People

Sydney Bechet: Sydney Bechet was a great jazz musician. He was born in Louisianna in May 1897. He played the clarinet and his extraordinary musical talents were evidentby the time he was ten. Bechet played in dance halls, at picnics, and at parties. Bechet played in LondonEngland and mastered the soprano saxophone there. From then on, the saxophone would be the instrument that he would principally play for the rest of his life. He spent much of his career in Europe, espe2cially France because he was disgusted by the racism in the United States. He played in many bands in the u.s. and europe. By the time of his death he recieved honors and recognition granted only to the greatest french artists. In 1932 he formed his own band, called "New Orleans Feetwarmers", with trumpeter Tommy Ladnier. Along with Louis AArmstrong, Bechet was one of the first musicians to improvise with jazz-swing feeling.

Walter White:
Walter White was one of the outstanding civil rights leaders in America between 1920 and 1955. he joined the NAACP in 1918 and almost immediately became its investigator of lynching. He could easily pass as caucasian but he chose to go through life as a black man. in 1929, white became executive director of the NAACP. white's main goal was to have the federal government pass an anti-lynching law. due to white's work, the number of lynchings declined in the latter part of the 1930s. in 1941, white assisted his colleague in pressuring president franklin roosevelt to issue the executive order creating the Fair Employment Practices Act.