the King (2000), which featured a collection of standards from King’s catalog. He recaptured the pop magic of Deuces Wild with 80 (2005), a celebration of his 80th birthday that featured Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, and a standout performance by Elton John. King returned to his roots with One Kind Favor (2008), a collection of songs from the 1940s and ’50s including blues classics by the likes of John Lee Hooker and Lonnie Johnson. Joining King in the simple four-part arrangements on the T-Bone Burnett produced album were stalwart New Orleans pianist Dr. John, ace session drummer Jim Keltner, and stand-up bassist Nathan East. The album earned King his 15th Grammy Award.

In 2008 the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opened in Indianola, with exhibits dedicated to King’s music, his influences, and the history of the delta region. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me, written with David Ritz, was published in 1996. Among the many awards and honors bestowed upon King in his lifetime was induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

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*Viola Liuzzo, a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist, was killed.

Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist from Michigan. In March 1965, Liuzzo, then a housewife and mother of five with a history of local activism, heeded the call of Martin Luther King, Jr. and traveled from Detroit, Michigan to Selma, Alabama, in the wake of the Bloody Sunday attempt at marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Liuzzo participated in the successful Selma to Montgomery marches and helped with coordination and logistics. Driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, she was shot by members of the Ku Klux Klan. She was 39 years old.

One of the four Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was Federal Bureau of Investigation  (FBI) informant Gary Rowe. Rowe testified against the shooters and was moved and given an assumed name by the FBI. The FBI later leaked what were purported to be salacious details about Liuzzo which were never proved or substantiated in any way.

Liuzzo's name is today inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. 

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Carline Ray, (b. April 21, 1925, New York City, New York - d. July 18, 2013, New York City, New York), was a pioneering jazz instrumentalist and vocalist who joined the all-female International Sweethearts of Rhythm in the 1940s, later performed with Erskine Hawkins and Mary Lou Williams and this year released her first recording as a lead vocalist.

Carline Ray was born on April 21, 1925, in Manhattan. Her father, Elisha Ray, was a horn player who graduated from Juilliard the year she was born. He had played with James Reese Europe and had offers for more musical work but, seeking steady income for his new family, he took a job with the post office not long after he graduated.

Ray entered Juilliard at 16 and stayed five years, after changing her major from piano to composition. In 1956 she received a masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

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Layhmond Robinson Jr., (b. February 11, 1925, Abbeville, Louisiana -  d. June 29, 2013, Queens, New York) was one of the first black reporters at The New York Times, who later became a local television news correspondent.

Robinson became a reporter for The Times in 1950, when black faces in the newsroom were rare. He covered crime in Brooklyn, then the New York State Legislature and the contentious 1961 mayoral race between Robert F. Wagner Jr. and then state attorney general, Louis K. Lefkowitz. In 1964, he became the first black president of the Legislative Correspondents Association, a group of reporters covering New York State government.

In 1965, Mr. Robinson left The Times for WABC-TV in New York.

Layhmond (rhymes with “Raymond”) Mack Robinson Jr. was born on February 11, 1925, in Abbeville, Louisiana.  He served in the Navy as a photographer and a writer from 1943 until 1946, then went to Syracuse University. He graduated in 1949 and moved to New York City, where he became a copy boy at The Times and completed a master’s program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Mr. Robinson married Elsie Blair in 1955.  They had three sons and two daughters.

After leaving WABC-TV, Mr. Robinson worked in public relations for the National Urban League, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Robinson helped to inspire the next generation of black journalists.

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Augustus Alexander "Gus" Savage (October 30, 1925 – October 31, 2015) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois. 

Savage was born in Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 and then worked as a journalist from 1954 to 1979, owning a chain of weekly community newspapers in the Chicago area.

Savage founded Citizen Newspapers, which became the largest black-owned chain of weekly community newspapers in the Midwest. He sold the chain in 1980 and was elected that year to represent Illinois’s Second Congressional District.

Savage was unsuccessful in his candidacy for the House of Representatives in 1968 and 1970, losing the Democratic primary both times, but won election to the House in 1980, representing the 2nd District on Chicago's South Side for 6 terms, from January 1981 to January 1993.

Savage was criticized for racist and anti-Semitic statements against both white and Jewish people. Savage once gave a speech in which he listed the names of all of the Jewish donors living outside of the Chicago area who donated money to his opponent. This led to a backlash, to which Savage responded that only white people could be racist.

In 1989, Savage was accused of trying to force himself on a female Peace Corps worker in Zaire.  He denied the allegations and blamed them on the "racist press." The House Ethics Committee decided that the events did indeed occur, but it did not take disciplinary action only because Savage wrote a letter of apology.

Savage had long been controversial even in his own district, never winning a primary election with more than 52% of the vote, and usually facing multiple challengers. For the 1992 election, his district had been extended further into Chicago's south suburbs by redistricting and Savage faced Mel Reynolds, who had challenged him in the 1988 and 1990 primaries. Savage claimed that "racist Jews" were donating to Reynolds, while Reynolds claimed that Savage was involved in a drive-by shooting that injured him. Although Savage accused Reynolds of staging the shooting, he lost the 1992 election to Reynolds by a margin of 63%-37%.

In one of his final acts as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, excavation and construction at the site of the African Burial Ground in New York City was temporarily halted in 1992, pending further evaluation by the General Services Administration, after Savage was able to leverage his reputation as a national political figure to bring attention to the more controversial aspects of the project.

Savage died on October 31, 2015, one day after his 90th birthday.

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Louis Stokes (February 23, 1925 – August 18, 2015) was an attorney and politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He served 15 terms in the United States House of Representatives  – representing the east side of Cleveland – and was the first African American congressman elected in the state of Ohio.

Born in Cleveland, Stokes and his brother Carl B. Stokes lived in one of the first federally funded housing projects, the Outhwaite Homes. Louis attended Central High School. Stokes served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. After attending Western Reserve University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Stokes began practicing law in Cleveland in 1953.

Stokes argued the seminal "stop and frisk" case of Terry v. Ohio before the United States Supreme Court in 1968. Later, in 1968, he was elected to the House, representing the 21st District of Ohio on Cleveland's East Side. He shifted to the newly created 11th District, covering much of the same area following a 1992 redistricting. Stokes served 30 years in total, retiring in 1999.

Stokes' tenure in the House of Representatives included service on the House Appropriations Committee, where he was influential in bringing revenue to Cleveland. He was particularly interested in veterans' issues and secured funds for health-care facilities for veterans in Cleveland. In the 1970s, Stokes served as Chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, charged with investigating the murders of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Stokes also served on the House committee that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair. 

Stokes' brother, Carl B. Stokes, was the first African American mayor of a large American city. His daughter, Angela Stokes, became a Cleveland Municipal Court judge while another, Lori Stokes, became a journalist with WABC-TV New York. His son, Chuck Stokes, also became a journalist with WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Funk and soul musician Rick James was a cousin.

Stokes and his wife, Jay, have seven grandchildren. He is also a Prince Hall Freemason, and a member of the Cleveland Alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Stokes retired in 2012 as Senior Counsel in the law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, with offices in Cleveland and Washington. 

Stokes died on August 18, 2015 at his home in Cleveland from lung and brain cancer at the age of 90.

The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority,  located in Cleveland, Ohio, opened the Louis Stokes Museum on September 13, 2007. This Museum houses Stokes memorabilia, video interviews, misc. video footage, awards and a written history about Stokes and his rise to prominence. The museum is located at Outhwaite Homes, 4302 Quincy Avenue. 

From 2006 to 2008, the Western Reserve Historical Society opened an exhibition on the lives of Congressman Stokes and his brother titled "Carl and Louis Stokes: From the Projects to Politics". The exhibit uses photographs, manuscript collections, and personal items to showcase Louis Stokes' rise from the Outhwaite homes, his legal career, and his Congressional service.

The former Congressman was inducted into the Karamu House Hall of Fame in 2007 for his contributions to the continued legacy of Cleveland's African American settlement house and theatre.

Many buildings throughout the country have been named in Stokes honor including: Howard University's medical library, the Cleveland Public Library's main building expansion, GCRTA's Windermere station Louis Stokes Station at Windemere, and the greater Cleveland area Veteran's hospital was renamed the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center.