CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS LIST
⦁ B.R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) – Indian activist for caste abolition, writer, philosopher, and economist, co-wrote and influenced Indian constitution which focused on social rights.
⦁ Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) – American Women’s Suffrage leader, speaker, inspiration
⦁ Ella Baker (1903–1986) – American SCLC activist, initiated the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
⦁ James Baldwin (1924–1987) – American essayist, novelist, public speaker, SNCC activist
⦁ Daisy Bates (1914–1999) – American organizer of the Little Rock Nine school desegregation events.
⦁ Dana Beal (1947– ) – American pro-hemp activist, organizer, speaker, initiator
⦁ Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) – British philosopher, writer, and teacher on civil rights, inspiration
⦁ James Bevel (1936–2008) – American organizer and Direct Action leader, SCLC’s main strategist, movement initiator, and movement director.
⦁ Claude Black (1916–2009) – American civil rights movement activist
⦁ Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825–1921) – founded American Woman Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone in 1869Julian Bond (1940–) – American activist, politician, scholar, lawyer, NAACP chairman
⦁ Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) – American free speech advocate, comedian, political satirist
⦁ Lucy Burns (1879–1966) – American women’s suffrage/voting rights leader
⦁ Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) – American SNCC and Black Panther activist, organizer, speaker
⦁ Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) – suffrage leader, president National American Woman Suffrage Association, founder League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women
⦁ Cesar Chave (1927–1993) – Chicano activist, organizer, trade unionist, inspiration
⦁ Benjamin Chavis – (1948-) American activist, chemist, minister, author, leader of Wilmington 10, Director of Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ campaigner against Environmental Racism, Executive Director of NAACP, National Director of the Million Man March
⦁ Claudette Colvin (1939–) – American Montogomery Bus Boycott pioneer, independent activist
⦁ Marvel Cooke (1903–2000) – American journalist, writer, and trade unionist
⦁ Humberto “Bert” Corona (1918–2001) – labor and civil rights leader
⦁ Dorothy Cotton (1930–) – American SCLC official, activist, organizer, and leader
⦁ Eugene Debs (1855–1926) – American organizer, and campaigner for the poor, women, dissenters, and prisoners
⦁ Andre DiMino (1950–) – Italian-American civil rights activist
⦁ Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) – American abolitionist women’s rights and suffrage advocate, writer, organizer, black rights activist, inspiration
⦁ W.E. Du Bois (1868–1963) – American writer, scholar, and founder of the NAACP
⦁ Charles Evers (1922–) – American civil rights movement activist
⦁ Medgar Evers (1925–1963) – American, NAACP official in the Mississippi Movement
⦁ James Farmer (1920–1999) – Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) leader and activist
⦁ Louis Farrakhan (1933–) – American, Controversial Minister and National Representative of the Nation of Islam
⦁ James Forman (1928–2005) – American SNCC official and civil rights movement activist
⦁ Marie Foster (1917–2003) – American voting rights activist, and a local leader in the Selma Voting Rights Movement.
⦁ Frankie Muse Freeman (1916-) American civil rights attorney, and the first woman to be appointed to the United States Commission on Civil Rights
⦁ Golden Frinks (1920–2004) American civil rights organizer in North and field secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
⦁ Betty Friedan (1921–2006) – American writer, women’s rights activist, feminist
⦁ Kasturba Gandhi (1869–1944) wife of Mohandas Gandhi, an activist in South Africa and India, often led her husband’s movements in India when he was imprisoned.
⦁ Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) – Indian activist, movement leader, writer, philosopher, and teacher.
⦁ William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) – writer, organizer, feminist, initiator
⦁ Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) – French women’s rights pioneer, and writer, beheaded during French Revolution
⦁ Dick Gregory (1932- ) – American free speech advocate and activist in the civil rights movement, comedian
⦁ Tenzin Gyatso (1935- ) – Tibetan, 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, advocate for nonviolence, compassion, and Tibetan autonomy
⦁ Prathia Hall (1940–2002) – American SNCC activist, a leading speaker in the civil rights movement
⦁ Fred Hampton (1948–1969) – American NAACP youth leader and Black Panther activist, organizer, speaker
⦁ Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) – an activist in Mississippi Harry Hay (1912–2002) – an early leader in the American LGBT rights movement, and founder of the Mattachine Society
⦁ Lola Hendricks (1932–) – activist, a local leader in Birmingham Movement
⦁ Jack Herer (1939–2010) – American pro-hemp activist, speaker, organizer, author
⦁ Gordon Hirabayashi (1918–2012) – Japanese-American civil rights hero
⦁ Myles Horton (1905–1990) – American teacher of nonviolence, and pioneer activist, founded and led the Highlander Folk School.
⦁ T.R.M Howard (1908–1976) – founder of Mississippi’s Regional Council of Negro Leadership
⦁ Julia Ward Howe (1818–1910) – American writer, organizer, and suffragette
⦁ Dolores Huerta (1930– ) – American labor and civil rights activist, initiator, organizer
⦁ John Peters Humphrey (1905–1995) – author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
⦁ Harish Lyer (1979–) – Indian gender and sexuality rights activist, campaigns against child sexual abuse and for animal rights, inspiration.
⦁ Jesse Jackson (1941–) – American civil rights activist, politician
⦁ Nellie Stone Johson (1905–2002) – labor and civil rights activist
⦁ Toyochiko Kagawa (1888–1960) – Japanese labor activist, Christian reformer, author
⦁ Meir Kahane – controversial Jewish rights leader, founder of the Jewish Defense League
⦁ Ashok Row Kavi (1947–) – Indian LGBT rights activist, pioneer Indian gay rights movement, founder of Humsafar Trust
⦁ Abby Kelley (1811–1887) – American abolitionist and suffragette
⦁ Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) – American SCLC leader, activist, and inspiration
⦁ Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) – SCLC co-founder/president/chairman, activist, author, speaker, inspiration
⦁ Fred Korematsu (1919–2005) – American, Japanese internment resister during WWII
⦁ James Lawson (1928–) – American minister and activist, SCLC’s teacher of nonviolence in the late 1950s and early 1960s civil rights movement
⦁ Bernard Lafayette (1940–) – American SCLC and SNCC activist, organizer, and leader
⦁ John Lewis (1940–) – American Nashville Student Movement and SNCC activist, organizer, speaker, inspiration
⦁ Sigmund Livingston (1872–1946) – Jewish rights activist, and founder of the Anti-Defamation League.
⦁ Joseph Lowery (1921–) – American SCLC leader and co-founder, activist
⦁ Clara Luper (1923–2011) – American sit-in movement leader in Oklahoma, activist
⦁ Phyllis Lyon (1924-) – American co-founder of the first social and political organization for lesbians in the US
⦁ James Madison (1751–1836) – American founding father, introduced and lobbied for the U.S. Bill of Rights
⦁ Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) – South African statesman, a leading figure in the anti-apartheid movement, inspiration
⦁ Del Martin (1921–2008) – American co-founder of the first social and political organization for lesbians in the US
⦁ George Mason (1725–1792) – American who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and influenced the U.S. Bill of Rights
⦁ Rigoberta Menchu (1959) – Guatemalan indigenous rights leader, co-founder Nobel Women’s Initiative
⦁ James Meredith (1933–) – American independent student leader and self–starting Mississippi activist
⦁ Mamie Till Bradley Mobley – American who held an open casket funeral for her son, EMMETT TILL; speaker, activist
⦁ Charles Morgan Jr. (1930–2009) – American attorney, established the principle of “one man, one vote”
⦁ Harvey Milk (1930–1978) – American politician, gay rights activist, and leader, inspiration
⦁ Bob Moses (1935–) – leader, activist, and organizer in the ’60s Mississippi Movement
⦁ Diane Nash (1938–) – American SNCC and SCLC activist and official, strategist, organizer
⦁ Edgar Nixon (1899–1987) – Montgomery Bus Boycott organizer, civil rights activist
⦁ James Orange (1942–2008) – American SCLC activist and organizer, a voting rights movement leader, and trade unionist
⦁ Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) – founder and leader of the British Suffragette Movement.
⦁ Rosa Parks (1913–2005) – American NAACP official, activist, Montgomery Bus Boycott inspiration
⦁ Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) Indian activist, movement leader
⦁ Alice Paul (1885–1977) – American 1910s Women’s Voting Rights Movement leader, strategist, and organizer
⦁ Thomas Pain (1737–1809) – English-American activist, author, and theorist, who wrote Rights of Man.
⦁ Elizabeth Peratrovich (1911–1958) – Alaska activist for native people
⦁ A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979) – American labor and civil rights movement leader
⦁ Amelia Boynton Robinson (1911–) – Selma Voting Rights Movement activist and early leader
⦁ Jo Ann Robinson (1912–1992) – Montgomery Bus Boycott activist.
⦁ Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) – women’s rights and human rights activist both in the United States and in the United Nations
⦁ Baynard Rustin (1912–1987) – American civil rights activist
⦁ Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-) – Burmese Politician, former political prisoner, democracy and human rights activist
⦁ Sonia Schlesin (1888–1956) – worked with Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and led his movements there when he was absent.
⦁ AL Sharpton (1954–) – American clergyman, activist, and media
⦁ Charles Sherrod – American civil rights activist, SNCC leader
⦁ Judy Shepard (1952–) – gay rights activist, public speaker
⦁ Kate Sheppard (1847–1934) – New Zealand suffragist in the first country to have universal suffrage
⦁ Fred Shuttlesworth (1922–2011) – American clergyman, activist, and SCLC co-founder, initiated the Birmingham Movement
⦁ Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) – American abolitionist, writer, anarchist, and proponent of Jury Nullification.
⦁ Winifred C. Stanley (1909-1996) – First member of Congress to introduce legislation prohibiting discrimination in pay on the basis of sex
⦁ Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) – American women’s suffrage/women’s rights leader
⦁ Gloria Steinem (1934–) – American writer, activist, and feminist
⦁ Lucy Stone (1818–1893) – American women’s suffrage/voting rights leader
⦁ Thich Quang Duc (1897–1963) – Vietnamese monk, freedom of religion self-martyr
⦁ Desmond Tutu (1931–) – South African anti-apartheid organizer, advocate, and inspiration
⦁ Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) – German writer, organizer, and the pioneer of the modern LGBT rights movement.
⦁ Edison Uno (1929–1976) – American, leader for Japanese-American civil rights and redress after WW II
⦁ C. T. Vivian (1924–) – American student civil rights leader, SNCC and SCLC activist
⦁ Wyatt Tee Walker – American activist and organizer with NAACP, CORE, and SCLC
⦁ Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) – American educator, founder of Tuskegee University, and advisor to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
⦁ Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) – American journalist, early activist in the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement, women’s suffrage/voting rights activist
⦁ Walter Francis White (1895–1955) – NAACP executive secretary
⦁ Elie Wiesel – (1928–) – American, writer, Holocaust survivor, and Jewish rights leader
⦁ William Wilberforce (1759–1833) – leader of the British abolition movement.
⦁ Roy Wilkins – (1901–1981) American NAACP executive secretary/executive director
⦁ Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) – American suffragette organizer, women’s rights leader
⦁ Malcolm X (1925–1965) – American author, speaker, activist, and inspiration
⦁ Andrew Young (1932–) – American SCLC activist and executive director
⦁ Malala Yousafzai (1997- ) – Pakistani, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, advocate for education for girls