Civil rights
People working for civil rights.
People in Civil rights
50 profiles
ActivistRosa Parks
Defying bus segregation and helping spark the Montgomery boycott.
ActivistMartin Luther King Jr.
Leading nonviolent campaigns for US civil rights.
ActivistMahatma Gandhi
Using mass nonviolent resistance in India’s independence struggle.
ActivistW. E. B. Du Bois
Writing The Souls of Black Folk and co-founding the NAACP.
ActivistMalcolm X
Advocating Black self-determination and challenging racism in America.
ActivistHelen Keller
Becoming a deafblind author and an international advocate for disabled people.
ActivistJane Addams
Co-founding Hull House and pioneering community-based social reform.
ActivistHarriet Tubman
Escaping slavery and returning repeatedly to guide others to freedom.
EducatorSavitribai Phule
Pioneering girls’ education and challenging caste and gender exclusion in India.
ActivistFunmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Organising women against unfair taxation and for political representation in Nigeria.
ActivistIda B. Wells
Exposing lynching through investigative journalism and campaigning for civil rights.
ActivistSojourner Truth
Campaigning against slavery and for women’s rights after escaping enslavement.
Political leaderWilma Mankiller
Becoming the first woman to lead the Cherokee Nation as principal chief.
ActivistRaden Adjeng Kartini
Advocating education and greater freedom for Javanese women.
ActivistEmmeline Pankhurst
Leading the militant campaign for women’s voting rights in Britain.
ActivistQiu Jin
Linking women’s emancipation with the movement to overthrow the Qing dynasty.
ActivistHuda Sha'arawi
Building an organised movement for Egyptian women’s rights.
ActivistPandita Ramabai
Creating educational opportunities and refuge for Indian women and widows.
ActivistDoria Shafik
Campaigning for Egyptian women’s political rights through direct action.
ActivistFannie Lou Hamer
Challenging racist barriers to voting and political representation in Mississippi.
ActivistBegum Rokeya
Advocating women’s education and imagining a society governed by women in Sultana’s Dream.
ActivistBayard Rustin
Organizing the 1963 March on Washington and advancing nonviolent civil-rights action.
ActivistElla Baker
Building grassroots civil-rights leadership and helping establish SNCC.
ActivistPauli Murray
Developing legal arguments against racial and sex discrimination that influenced American civil rights.
ActivistMary McLeod Bethune
Building educational opportunities for Black Americans and founding the National Council of Negro Women.
ActivistAmelia Boynton Robinson
Helping organize Selma’s voting-rights campaign and surviving the violence of Bloody Sunday.
ActivistDorothy Height
Leading the National Council of Negro Women and connecting civil rights with women’s equality.
ActivistFred Korematsu
Challenging the wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
ActivistYuri Kochiyama
Building alliances between Asian American activism and Black liberation movements.
ActivistGrace Lee Boggs
Connecting radical political thought with decades of community organizing in Detroit.
ActivistDolores Huerta
Co-founding the farmworkers’ union movement and organizing major consumer boycotts.
ActivistCesar Chavez
The farmworkers’ union organiser who helped lead the Delano grape strike and national consumer boycotts.
ActivistSylvia Rivera
The New York activist who co-founded STAR to support homeless queer and transgender young people.
ActivistAlicia Garza
Co-founding Black Lives Matter and organising for racial justice.
ActivistHarvey Milk
Becoming a pioneering openly gay elected official and campaigning for gay rights.
ActivistAngela Davis
Campaigning for racial justice, feminism and prison abolition.
ActivistJames Forman
Organising the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the US civil-rights movement.
ActivistMedgar Evers
Organising civil-rights campaigns in Mississippi before his assassination in 1963.
ActivistSteve Biko
Helping build South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement against apartheid.
ActivistAlbertina Sisulu
Sustaining anti-apartheid organising through decades of banning orders, imprisonment and family separation.
ActivistLilian Ngoyi
Helping lead the 1956 women’s march against apartheid pass laws.
ActivistHelen Joseph
Helping lead the 1956 women's march against South Africa's pass laws.
ActivistRuth First
Investigative journalism and scholarship against apartheid.
ActivistAhmed Kathrada
Opposing apartheid and spending more than 26 years in prison.
ActivistWalter Sisulu
Organising resistance to apartheid and helping build the ANC’s leadership.
Political leaderJoe Slovo
Helping negotiate South Africa’s transition from apartheid.
ActivistEddie Mabo
Helping win the landmark case that recognised native title in Australian law.
ActivistSeptima Poinsette Clark
Building citizenship schools that helped Black adults claim voting rights.
ActivistMarsha P. Johnson
Helping build the movement for LGBT rights and shelter for homeless transgender youth.
WriterIsabelo de los Reyes
Organising Philippine labour and collecting folklore