Frank Sinatra was an avid supporter of civil rights. He was a generous financial supporter of Martin Luther King Jr, and was recruited by him to join the civil rights marches in the south. He would go on to receive a lifetime award from the NAACP.

#Sinatra100: Frank sinatra, Civil Rights champion

In the forties and fifties, America was in apartheid, and the courts, legislations, laws, churches and institutions converged with the blessing and rationalization to justify it. It is surprising to think that a skinny kid from Jersey, born in 1915, would then go on to champion the rights of all people both publicly and his private life.

An early example of the way in which Frank Sinatra used his popularity to do so, came in 1945, at the start of his road to Sinatramania, when he appeared as himself in a fictional film in which, upon taking a break during a recording session, he witnesses a scene on the street in which he sees ten boys chase down a Jewish kid. He intervenes, and through dialogue first and then a short speech, tells them… Continue Reading (3 minute read)