109 articles
Fred Hampton Jr.
Fred Hampton Jr. (born 1969) is a Chicago activist, son of slain Illinois Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton and Akua Njeri. He leads the Black Panther Party Cubs, founded the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, served nine years in prison, and consulted on Judas and the Black Messiah.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was an American abolitionist, orator, and publisher who escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1838 and became a leading spokesman for abolition.
Gangubai Kothewali (गंगूबाई कोठेवाली)
Gangubai Kothewali (गंगूबाई कोठेवाली), born Ganga Harjeevandas Kathiawadi (1907–1977), was a Mumbai brothel madam and sex workers' rights figure in Kamathipura, later depicted in Bhansali's 2022 film Gangubai Kathiawadi.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, was an American abolitionist who escaped slavery in Maryland in 1849 and then made about 13 return trips to rescue others.
Hazel Massery
Hazel Bryan Massery (born 1942) is the white student shown shouting at Elizabeth Eckford in Will Counts's iconic September 4, 1957 photograph of the Little Rock Nine; she later apologized, reconciled briefly with Eckford, and is the subject of Margolick's Elizabeth and Hazel.
Hosea Williams
Hosea Lorenzo Williams (1926-2000), American civil rights leader, SCLC executive director and King aide; co-led Bloody Sunday in Selma with John Lewis, led the 1987 Forsyth County march, served in Georgia politics, founded Hosea Helps.
Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers, 1982), also Ibram Xolani Kendi, American historian of racism and antiracist scholar; National Book Award winner for Stamped from the Beginning, author of How to Be an Antiracist, founding director of BU's Center for Antiracist Research, now at Howard University.
James Chaney
James Earl Chaney (1943–1964), Meridian, Mississippi CORE civil rights worker murdered with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman during Freedom Summer in Neshoba County; 1967 federal conspiracy convictions, 2005 Killen manslaughter conviction, 2014 posthumous Medal of Freedom.
James Farmer
James Farmer (1920–1999), American civil rights leader, co-founder and national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), architect of the 1961 Freedom Rides, later HEW assistant secretary and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.
James Reeb
James Reeb (1927–1965) was a white Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston beaten to death in Selma, Alabama, on March 9–11, 1965; his killers were acquitted, and his death spurred the Voting Rights Act.
Jane Elliott
Jane Elliott (born 1933), American teacher from Riceville, Iowa, creator of the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes discrimination exercise first run with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, later a diversity trainer.
Jared Taylor
Jared Taylor (born 1951) is an American white nationalist writer, founder of the New Century Foundation and editor of American Renaissance, who calls himself a race realist; SPLC and ADL classify him as a white supremacist.
Jason Kessler
Jason Kessler, UVA graduate and Charlottesville resident, white nationalist organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right rally, later a litigant over his revoked permit, consent-decree signatory, and Unite the Right 2 organizer.
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson (Jesse Louis Jackson Sr., born Jesse Louis Burns), 1941-2026, American civil rights leader, Baptist minister, Operation PUSH and Rainbow PUSH founder, and 1984/1988 Democratic presidential candidate; died February 17, 2026, in Chicago.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland (born 1941) is an American civil rights activist, Freedom Rider, Parchman Penitentiary inmate, and first white student at Tougaloo College, subject of An Ordinary Hero.
John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (1940–2020), American civil rights leader and Georgia congressman: SNCC chairman, original Freedom Rider, Bloody Sunday marcher, 33-year House member known as the conscience of Congress.
John Pierre Burr
John Pierre Burr (1792-1864) was an African-American Philadelphia barber, abolitionist, and Underground Railroad conductor, son of Vice President Aaron Burr and Mary Emmons of Calcutta; recognized by the Burr family in 2018-2019.
John Stoltenberg
John Stoltenberg, American radical feminist author of Refusing to be a Man (1989) and The End of Manhood (1993), co-founder of Men Against Pornography, and Andrea Dworkin's widower.
Jonathan Daniels
Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939-1965), New Hampshire-born Episcopal seminarian and VMI valedictorian, joined the Selma voting rights campaign, was jailed in Hayneville, and was killed August 20, 1965 shielding Ruby Sales from deputy Tom Coleman's shotgun; later named an Episcopal Church martyr.
Joshua Caleb Sutter
Joshua Caleb Sutter, also known as Wulfran Hall, is an American neo-Nazi and Satanist who served as a paid FBI informant from 2003 to 2021.
Jyotirao Phule (जोतिराव फुले)
Jyotirao Phule (जोतिराव फुले), Mahatma Phule, 1827–1890, Maharashtrian anti-caste reformer from the Mali community; opened Pune girls' schools from 1848 with Savitribai, wrote Gulamgiri (1873), founded Satyashodhak Samaj 1873.
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (ಕಮಲಾದೇವಿ ಚಟ್ಟೋಪಾಧ್ಯಾಯ)
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (ಕಮಲಾದೇವಿ ಚಟ್ಟೋಪಾಧ್ಯಾಯ, 1903–1988), Indian freedom fighter, feminist, and Congress Socialist Party founder; first woman to contest a legislative seat in India (1926) and post-independence leader of the handicrafts revival.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker), British anti-trans activist born 1974, founder of Standing for Women and the Let Women Speak rallies; her 2023 Australasia tour drew neo-Nazis in Melbourne and was shut down in Auckland.
Khadijah Farrakhan
Khadijah Farrakhan (Betsy Ross, 1936-2026), Mother Khadijah, First Lady of the Nation of Islam, wife of Louis Farrakhan for 72 years, married 1953, nine children, spoke at the 1997 Million Woman March.
Khalid Abdul Muhammad
Khalid Abdul Muhammad (Harold Moore Jr., 1948–2001), American black nationalist, Nation of Islam spokesman under Louis Farrakhan, later New Black Panther Party chairman; notorious for the 1993 Kean College antisemitic speech and the 1998 Million Youth March.
Kiyoshi Kuromiya
Kiyoshi Kuromiya (1943–2000), Japanese American Philadelphia activist; GLF-Philadelphia co-founder, Selma marcher, Black Panther convention delegate, and founder of the Critical Path AIDS Project.
Laura Loomer
Laura Loomer (born 1993, Tucson) is an American far-right activist and conspiracy theorist, informal Trump adviser, twice failed congressional candidate, deplatformed across major platforms, and, after a July 2026 Kyiv trip, a converted Ukraine advocate.
Linda Sarsour
Linda Sarsour (born 1980) is a Palestinian-American Muslim activist from Brooklyn, former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, co-founder of MPower Change, and national co-chair of the 2017 Women's March.
List of civil rights leaders
List of civil rights leaders, also called civil rights activists, covering American figures from NAACP founders (Wells, Du Bois, Ovington) through SCLC, the 1963 March on Washington, Ella Baker, Jesse Jackson, and present-day leaders like Patrisse Khan-Cullors.
Malcolm Shabazz
Malcolm Lateef Shabazz (1984–2013), grandson and first male descendant of Malcolm X, son of Qubilah Shabazz; pleaded guilty at 12 in the 1997 fire that killed Betty Shabazz; beaten to death in Mexico City at 28.