Joel Spingarn Postage Stamp
Because coverage of blacks in the media tended to be negative, Joel Elias Spingarn endowed the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, to highlight black achievement.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most influential spokesman and leader during the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. MLK Jr. winning the Spingarn Medal is an example of the high caliber African Americans who receive the honor of winning the Spingarn medal. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1957 for his ever lasting contributions to the Civil Rights Movement
Ernest Everett Just
Ernest Everett Just became the very first recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1915 for his research in biology. His most important discoveries was that the surface of an egg (or cell membrane) changes once a sperm’s nucleus enters the egg thus preventing additional entries into the egg. Ernest Everett Just graduated from Dartmouth and later went onto become the chair of the zoology program at Howard University. In 1940, the German Nazis imprisoned Just in a camp, but, with the help of his wife's father, he was released. He died on October 27, 1941, in Washington, D.C., shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball colour line when he started at first base for Brooklyn. Jackie Robinson was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1956 the year before MLK Jr., Robinson was very deserving of this distinct honour for his hard work and perseverance even though major adversity and racism are thrown at him on his way to making history and inspiring the entire African American sports world.
Cato T. Laurencin
Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., is an American engineer, physician, scientist, innovator and a University Professor of the University of Connecticut. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of The Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering. Cato was the latest person to be awarded the Spingarn Medal in 2021. We were particularly interested in Catos story because of his connections to Connecticut.
W.E.B DuBois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Web Dubois was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1920. Dubois story is one of the most interesting because of the controversy.
“the bitterest opponent of the white race that America has ever known, loved Joel Spingarn and was certainly loved in turn by him,” observed Hurston. “The thing doesn’t make sense. It just makes beauty.”73 Scholars and Knights:
W. E. B. Du Bois, J. E. Spingarn, and the NAACP Author(s): Lori Harrison-Kahan Source: Jewish Social Studies , Vol. 18, No. 1 (Fall 2011), pp. 63-87 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jewisocistud.18.1.63
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the first African-American Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States.