Pompano Beach Postmaster Ed Coppola will dedicate a Civil Rights stamp enlargement during a Black History Month celebration at the North Regional/Broward County Library at 12:30 pm on Thursday, February 19. The library is located at 1100 Coconut Creek Blvd in Coconut Creek. With these stamps, the U.S. Postal Service immortalizes the courage, commitment, and achievements of 12 Civil Rights leaders:
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) - Throughout her long life as a writer, activist, and lecturer, she was a powerful advocate for racial justice and women’s rights in America and abroad.
Mary White Ovington (1865-1951) - This journalist and social worker believed passionately in racial equality and was a founder of the NAACP.
J. R. Clifford (1848-1933) - He was the first black attorney licensed in West Virginia; in two landmark cases before his state’s Supreme Court, he attacked racial discrimination in education.
Joel Elias Spingarn (1875-1939) - Because coverage of blacks in the media tended to be negative, he endowed the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, to highlight black achievement.
Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949) - He was one of the founders of the NAACP and wrote the “Call” leading to its formation.
Daisy Gatson Bates (1914-1999) - She mentored nine black students who enrolled at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, AR in 1957. The students used her home as an organizational hub.
Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) - This lawyer and educator was a main architect of the Civil Rights movement. He believed in using laws to better the lives of underprivileged citizens.
Walter White (1893-1955) - Blue eyes and a fair complexion enabled this leader of the NAACP to make daring undercover investigations.
Medgar Evers (1925-1963) - He served with distinction as an official of the NAACP in Mississippi until his assassination in 1963.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) - She was a Mississippi sharecropper who fought for black voting rights and spoke for many when she said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986) - Her lifetime of activism made her a skillful organizer. She encouraged women and young people to assume positions of leadership in the Civil Rights movement.
Ruby Hurley (1909-1980) - As a courageous and capable official with the NAACP, she did difficult, dangerous work in the South.
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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 149 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes, six days a week. It has 34,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services, not tax dollars, to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.
