Carlisle Blues

The sportsman I posted Jackie Robinson possiblyfits your criteria for civil rights. The fact that he was a baseball player was the vehicle for his work for racial equality. I am not a big sports fan, rather, I am a fan of badass courage.

Jackie Robinson



Jackie Robinson went on to champion the cause of civil rights from his position as a prominent executive of the Chock Full o'Nuts Corporation. Robinson had grown increasingly impatient with what he regarded as President Eisenhower's failure to act decisively in combating racism. In this letter, he expresses his frustration and calls upon the President to finally guarantee Federal support of black civil rights.


From the National Archives


http://www.archives.gov/historical-d....%20Eisenhower

ugabug

Theodore Roosevelt in my opinion.

With good reason.

Isoroku295

who's the most badass American? I'll show you
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Rasputin1234

Tie between Muhammad Ali and Nathan Bedford Forrest

okamido

That is an odd pairing.

Sargon of Akkad

And the utterly disgusting gangsters certainly wouldn't get a place anywhere near mine.

Carlisle Blues

This is badass


Gordon Parks, the son of a dirt farmer, rose from meager beginnings and above recurrent discrimination to walk through doors previously closed to African Americans. He was the first black person to work at Life magazine and Vogue, and the first to write, direct and score a Hollywood film, "The Learning Tree" (1969), which was based on a 1963 novel he wrote about his life as a farm boy in Kansas. He also was the director of the 1971 hit movie "Shaft," which opened the way for a host of other black-oriented films.

Parks started out in the days before the Civil Rights Act, during the struggle for equality, when there were few black professionals of any occupation, when role models were people who were simply able to build lives on their own terms. By those standards, Parks’ success seems miraculous.

He was born Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks on Nov. 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kan., the youngest of 15 children. His mother died when he was 16. He then lived with his sister in St. Paul, Minn., for a while before he struck out on his own. He left school and took on a number of jobs, including as a pianist with an all-white band and with the Civilian Conservation Corps.



Richard Roundtree and Parks on the set of Shaft.

Rasputin1234

Badassitude brings people together. I learned recently that Forrest actually had a "Special Service" of elite cavalry that included a bunch of his slaves.

dschardt

Audie Murphy.

Carlisle Blues

At first, I said no badass here. After thinking about what a gangster was back then. This quote came to me, the "gangster can only be understood in relation to the wider society, whether he is cast as a villain whose actions confirm the need for law and order or as an outlaw hero admired for the toughness and energy with which he defies the system." This for me qualifies as badass...

Al Capone



He liked sportsmen though....



Gangster Al Capone and his son having baseball autographed by player Gabby Hartnett (Charles Leo Hartnett) from Capone's front row seat at Cominsky Park stadium. Photographed on September 10, 1931.