Game on...
Who is the most important yet neglected individual in US history?
My candidate is Bayard Rustin. He is like Frederick Douglas living in the successive century.
There must be tons of great ones for you to choose. I can think of a half dozen I also considered.
I was listening to an interview of Coney Island in Cincinnati, and they were talking about desegregating the pool. This is a great conversation, but it does have many, many controversial elements. It does use 'negro(s)' (similar to how the NAACP uses 'colored people'). This story is a little To Kill a Mockingbird (50:20, 54:00) and about a 'local' setting – connected to King's Island.
They mention CORE (52:56). So, I looked it up, and there is Bayard Rustin again. It could be argued that he did more for racial integration and civil rights than MLK Jr. did.
Go to 48:00 (48:20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3NdfvhoJm0
Enjoy this read – America's first female president :)
https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2021/06/8-forgotten-stories-from-american-history/
8 Forgotten Stories from American History - HeinOnline Blog
American history is brimming with lesser-known—but still fascinating—phenomena that even the most diligent historian may have forgotten. Read to explore a few of these stories with HeinOnline.
Fact check:
Health collapses
To bolster public support for ratification, Wilson barnstormed the Western states, but he returned to the White House in late September due to health problems.[249] On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke, leaving him paralyzed on his left side, and with only partial vision in the right eye.[250][251] He was confined to bed for weeks and sequestered from everyone except his wife and his physician, Cary Grayson.[252] Bert E. Park, a neurosurgeon who examined Wilson's medical records after his death, writes that Wilson's illness affected his personality in various ways, making him prone to "disorders of emotion, impaired impulse control, and defective judgment."[253] Anxious to help the president recover, Tumulty, Grayson, and the First Lady determined what documents the president read and who was allowed to communicate with him. For her influence in the administration, some have described Edith Wilson as "the first female President of the United States."[254] Link states that by November 1919, Wilson's "recovery was only partial at best. His mind remained relatively clear; but he was physically enfeebled, and the disease had wrecked his emotional constitution and aggravated all his more unfortunate personal traits.[255]
Throughout late 1919, Wilson's inner circle concealed the severity of his health issues.[256] By February 1920, the president's true condition was publicly known. Many expressed qualms about Wilson's fitness for the presidency at a time when the League fight was reaching a climax, and domestic issues such as strikes, unemployment, inflation and the threat of Communism were ablaze. In mid-March 1920, Lodge and his Republicans formed a coalition with the pro-treaty Democrats to pass a treaty with reservations, but Wilson rejected this compromise and enough Democrats followed his lead to defeat ratification.[257] No one close to Wilson was willing to certify, as required by the Constitution, his "inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office."[258] Though some members of Congress encouraged Vice President Marshall to assert his claim to the presidency, Marshall never attempted to replace Wilson.[259] Wilson's lengthy period of incapacity while serving as president was nearly unprecedented; of the previous presidents, only James Garfield had been in a similar situation, but Garfield retained greater control of his mental faculties and faced relatively few pressing issues.[260]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson?scrlybrkr=b746399c