African Americans | Page 50

St. Peter Claver Church, St. Paul

Founded in 1888, St. Peter Claver Church was the first African American Catholic Church in Minnesota. The parish was created by St. Paul’s African American Catholic community and an Archbishop who vowed to “blot out the color line.”

1975 Photograph of Roy Wilkins, Samuel Richardson, Governor Wendell Anderson and an unidentified man.

Roy Wilkins (second from left) with Samuel Richardson (left), unidentified man, and Governor Wendell R. Anderson (far right)

Roy Wilkins (second from left) with Samuel Richardson (left), unidentified man, and Governor Wendell R. Anderson (far right), 1975.

Photograph of Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and Thurgood Marshall

Roy Wilkins (center) with Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall

Roy Wilkins (center) with Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall, c.1959. Photograph by Cecil Layne.

Roy Wilkins

Roy Wilkins, c.1955. Photograph by Fabian Bachrach.

Wilkins, Roy (1901–1981)

Roy Wilkins, who spent his formative years in the Twin Cities, led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1949 to 1977. During those years, the NAACP helped achieve the greatest civil rights advancements in U.S. history. Wilkins favored new laws and legal challenges as the best ways for African Americans to gain civil rights.

Joseph Godfrey

Joseph Godfrey, 1862. Drawing by Robert O. Sweeny.

Godfrey, Joseph (ca.1830–1909)

The US–Dakota War of 1862 was a turning point in Minnesota history. Joseph Godfrey, an enslaved man, joined the Dakota in their fight against white settler-colonists that summer and fall. He was one of only two African Americans to do so.