In this installment celebrating Black History Month, we wanted to focus attention on some names you may not be familiar with.

Most of us tend to associate the civil rights movement with the 1950's and 60's. We instantly recognize the names of great leaders of our era like Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Their contributions, sacrifice, and leadership are taught in every school.

The fight for freedom and equality started centuries earlier. It was fought by men and women whose names are largely forgotten, but who's contribution laid the groundwork for all those that followed.

The earliest known organized act of rebellion against slavery was lead by a slave named 'Jemmy'. Jemmy gathered about 20 slaves and marched down a country road, carrying banners proclaiming  "Liberty!".

The men and women continue to walk south, recruiting more slaves along the way. By the time they stop to rest for the night, their numbers approached one hundred.

What actually triggered the rebellion was the soon-to-be-enacted Security Act. A response to the white's fears of insurrection, the act required that all white men carry firearms to church on Sundays. Anyone who didn't comply with the new law by September 29 would be subjected to a fine.

From reports of the time
Early on the morning of the 9th, a Sunday, about twenty slaves gathered near the Stono River in St. Paul's Parish, less than twenty miles from Charlestown. The slaves went to a shop that sold firearms and ammunition, armed themselves, then killed the two shopkeepers who were manning the shop. From there the band walked to the house of a Mr. Godfrey, where they burned the house and killed Godfrey and his son and daughter. They headed south. It was not yet dawn when they reached Wallace's Tavern. Because the innkeeper at the tavern was kind to his slaves, his life was spared. The white inhabitants of the next six or so houses they reach were not so lucky -- all were killed. The slaves belonging to Thomas Rose successfully hid their master, but they were forced to join the rebellion. (They would later be rewarded. See Report re. Stono Rebellion Slave-Catchers.) Other slaves willingly joined the rebellion. By eleven in the morning, the group was about 50 strong. The few whites whom they now encountered were chased and killed, though one individual, Lieutenant Governor Bull, eluded the rebels and rode to spread the alarm.

The slaves stopped in a large field late that afternoon, just before reaching the Edisto River. They had marched over ten miles and killed between twenty and twenty-five whites.

Around four in the afternoon, somewhere between twenty and 100 whites had set out in armed pursuit. When they approached the rebels, the slaves fired two shots. The whites returned fire, bringing down fourteen of the slaves. By dusk, about thirty slaves were dead and at least thirty had escaped. Most were captured over the next month, then executed; the rest were captured over the following six months.

As a result of the Stono Rebellion, white colonists enacted the 'Negro Act'. No longer would slaves be allowed to grow their own food, assemble in groups, earn their own money, or learn to read.

William Wells Brown, an American writer who is considered to be the first African-American to publish a novel. He was also the first to have a play published.

Brown was born to a black slave mother and a white slaveholding father. He grew up near St. Louis, Mo., where he served various masters, including the abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. Brown escaped in 1834 and adopted the name of a Quaker, Wells Brown, who aided him when he was a runaway. He settled in the Great Lakes region before moving to Boston. He published his autobiography 'A Fugitive Slave' in 1847.

John Lansgton was a black leader, educator, and diplomat, who is believed to have been the first black ever elected to public office in the United States.

The son of a Virginia planter and a slave mother, Langston was emancipated at the age of five, attended school in Ohio, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1849. He quickly became a leader among free blacks and was elected to local offices in Brownhelm Township, Ohio (1855), and Oberlin (1865-67). In 1864 he helped organize the National Equal Rights League, of which he was the first president.

1888 he was a Republican candidate from Virginia for the U.S. House of Representatives, and, after a challenge of the election returns that took almost two years, he succeeded in unseating his Democratic opponent and served in Congress from Sept. 23, 1890, to March 3, 1891.

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was one of 10 children born to a white Mississippi planter and a former slave. When the father died in 1848, the family fled to Ohio, fearing that white relatives might attempt to re-enslave them. Pinchback found work as a cabin boy on a canal boat and worked his way up to steward on the steamboats plying the Mississippi, Missouri, and Red rivers.

After war broke out between the states in 1861, he ran the Confederate blockade on the Mississippi River to reach Federal troops stranded in New Orleans. While there he raised a company of black volunteers for the North, called the Corps d'Afrique.

Returning to New Orleans after the war, Pinchback organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club and served as a delegate to the convention that established a new constitution for Louisiana. He was elected to the state senate in 1868 and then was named its president pro tempore; as such he became lieutenant governor upon the death of the incumbent in 1871. From Dec. 9, 1872, to Jan. 13, 1873, he served as acting governor while impeachment proceedings were in progress against Henry Clay Warmoth. In the meantime he went into business and acquired control of a Republican paper, the New Orleans Louisianian.

In 1872 Pinchback was elected to Congress, but his Democratic opponent contested the election and won the seat. A year later he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he was again refused the seat amid charges and countercharges of fraud and election irregularities--although some observers said it was the colour of his skin that counted against him. He was appointed to his last office in 1882 as surveyor of customs in New Orleans.

Robert Smalls, a slave,  became a naval hero for the Union in the American Civil War (1861-65) and went on to serve as a congressman from South Carolina during Reconstruction (1865-77).

The son of plantation slaves, Smalls was taken by his master in 1851 to Charleston, S.C., where he worked as a hotel waiter, hack driver, and rigger. He was forced to join the Confederate Navy at the outbreak of the war, and served as wheelman aboard the armed frigate "Planter."

On May 13, 1862, he and 12 other slaves seized control of the ship in Charleston harbor and succeeded in turning it over to a Union naval squadron blockading the city. This exploit brought Smalls great fame throughout the North. He continued to serve as a pilot on the "Planter" and became the ship's captain in 1863.

After the war, Smalls rose rapidly in politics. From 1868 to 1870 he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives and from 1871 to 1874 in the state senate. He was elected to the U.S. Congress (1875-79, 1881-87), where his outstanding political action was support of a bill that would have required equal accommodations for both races on interstate conveyances.

RTO Online will publish additional biographies during February in celebration of Black History Month.