Gerald Barrax was born and spent his early childhood in Attalla, Alabama. When he was ten, his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pa. Barrax began writing poems in his teens. After graduating from high school, he worked for a year in a steel mill to earn money for college. In 1952, Barrax enrolled at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh to study pharmacy. When his money ran out a year later, he joined the US Air Force, serving from 1953 to 1957. While stationed in South Carolina, Barrax bought a copy of Poets' Handbook by Clement Wood and began studying it to improve his poetry. From 1958 to 1967, Barrax worked for the US Post Office in Pittsburgh as a clerk and a mail carrier. He re-enrolled at Duquesne in 1959 and graduated in 1963 with a BA in English. In 1967, Barrax began graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh, earning an MA in 1969.

 After graduation, Barrax and his family moved to North Carolina, where he became an English instructor at North Carolina Central University in Durham. In 1970, his first book of poetry, Another Kind of Rain, was published. The same year, Barrax joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, teaching American literature and poetry writing. After his retirement from North Carolina State in 1997, Barrax and his wife relocated to West Chester, Pa. Barrax has published a total of five books of poetry and written many poetry reviews. For more than twelve years, he edited the journal Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review. Barrax has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and has won awards from the city of Raleigh and the state of North Carolina for his contributions to fine arts.

Benjamin Earl Nelson, born28 September 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina. King began his career while still a high-school student singing in a doo-wop group, the Four B's. He later joined the Five Crowns who, in 1959, assumed the name the Drifters. King was the featured lead vocalist and occasional composer on several of their recordings including 'There Goes My Baby' and 'Save the Last Dance for Me' (written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman). After leaving the group in 1960, he recorded the classic single 'Spanish Harlem' (1961), which maintained the Latin quality of the Drifters' work and deservedly reached the US Top 10. The follow-up, 'Stand by Me' (1961), was even more successful and was followed by further hits including 'Amor' (1961) and 'Don't Play That Song' (1962). Throughout this period, King's work was aimed increasingly at the pop audience. 'I (Who Have Nothing)' and 'I Could Have Danced All Night' (both 1963) suggested show business rather than innovation, although Bert Berns' 'It's All Over' (1964) was a superb song. 'Seven Letters' and 'The Record (Baby I Love You)' (both 1965) prepared the way for the rhetorical 'What Is Soul?' (1967). which effectively placed King alongside such soul contemporaries as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Joe Tex.

Unfortunately, King's commercial standing declined towards the end of the 60s when he left the Atlantic Records group of labels. Unable to reclaim his former standing elsewhere, King later re-signed with his former company and secured a US Top 5 hit in 1975 with 'Supernatural Thing Part 1' in 1977, collaboration with the Average White Band resulted in two R&B chart entries and an excellent album, Benny And Us. King's later recordings, including Music Trance (1980) and Street Tough (1981), proved less successful, and he briefly joined up with Johnny Moore in a version of the Drifters still plying their trade on the cabaret circuit. In 1986, 'Stand By Me' was included in the movie of the same name, reaching the US Top 10 and number 1 in the UK, thereby briefly revitalizing the singer's autumnal career.

Bobby Lee Bell, Sr. (born June 17, 1940).  Bobby Bell was a star halfback and all-state quarterback at Shelby High School in Shelby, North Carolina. Choosing to come to the north, Bell attended the University of Minnesota where he played quarterback, linebacker, and offensive center and finished his All-American career as both an offensive and defensive tackle on the 1962 National Championship team. This versatile athlete was not only voted consensus All-American tackle in 1962 but won the Outland Trophy as college football's outstanding lineman the same year.

Drafted in the 7^th round by Hank Stram and the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963, Bell was listed as a defensive lineman on the KC roster for two years. Often he would use his exceptional athletic skills, as a deep snapper on punts and kicks and as a defensive tackle would drop back into the line backing position. Coach Stram once said, "Bobby Bell was the most versatile athlete I ever coached."

Although considered by Stram to be "big enough, strong enough and fast enough to play any of the 22 positions in football', Kansas City chose to use Bell's talents on the defensive side of the ball. He was a fast learner and earned all-league honors in just his second year. Beginning as a defensive end, Bobby Bell was a ferocious tackler and feared pass rusher. He scored 8 touchdowns and had 25 interceptions.

Bell played his entire NFL career as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs and was the first Chief to be elected to the NFL Hall of Fame. Bobby played in the last 6 AFL All Star games, first 3 AFC-NFC Pro Bowls and was named All AFC and/or All NFC nine times. Teamed with fellow HOF member, Willie Lanier, Bell helped lead the Chiefs to AFL Championships in 1966 and 1969 and to a 23-7 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

Bobby Bell is enshrined in the College Football and Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and has been named to the all-time AFL Championship team. Bobby retired from pro football after the 1974 season and 12 years on gridiron. His number "78" has been retired by the Kansas City Chief organization. Bobby is currently involved in public relations for national corporations and is an accomplished sports humor and motivational speaker.

On February 1, 1960, four students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (AT&T) sat down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina.The men, later known as the Greensboro Four, ordered coffee. Following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the African American men at the "whites only" counter and the store's manager asked them to leave.

The four university freshmen, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan), and David Richmond, stayed until the store closed.

The next day, more than twenty African American students who had been recruited from other campus groups came to the store to join the sit-in. White customers heckled the black students, who read books and studied to keep busy. The lunch counter staff continued to refuse service.

Newspaper reporters and a TV videographer covered the second day of peaceful demonstrations and others in the community learned of the protests. On the third day, more than 60 people came to the Woolworth's store. A statement issued by Woolworth's national headquarters said the company would "abide by local custom" and maintain its segregated policy.

More than 300 people took part on the fourth day. Organizers agreed to spread the sit-in protests to include the lunch counter at the Greensboro's Kress store.

As early as one week after the Greensboro sit-in had begun, students in other North Carolina towns launched their own sit-ins. Demonstrations spread to towns near Greensboro, including Winston-Salem, Durham, Raleigh, and Charlotte. Out-of-state towns like Lexington, Kentucky also saw protests.

The movement then spread to other Southern cities including Richmond, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee where the students of the Nashville Student Movement had been trained for a sit-in by civil rights activist James Lawson and had already started the process when Greensboro occurred. Although the majority of these protests were peaceful, there were instances where protests became violent. For example, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, tensions rose between blacks and whites and fights broke out.

As the sit-ins continued, tensions grew in Greensboro and students began a far-reaching boycott of stores that had segregated lunch counters. Sales at the boycotted stores dropped by a third, leading the store's owners to abandon their segregation policies.

Black employees of Greensboro's Woolworth's store were the first to be served at the store's lunch counter, on July 25, 1960. The next day, the entire Woolworth's chain was desegregated, serving blacks and whites alike.

Born in Mount Gilead, North Carolina, in 1936, veteran civil rights lawyer, activist and educator Julius L. Chambers was influenced by the racial intolerance he saw growing up in a rural community east of Charlotte. After graduating from high school in 1954, he entered North Carolina Central University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history and was president of the student body. He then attended the University of Michigan, earning an M.A. in history. Chambers began law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1959, where he became the first African American editor-in-chief of the school's law review. Upon graduating in 1962, Chambers ranked first in his class of 100 students. He went on to earn his LL.M. from Columbia University Law School in 1964. 

Chambers became the first intern with the new NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) in 1963. Subsequently, in June 1964, he opened his own practice in Charlotte, which eventually became the first integrated law firm in North Carolina. Together with his founding partners, James E. Ferguson II and Adam Stein, this firm is credited with influencing more landmark state and federal legislation in school desegregation, employment and voting rights than any other in the United States. Together with lawyers of the LDF, they helped shape civil rights law by winning benchmark United States Supreme Court rulings such as the famous decision of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), which led to federally mandated busing, helping integrate public schools across the country. Chambers and his team also won in two of the Supreme Court's most monumental Title VII employment discrimination decisions, Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody (1974). 

In 1984, Chambers left his firm to become director-counsel of the LDF. Under Chambers' leadership, the organization fought for civil rights legislation and affirmative action programs that began in the 1970s and 1980s. Remaining devoted to education, however, he returned to his alma mater, North Carolina Central University, where he served as chancellor for eight years. Chambers has published numerous books, teaches at various law schools, and is a member of many boards and organizations.