Randolph Blackwell

Biography

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. Coretta Scott King described him as an "unsung giant" of nonviolent social change. In 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 & T University (from which he graduated in 1949) he made an unsuccessful run for the state assembly.

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