List of civil rights leaders

W.E.B. Du Bois

Alice Paul

George Mason

James Bevel

B.R. Ambedkar

Betty Friedan

File:John Humphrey.jpg

John Peters Humphrey

Victoria Woodhull

[[File:Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (from Kennedy).jpg|thumb|[[Karl Heinrich Civil rights leaders are influential figures in the promotion and implementation of political freedom and the expansion of personal civil liberties and rights. They work to protect individuals and groups from political repression and discrimination by governments and private organizations, and seek to ensure the ability of all members of society to participate in the civil and political life of the state.

Civil rights include individual rights to equal protection and service, privacy, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to travel, freedom of worship, protection of civil liberties, the right to vote, and the right to freely share ideas and opinions through all forms of communication and media. People who motivated themselves and then led others to gain and protect these rights and liberties include:

• Ralph Abernathy (1926–1990) - American activist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) official
• B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) - Indian activist for caste abolition, writer, philosopher, 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 1869
• Julian 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 Chavez (1927–1993) - Chicano activist, organizer, trade unionist,inspiration
• Claudette Colvin (1939–) - American Montgomery Bus Boycott pioneer, independent activist
• Marvel Cooke (1903–2000) - American journalist, writer, 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, campaigner for the poor, women, dissenters, prisoners
• Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) - American abolitionist, women's rights and suffrage advocate, writer, organizer, black rights activist, inspiration
• W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) - American writer, scholar, founder of 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, 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, 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
• Betty Friedan (1921–2006) - American writer, women's rights activist, feminist
• Kasturba Gandhi (1869 – 1944) wife of Mohandas Gandhi, activist in South Africa and India, often led her husband's movements in India when he was imprisoned.
• Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) - Indian activist and movement leader, writer, philosopher, teacher, inspiration
• William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) - writer, organizer, feminist, initiator
• Dick Gregory - American free speech advocate and activist in the civil rights movement, comedian
• Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) - French women's rights pioneer, writer, beheaded during French Revolution
• 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) - activist in Mississippi movements
• Harry Hay (1912–2002) - early leader in American LGBT rights movement, founder Mattachine Society
• Lola Hendricks (1932–) - activist, 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, 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, suffragette
• Dolores Huerta (1930– ) - American labor and civil rights activist, initiator, organizer
• John Peters Humphrey (1905–1995) - author of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Jesse Jackson (1941–) - American civil rights activist, politician
• Nellie Stone Johnson (1905–2002) - labor and civil rights activist
• Toyohiko Kagawa (1888 – 1960) - Japanese labour activist, Christian reformer, author
• Meir Kahane - controversial Jewish rights leader, founder of the Jewish Defense League
• Abby Kelley (1811–1887) - American abolitionist and suffragette
• Jill Kelley (1975–) - Privacy rights advocate, Human rights activist and former Diplomat
• Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) - American SCLC leader, activist, inspiration
• Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) - SCLC co-founder/president/chairman, activist, author, speaker, inspiration
• James Lawson (1928–) - American minister and activist, SCLC's teacher of nonviolence in 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, 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
• James Madison (1751–1836) - American founding father, introduced and lobbied for the U.S. Bill of Rights
• Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) - South African statesman, leading figure in anti-apartheid movement, inspiration
• George Mason (1725–1792) - American who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and influenced U.S. Bill of Rights
• Rigoberta Menchú (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 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 '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, 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
• Alice Paul (1885–1977) - American 1910s Women's Voting Rights Movement leader, strategist, and organizer
• Thomas Paine (1737-1809) - English-American activist, author, theorist, 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
• Bayard 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, 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 first country to have universal suffrage
• Fred Shuttlesworth (1922–2011) - American clergyman, activist, SCLC co-founder, initiated the Birmingham Movement
• Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) - American abolitionist, writer, anarchist, proponent of Jury nullification
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) - American women's suffrage/women's rights leader
• Gloria Steinem (1934–) - American writer, activist, 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, inspiration
• Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) - German writer, organizer, and the pioneer of the modern LGBT rights movement.
• 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 (1865-1915)
• Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) - American journalist, early activist in 20th Century Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage/voting rights activist
• Walter Francis White (1895–1955) - American NAACP executive secretary
• Elie Wiesel - (1928–) Jewish rights leader
• William Wilberforce (1759-1833) - leader of English abolition movement
• Roy Wilkins - (1901–1981) American NAACP executive secretary/executive director
• Frances Willard (1839–1898) - American women's rights activist, suffrage leader
• Hosea Williams (1926–2000) - American civil rights activist, an SCLC organizer and strategist
• Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) - American suffragette organizer, women's rights leader
• Malcolm X (1925–1965) - American author, speaker, activist, inspiration
• Andrew Young (1932–) - American SCLC activist and executive director
• Whitney M. Young, Jr. (1921–1971) - Exec. Director National Urban League, advisor to U.S. Presidents

See also

• Abolition of slavery timeline
• African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954)
• African American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)
• Chicano Movement
• Civil and political rights
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
• Convention on the Political Rights of Women
• Counterculture of the 1960s
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
• Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen
• Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
• Equality before the law
• European Convention on Human Rights
• Founding Fathers of the United States
• Free Speech fight
• Free Speech Movement
• History of human rights
• Human rights
• Human rights awards
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• LGBT rights by country
• LGBT social movements
• List of human rights organizations
• List of indigenous rights organizations
• List of LGBT rights activists
• List of LGBT rights organizations
• List of peace activists
• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of women's rights activists
• Magna Carta
• National human rights institutions
• Seneca Falls Convention
• Status of same-sex marriage
• Suffrage
• Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement
• Timeline of first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countries
• Timeline of women's rights (other than voting)
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
• United Nations Human Rights Committee
• United Nations Human Rights Council
• United States Bill of Rights
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Universal suffrage
• Virginia Declaration of Rights
• Women's rights
• Women's Suffrage

External links

• BlackHistoryDaily.com – Activists