Famous Activists

• Adamson, Joy

  Author of Born Free

• Addams, Jane

  1931 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Hull-House

• Alinsky, Saul

  The father of community organizing

• Anthony, Susan B.

  The women's rights activist on the one-dollar coin

• Assange, Julian

  The WikiLeaks co-founder who hid out in the Ecuadorian embassy

• Baez, Joan

  Folk singer who did "Diamonds & Rust"

• Baraka, Amiri

  Author of the 1964 play Dutchman

• Berrigan, Daniel

  The anti-war priest hunted by the FBI

• Berrigan, Philip

  Blood-pouring, missile-hammering ex-priest

• Bethune, Mary McLeod

  The founder of the National Council for Negro Women

• Biafra, Jello

  The frontman for the punk group Dead Kennedys

• Bly, Nellie

  Woman journalist who went around the world in 1889

• Bono, Chaz

  The only child of Sonny and Cher

• Breitbart, Andrew

  The right-wing activist who brought down Rep. Anthony Weiner

• Brown, Antoinette

  The first clergywoman in the United States

• Buck, Pearl S.

  The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote The Good Earth

• Bunche, Ralph

  The first black American to win the Nobel Peace Prize

• Burke, Tarana

  The woman credited with starting the Me Too movement

• Byrne, Ethel Higgins

  Margaret Sanger’s sister and co-founder of the first birth control clinic

• Chavez, Cesar

  Leader of the 1960s grape boycott

• Cleaver, Eldridge

  The Black Panther who wrote Soul on Ice

• Coffin, William Sloane

  The Yale chaplain who opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam

• Cox, Laverne

  Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black

• Davis, Angela

  The black feminist/communist on the Most Wanted list in 1970

• Davison, Emily

  The suffragist who was run over by the king's horse in 1913

• Davis, Ossie

  Husband of Ruby Dee and veteran of stage and screen

• Day, Dorothy

  Laywoman who co-founded The Catholic Worker

• Dee, Ruby

  Veteran actress and wife of Ossie Davis

• Dix, Dorothea

  The 19th-century woman who improved treatment of the insane

• Dolezal, Rachel

  The white woman who pretended to be black

• Du Bois, W.E.B.

  Author of The Souls of Black Folk

• Dworkin, Andrea

  Author of Woman Hating

• Ebadi, Shirin

  Winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize

• ElBaradei, Mohamed

  The Egyptian winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

• Ellsberg, Daniel

  The whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971

• Evers, Medgar

  Assassinated Mississippi civil rights leader

• Farrow, Ronan

  Mia Farrow's son who's on MSNBC

• Fonda, Jane

  Outspoken Oscar-winning actress and Ted Turner's ex-wife

• Fox, Terry

  The cancer victim who ran over 3000 miles across Canada

• Friedan, Betty

  The author of 'The Feminine Mystique'

• Fuller, Margaret

  The feminist who wrote 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century'

• Gandhi, Mohandas

  Non-violent leader of Indian independence

• Gbowee, Leymah

   The Nobel-winning Liberian activist featured in the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell

• Ginsberg, Allen

  The Beat-era poet who wrote Howl

• Giovanni, Nikki

  The poet who wrote "Ego-Tripping"

• Goldberg, Whoopi

  Star of the Hollywood comedy Sister Act

• Goldman, Emma

  The anarchist-feminist who founded 'Mother Earth' monthly

• Goodall, Jane

  Chimpanzee expert and conservationist

• Gordimer, Nadine

  The Nobel-winning South African author who wrote July's People

• Gray, Fred D.

  The lawyer for Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks

• Hampton, Fred

  The young Black Panther murdered by Chicago police in 1969

• Harrelson, Woody

  The guy from Cheers who played Larry Flynt in the movies

• Hayden, Tom

  The California political activist once married to Jane Fonda

• Hazare, Anna

   The activist who led the Indian anti-corruption movement of the early 21st century

• Hoffman, Abbie

  The yippie who wrote Steal This Book

• hooks, bell

  Black feminist critic of "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy"

• Howe, Julia Ward

  The abolitionist who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic

• Hutchinson, Anne

  Religious midwife banished from colonial Massachusetts

• Jagger, Bianca

  The first wife of rock star Mick Jagger

• Jones, Mary Harris "Mother"

  Labor leader known as the "grandmother of agitators"

• Karman, Tawakkol

  The Yemeni activist who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize 

• Keller, Helen

  The blind and deaf woman who became a famous activist

• Kennedy, Michael

  The Kennedy who died while skiing

• Kevorkian, Jack

  The euthanasia advocate known as "Dr. Death"

• King, Martin Luther, Jr.

  The civil rights hero who said "I have a dream"

• LaDuke, Winona

  Native American activist who was a vice presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000

• Lease, Mary Elizabeth

  The 19th century activist who wrote 'The Problem of Civilization Solved'

• Liu Xiaobo

  The Chinese writer who won 2010's Nobel Peace Prize

• Lovelace, Linda

  The star of the sexually explicit film Deep Throat

• Maathai, Wangari

  The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize

• Mankiller, Wilma

  The first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation

• Mann, Horace

  The "Father of American Education"

• Milk, Harvey

  The gay San Francisco city official gunned down in 1978

• Mills, Heather

  The activist who married Paul McCartney

• Mott, Lucretia

  The Quaker minister who was the first to sign the Seneca Falls women's rights declaration

• Mowat, Farley

  The author of Never Cry Wolf

• Nader, Ralph

  Author of Unsafe at Any Speed and perennial presidential candidate

• Nation, Carry

  Hatchet-wielding champion of alcohol prohibition

• Newton, Huey

  Co-founder of the Black Panthers

• Nightingale, Florence

  British nursing hero of the Crimean War

• Norquist, Grover

   The lobbyist who initiated the GOP's anti-tax pledge

• Odetta

   The fierce black folk singer known for "Oh, Freedom"

• O'Hair, Madalyn Murray

  Head of American Atheists

• Otero-Warren, Nina

  The early New Mexico activist who helped win the vote for women

• Phyllis McAlpin Stewart

  The Republican woman who helped defeat the ERA in the 1970s

• Plessy, Homer

  Namesake of the U.S. court case Plessy v. Ferguson

• Rich, Adrienne

  The feminist-lesbian poet who wrote Diving Into the Wreck

• Robeson, Paul

  The actor, singer and activist known for Othello and Show Boat

• Rustin, Bayard

  Organizer behind Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington

• Sanger, Margaret

  Co-founder of what became Planned Parenthood

• Seale, Bobby

  Co-founder, with Huey Newton, of the Black Panther Party

• Sharpton, Al

  New York's African-American preacher, activist and presidential candidate 

• Sheehan, Cindy

  The "Peace Mom" who protested against the Iraq War

• Shriver, Eunice Kennedy

  The founder of the Special Olympics

• Snowden, Edward

  The dude who leaked top-secret info about U.S. domestic surveillance

• Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

  Co-founder of the Seneca Falls Convention

• Steinem, Gloria

  The feminist who co-founded Ms. magazine

• Stone, Lucy

  The abolitionist and women's suffragist who started 'The Woman's Journal'

• Stopes, Marie

  The UK birth control pioneer who wrote 'Married Love'

• Thunberg, Greta

  The teen climate change activist named Time's 'Person of the Year' in 2019

• Treadwell, Timothy

  Bear-loving mauling victim from the documentary Grizzly Man

• Truth, Sojourner

  The freed slave and activist who said "Ain't I a Woman?"

• Tutu, Desmond

  The bishop who won a Nobel prize for opposing apartheid

• Walesa, Lech

  Trade union activist who became president of Poland

• Wells, Ida B.

  The woman journalist who campaigned against lynching

• West, Cornel

   The African American Studies professor who wrote Race Matters

• Wiesenthal, Simon

  The Nazi hunter who nabbed Adolf Eichmann

• Williams, Maria P.

  The first black woman to write and produce a movie, in 1923

• Woodhull, Victoria Claflin

  The first woman candidate for U.S. President

• Woodson, Carter G.

  The "Father of Black History"

• Yousafzai, Malala

  The Pakistani schoolgirl who won the Nobel Peace Prize

• Yunus, Muhammad

  The Nobel Prize-winning "banker to the poor"

See: Index by Occupation