Society & activism

People known for advocacy and social change.

People in Society & activism

89 profiles

Activist

Rosa Parks

Defying bus segregation and helping spark the Montgomery boycott.

Activist

Martin Luther King Jr.

Leading nonviolent campaigns for US civil rights.

Activist

Mahatma Gandhi

Using mass nonviolent resistance in India’s independence struggle.

Activist

Malala Yousafzai

Campaigning for girls’ education and winning the Nobel Peace Prize at seventeen.

Activist

Kenneth O'Keefe

Organising the Iraq human-shield campaign and taking part in the Gaza flotilla.

Activist

W. E. B. Du Bois

Writing The Souls of Black Folk and co-founding the NAACP.

Environmentalist

Wangari Maathai

Founding the Green Belt Movement and linking environmental protection with women’s rights.

Activist

Malcolm X

Advocating Black self-determination and challenging racism in America.

Environmental writer

Rachel Carson

Writing Silent Spring and challenging indiscriminate pesticide use.

Activist

Helen Keller

Becoming a deafblind author and an international advocate for disabled people.

Activist

Rosalynn Carter

Making mental health and caregiving central to her public work.

Activist

Jane Addams

Co-founding Hull House and pioneering community-based social reform.

Activist

Simon Dixon

Speaking out against Zionism and supporting Palestinian rights, alongside a career in Bitcoin investing and banking reform.

Comedian

Lee Camp

Hosting Redacted Tonight and using comedy to criticise war, corporate power and Israeli policy.

Comedian

Jimmy Dore

Hosting The Jimmy Dore Show and combining stand-up comedy with political commentary.

Activist

Harriet Tubman

Escaping slavery and returning repeatedly to guide others to freedom.

Educator

Savitribai Phule

Pioneering girls’ education and challenging caste and gender exclusion in India.

Activist

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

Organising women against unfair taxation and for political representation in Nigeria.

Activist

Ida B. Wells

Exposing lynching through investigative journalism and campaigning for civil rights.

Activist

Sojourner Truth

Campaigning against slavery and for women’s rights after escaping enslavement.

Activist

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Building Pakistan’s Edhi network of ambulances, shelters and humanitarian services.

Activist

Kailash Satyarthi

Campaigning against child labour and for children’s right to education.

Activist

Nadia Murad

Campaigning for survivors of wartime sexual violence and the Yazidi community.

Physician

Denis Mukwege

Treating survivors of sexual violence and demanding accountability for its use in war.

Activist

Leymah Gbowee

Uniting Liberian women across religious lines in a movement for peace.

Activist

Rigoberta Menchú

Bringing international attention to Indigenous rights and violence against Guatemala’s Maya communities.

Activist

Desmond Tutu

Opposing apartheid and chairing South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Lawyer

Shirin Ebadi

Defending human rights in Iran and becoming the first Iranian Nobel Peace laureate.

Activist

Tawakkol Karman

Leading nonviolent protests and campaigning for press freedom and women’s rights in Yemen.

Economist

Muhammad Yunus

Developing Grameen Bank’s microcredit model for people excluded from conventional lending.

Activist

Jody Williams

Helping organise the international campaign to ban anti-personnel landmines.

Environmentalist

Chico Mendes

Linking protection of the Amazon rainforest with the livelihoods of rubber tappers.

Political leader

Wilma Mankiller

Becoming the first woman to lead the Cherokee Nation as principal chief.

Activist

Raden Adjeng Kartini

Advocating education and greater freedom for Javanese women.

Activist

Emmeline Pankhurst

Leading the militant campaign for women’s voting rights in Britain.

Activist

Qiu Jin

Linking women’s emancipation with the movement to overthrow the Qing dynasty.

Activist

Huda Sha'arawi

Building an organised movement for Egyptian women’s rights.

Activist

Pandita Ramabai

Creating educational opportunities and refuge for Indian women and widows.

Activist

Doria Shafik

Campaigning for Egyptian women’s political rights through direct action.

Activist

Berta Cáceres

Defending Lenca land and the Gualcarque River against the Agua Zarca dam project.

Activist

Fannie Lou Hamer

Challenging racist barriers to voting and political representation in Mississippi.

Activist

Begum Rokeya

Advocating women’s education and imagining a society governed by women in Sultana’s Dream.

Activist

Bayard Rustin

Organizing the 1963 March on Washington and advancing nonviolent civil-rights action.

Activist

Ella Baker

Building grassroots civil-rights leadership and helping establish SNCC.

Activist

Pauli Murray

Developing legal arguments against racial and sex discrimination that influenced American civil rights.

Activist

Mary McLeod Bethune

Building educational opportunities for Black Americans and founding the National Council of Negro Women.

Activist

Amelia Boynton Robinson

Helping organize Selma’s voting-rights campaign and surviving the violence of Bloody Sunday.

Activist

Dorothy Height

Leading the National Council of Negro Women and connecting civil rights with women’s equality.

Activist

Fred Korematsu

Challenging the wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Activist

Yuri Kochiyama

Building alliances between Asian American activism and Black liberation movements.

Activist

Grace Lee Boggs

Connecting radical political thought with decades of community organizing in Detroit.

Activist

Dolores Huerta

Co-founding the farmworkers’ union movement and organizing major consumer boycotts.

Activist

Cesar Chavez

The farmworkers’ union organiser who helped lead the Delano grape strike and national consumer boycotts.

Activist

Sylvia Rivera

The New York activist who co-founded STAR to support homeless queer and transgender young people.

Activist

Alicia Garza

Co-founding Black Lives Matter and organising for racial justice.

Activist

Harvey Milk

Becoming a pioneering openly gay elected official and campaigning for gay rights.

Activist

Angela Davis

Campaigning for racial justice, feminism and prison abolition.

Activist

James Forman

Organising the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the US civil-rights movement.

Activist

Medgar Evers

Organising civil-rights campaigns in Mississippi before his assassination in 1963.

Activist

Steve Biko

Helping build South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement against apartheid.

Activist

Albertina Sisulu

Sustaining anti-apartheid organising through decades of banning orders, imprisonment and family separation.

Activist

Lilian Ngoyi

Helping lead the 1956 women’s march against apartheid pass laws.

Activist

Helen Joseph

Helping lead the 1956 women's march against South Africa's pass laws.

Activist

Ruth First

Investigative journalism and scholarship against apartheid.

Activist

Ahmed Kathrada

Opposing apartheid and spending more than 26 years in prison.

Activist

Walter Sisulu

Organising resistance to apartheid and helping build the ANC’s leadership.

Political leader

Joe Slovo

Helping negotiate South Africa’s transition from apartheid.

Rapper

Kanye West

Reshaping hip-hop through soul-sampling production, ambitious albums and the melodic experiments of 808s & Heartbreak.

Activist

Eddie Mabo

Helping win the landmark case that recognised native title in Australian law.

Activist

Septima Poinsette Clark

Building citizenship schools that helped Black adults claim voting rights.

Activist

Marsha P. Johnson

Helping build the movement for LGBT rights and shelter for homeless transgender youth.

Educator

Prateep Ungsongtham Hata

Creating educational opportunities for children in Bangkok’s Khlong Toei community.

Activist

Borim Kim

Organising youth climate action in South Korea.

Writer

Michiko Ishimure

Giving literary voice to people affected by Minamata disease.

Agricultural scientist

Romulo Davide

Bringing scientific farming methods to small-scale Filipino farmers.

Agricultural scientist

Sithiporn Kridakara

Promoting practical agricultural improvements in Thailand.

Environmentalist

Jean Wiener

Helping establish Haiti’s Three Bays marine protected area.

Environmentalist

Hammerskjoeld Simwinga

Linking elephant conservation with community livelihoods in Zambia.

Humanitarian

Anshu Gupta

Founding Goonj to connect urban surplus with community development.

Activist

Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto

Co-founding Telapak and investigating environmental destruction in Indonesia.

Humanitarian

Chen Shu-chu

Funding schools and healthcare from her earnings as a vegetable vendor.

Humanitarian

Nuon Phaly

Helping Cambodian genocide survivors and children rebuild their lives.

Environmentalist

Azzam Alwash

Helping restore Iraq’s southern marshes.

Activist

Chibeze Ezekiel

Campaigning against a proposed coal-fired power plant in Ghana.

Writer

Isabelo de los Reyes

Organising Philippine labour and collecting folklore

Environmentalist

Leng Ouch

Exposing illegal logging in Cambodia through undercover investigations.

Environmentalist

Kristal Ambrose

Campaigning for the Bahamas’ ban on single-use plastics.

Environmentalist

Uroš Macerl

Challenging industrial pollution in Slovenia’s Trbovlje region.

Humanitarian

Shoaib Sultan Khan

Community-led rural development in Pakistan.