Hall, Prathia LauraAnn
1940-2002 · Contribution: 1962-2002
Baptist minister; womanist theologian; SNCC field secretary
Credited as the originator of the phrase “I have a dream,” spoken during a 1962 prayer vigil that Martin Luther King Jr. attended and later asked her permission to echo in his own preaching, while serving as one of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's first female field secretaries and later becoming a pioneering Baptist minister and womanist theologian
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Quick facts
- Born
- 1940, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Active since
- 1962
- Category
- Religious & Spiritual Leadership
- Best known for
- Credited as the originator of the phrase 'I have a dream'
Impact on the world
Hall shaped the movement in word and deed, surviving a night-rider shooting, organizing Selma's voter drive, and giving King the phrase that would become the century's most famous refrain, without ever seeking credit for it.
Sources
- BlackPast.org
1 more sources and references are available to members.
Related visionaries
King, Martin Luther Jr.
1929-1968
Baptist ministry and nonviolent civil rights leadership grounded in Christian theology and Gandhian nonviolence; sermons, speeches, and writings including 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' (1963) and the 'I Have a Dream' speech (1963)
Shuttlesworth, Frederick Lee
1922-2011
Co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957 and led the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, organizing the 1963 Birmingham Campaign that Dr. King credited as decisive in securing passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while surviving multiple assassination attempts including the 1956 bombing of his church parsonage
Harris, Barbara Clementine
1930-2020
Became the first woman consecrated a bishop in the 500-year history of the worldwide Anglican Communion when she was ordained suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in 1989, breaking a barrier that had stood across the Communion's more than 165 member countries
Cone, James H.
1938-2018
Systematic theology; founded Black liberation theology, arguing that the Christian gospel is centrally about God's identification with the oppressed; author of 'Black Theology and Black Power' (1969), 'A Black Theology of Liberation' (1970), and 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' (2011)