List of civil rights leaders
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.
List
People who motivated themselves and then led others to gain and protect these rights and liberties include:| Name | Born | Died | Country | Notes |
| George Mason | 1725 | 1792 | wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and influenced United States Bill of Rights | |
| Thomas Paine | 1737 | 1809 | English-American activist, author, theorist, wrote Rights of Man | |
| Elizabeth Freeman | 1744 | 1829 | also known as Mum Bett – first former slave to win a freedom suit in Massachusetts | |
| Jeremy Bentham | 1748 | 1832 | British philosopher, writer, and teacher on civil rights, inspiration | |
| Olympe de Gouges | 1748 | 1793 | women's rights pioneer, writer, beheaded during French Revolution | |
| James Madison | 1751 | 1836 | American founding father, introduced and lobbied for the United States Bill of Rights | |
| William Wilberforce | 1759 | 1833 | leader of the British abolition movement | |
| Mary Wollstonecraft | 1759 | 1797 | British author of A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman | |
| Thaddeus Stevens | 1792 | 1868 | representative from Pennsylvania, anti-slavery leader, originator of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution | |
| Lucretia Mott | 1793 | 1880 | women's rights activist, abolitionist | |
| John Neal | 1793 | 1876 | feminist essayist and lecturer active 1823-1876; first American women's rights lecturer | |
| William Lloyd Garrison | 1805 | 1879 | abolitionist, writer, organizer, feminist, initiator | |
| Lysander Spooner | 1808 | 1887 | abolitionist, writer, anarchist, proponent of Jury nullification | |
| Charles Sumner | 1811 | 1874 | Senator from Massachusetts, anti-slavery leader | |
| Abby Kelley | 1811 | 1887 | abolitionist and suffragette | |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton | 1815 | 1902 | women's suffrage/women's rights leader | |
| Lucy Stone | 1818 | 1893 | women's suffrage/voting rights leader | |
| Frederick Douglass | 1818 | 1895 | abolitionist, women's rights and suffrage advocate, writer, organizer, black rights activist, inspiration | |
| Julia Ward Howe | 1818 | 1910 | writer, organizer, suffragette | |
| Susan B. Anthony | 1820 | 1906 | Women's suffrage leader, speaker, inspiration | |
| Harriet Tubman | 1822 | 1913 | African-American abolitionist and humanitarian | |
| Karl Heinrich Ulrichs | 1825 | 1895 | writer, organizer, and the pioneer of the modern LGBT rights movement | |
| Antoinette Brown Blackwell | 1825 | 1921 | founded American Woman Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone in 1869 | |
| Victoria Woodhull | 1838 | 1927 | suffragette organizer, women's rights leader | |
| Frances Willard | 1839 | 1898 | women's rights activist, woman suffrage leader | |
| Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin | 1842 | 1924 | suffragist, editor, co-founder of the first chapter of the NAACP | |
| Kate Sheppard | 1848 | 1934 | suffragist in first country to have universal suffrage | |
| Eugene Debs | 1855 | 1926 | organizer, campaigner for the poor, women, dissenters, prisoners | |
| Booker T. Washington | 1856 | 1915 | educator, founder of Tuskegee University, and adviser to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft | |
| Emmeline Pankhurst | 1858 | 1928 | founder and leader of the British Suffragette Movement | |
| Charles Grafton | 1869 | 1948 | Reverend Charles Grafton Archdioceses of Wisconsin Fond Du Lac, Responsible for Rescue helping the Slaves Under Ground Railroad Initiator Wisconsin Boston, New York and Southern States civil rights, known abolitionist. Brought the Convent of the Holy Nativity Nuns to Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin activist, movement leader, writer, philosopher, and teacher Responsible for helping to establish townships all over Wisconsin, and other parts of the United States | |
| Carrie Chapman Catt | 1859 | 1947 | suffrage leader, president National American Woman Suffrage Association, founder League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women | |
| Jane Addams | 1860 | 1935 | reformer, co-founder of the Hull House and American Civil Liberties Union, 1931 Nobel Peace Prize laureate | |
| Ida B. Wells | 1862 | 1931 | journalist, early activist in 20th-Century civil rights movement, women's suffrage/voting rights activist | |
| W.E.B. Du Bois | 1868 | 1963 | writer, scholar, founder of NAACP | |
| 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 | activist, movement leader, writer, philosopher, and teacher | |
| Vallabhbhai Patel | 1875 | 1950 | activist, movement leader | |
| Muhammad Ali Jinnah | 1876 | 1948 | lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan; lead Pakistan Movement for the rights of Muslims in the subcontinent | |
| Lucy Burns | 1879 | 1966 | women's suffrage/voting rights leader | |
| Getúlio Vargas | 1882 | 1954 | civil leader, President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945 | |
| Eleanor Roosevelt | 1884 | 1962 | women's rights and human rights activist both in the United States and in the United Nations | |
| Alice Paul | 1885 | 1977 | Women's Voting Rights Movement leader, strategist, and organizer | |
| Sonia Schlesin | 1888 | 1956 | worked with Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and led his movements there when he was absent | |
| Toyohiko Kagawa | 1888 | 1960 | labor activist, Christian reformer, author | |
| Bernard J. Quinn | 1888 | 1940 | Roman Catholic priest | |
| Jawaharlal Nehru | 1889 | 1964 | first Prime Minister of India, central figure in Indian politics before and after independence, advocate for freedom of the press | |
| A. Philip Randolph | 1889 | 1979 | labor and civil rights movement leader | |
| B. R. Ambedkar | 1891 | 1956 | social reformer, civil rights activist and scholar and who drafted Constitution of India, campaigned for Indian independence, fought for the women's rights, fought discrimination and inequality among the people | |
| Jaybird Graham | 1861 | 1965 | Indian-Black Civil Rights activist responsible for the segregation of Reno Nevada, lawsuit. Jaybird Graham from Marietta Texas, Purple heart recipient family member of Tuskegee Airman Buddy, Married Mary E. Graham in Reno Nevada won a jackpot in the Casino on his honeymoon and Mr and Mrs Graham sued the Casino. and won, | |
| Mary Elizabeth Graham | 1861 | 1965 | Indian-Black Civil Rights activist responsible for the segregation of Reno Nevada, lawsuit. Mary E. Graham from Aniston Alabama Radio host KJAY Sacramento California. Related to the first Black Highway Patrolman Howard Forbes. Married Jaybird Graham in Reno Nevada won a jackpot in the Casino on his honeymoon and Mr and Mrs Graham sued the Casino on Segregation. and won, Mrs. Graham Founder of Teenagers Workshop, First Black Female bank robber in California. | |
| Walter Francis White | 1895 | 1955 | NAACP executive secretary | |
| Maria L. de Hernández | 1896 | 1986 | Mexican-American rights activist | |
| Thich Quang Duc | 1897 | 1963 | monk, freedom of religion self-martyr | |
| Albert Lutuli | 1898 | 1967 | President of the African National Congress, against apartheid in South Africa, 1960 Nobel Peace Prize laureate | |
| Edgar Nixon | 1899 | 1987 | Montgomery Bus Boycott organizer, civil rights activist | |
| Roy Wilkins | 1901 | 1981 | NAACP executive secretary/executive director | |
| Harriette Moore | 1902 | 1951 | Civil rights activist, and part of the only married couple to be assassinated during the Civil Rights Movement | |
| Ella Baker | 1903 | 1986 | SCLC activist, initiated the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee | |
| Marvel Cooke | 1903 | 2000 | civil rights leader | |
| Myles Horton | 1905 | 1990 | teacher of nonviolence, pioneer activist, founded and led the Highlander Folk School | |
| John Peters Humphrey | 1905 | 1995 | author of Universal Declaration of Human Rights | |
| Nellie Stone Johnson | 1905 | 2002 | labor and civil rights activist | |
| Harry T. Moore | 1905 | 1951 | Civil rights activist, leader, and the first martyr of the Civil Rights Movement | |
| Willa Brown | 1906 | 1992 | civil rights activist, first African-American lieutenant in the US Civil Air Patrol, first African-American woman to run for Congress | |
| Walter P. Reuther | 1907 | 1970 | labor leader and civil rights activist | |
| T.R.M. Howard | 1908 | 1976 | founder of Mississippi's Regional Council of Negro Leadership | |
| Winifred C. Stanley | 1909 | 1996 | First member of Congress to introduce legislation prohibiting discrimination in pay on the basis of sex | |
| Elizabeth Peratrovich | 1911 | 1958 | Alaskan activist for native people | |
| Amelia Boynton Robinson | 1911 | 2015 | Selma Voting Rights Movement activist and early leader | |
| Dorothy Height | 1912 | 2010 | activist and advocate for African-American women | |
| Bayard Rustin | 1912 | 1987 | civil rights activist | |
| Jo Ann Robinson | 1912 | 1992 | Montgomery Bus Boycott activist | |
| Harry Hay | 1912 | 2002 | early leader in American LGBT rights movement, founder Mattachine Society | |
| Rosa Parks | 1913 | 2005 | NAACP official, activist, Montgomery Bus Boycott inspiration | |
| Daisy Bates | 1914 | 1999 | organizer of the Little Rock Nine school desegregation events | |
| George Raymond | 1914 | 1999 | civil rights activist, head of the Chester, Pennsylvania branch of the NCAA | |
| Claude Black | 1916 | 2009 | civil rights activist | |
| Frankie Muse Freeman | 1916 | 2018 | civil rights attorney, first woman appointee to United States Commission on Civil Rights | |
| Fannie Lou Hamer | 1917 | 1977 | leader in the American Civil Rights Movement; co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus and Freedom Democratic Party | |
| Marie Foster | 1917 | 2003 | voting rights activist, a local leader in the Selma Voting Rights Movement | |
| Humberto "Bert" Corona | 1918 | 2001 | labor and civil rights leader | |
| Gordon Hirabayashi | 1918 | 2012 | Japanese-American civil rights hero | |
| Nelson Mandela | 1918 | 2013 | statesman, leading figure in Anti-Apartheid Movement | |
| Fred Korematsu | 1919 | 2005 | Japanese internment resister during World War II | |
| James Farmer | 1920 | 1999 | Congress of Racial Equality leader and activist | |
| Golden Frinks | 1920 | 2004 | civil rights organizer in North Carolina, field secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference | |
| Betty Friedan | 1921 | 2006 | writer, women's rights activist, feminist | |
| Joseph Lowery | 1921 | 2020 | SCLC leader and co-founder, activist | |
| Del Martin | 1921 | 2008 | co-founder of Daughters of Bilitis, first social and political organization for lesbians in the US | |
| Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley | 1921 | 2003 | held an open casket funeral for her son, Emmett Till; speaker, activist | |
| Whitney M. Young, Jr. | 1921 | 1971 | Executive director of National Urban League, adviser to U.S. presidents | |
| Charles Evers | 1922 | 2020 | civil rights activist | |
| Fred Shuttlesworth | 1922 | 2011 | clergyman, activist, SCLC co-founder, initiated the Birmingham Movement | |
| Clara Luper | 1923 | 2011 | sit-in movement leader in Oklahoma, activist | |
| James Baldwin | 1924 | 1987 | essayist, novelist, public speaker, SNCC activist | |
| Phyllis Lyon | 1924 | 2020 | co-founder of Daughters of Bilitis, first social and political organization for lesbians in the U.S. | |
| C.T. Vivian | 1924 | 2020 | student civil rights leader, SNCC and SCLC activist | |
| Lenny Bruce | 1925 | 1966 | free speech advocate, comedian, political satirist | |
| Medgar Evers | 1925 | 1963 | NAACP official in the Mississippi Movement | |
| Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga | 1925 | 2018 | activist in Japanese-American redress movement | |
| Frank Kameny | 1925 | 2011 | gay rights activist | |
| Malcolm X | 1925 | 1965 | author, speaker, activist, inspiration | |
| Ralph Abernathy | 1926 | 1990 | activist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference official | |
| Jackie Forster | 1926 | 1998 | English lesbian rights activist | |
| Hosea Williams | 1926 | 2000 | civil rights activist, SCLC organizer and strategist | |
| Cesar Chavez | 1927 | 1993 | Chicano activist, organizer, trade unionist | |
| Coretta Scott King | 1927 | 2006 | SCLC leader, activist | |
| James Forman | 1928 | 2005 | SNCC official and civil rights activist | |
| James Lawson | 1928 | American minister and activist, SCLC's teacher of nonviolence in civil rights movement | ||
| Elie Wiesel | 1928 | 2016 | writer, Holocaust survivor, Jewish rights leader | |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. | 1929 | 1968 | SCLC co-founder/president/chairman, activist, author, speaker | |
| Edison Uno | 1929 | 1976 | leader for Japanese-American civil rights and redress after World War II | |
| Wyatt Tee Walker | 1928 | 2018 | activist and organizer with NAACP, CORE, and SCLC | |
| Dorothy Cotton | 1930 | 2018 | SCLC official, activist, organizer, and leader | |
| Dolores Huerta | 1930 | labor and civil rights activist, initiator, organizer | ||
| Harvey Milk | 1930 | 1978 | politician, gay rights activist and leader for the LGBT community | |
| Charles Morgan, Jr. | 1930 | 2009 | attorney, established principle of "one man, one vote" | |
| Desmond Tutu | 1931 | anti-apartheid organizer, advocate, first black archbishop of Cape Town | ||
| Barbara Gittings | 1932 | 2007 | lesbian rights activist | |
| Dick Gregory | 1932 | 2017 | free speech advocate, civil rights activist, comedian | |
| Lola Hendricks | 1932 | 2013 | activist, local leader in Birmingham Movement | |
| Miriam Makeba | 1932 | 2008 | singer, anti-apartheid activist | |
| Andrew Young | 1932 | civil rights activist, SCLC executive director | ||
| Stanley Branche | 1933 | 1992 | civil rights activitst, founder of the Committee For Freedom Now | |
| James Meredith | 1933 | independent student leader and self–starting Mississippi activist | ||
| Violeta Zúñiga | 1933 | 2019 | human rights activist | |
| Roy Innis | 1934 | 2017 | activist, longtime leader of CORE | |
| Jane Goodall | 1934 | scientist, activist, ecologist | ||
| Gloria Steinem | 1934 | writer, activist, feminist | ||
| Bob Moses | 1935 | leader, activist, and organizer in '60s Mississippi Movement | ||
| James Bevel | 1936 | 2008 | organizer and Direct Action leader, SCLC's main strategist, movement initiator, and movement director | |
| Barbara Jordan | 1936 | 1996 | legislator, educator, civil rights advocate | |
| Charles Sherrod | 1937 | civil rights activist, SNCC leader | ||
| Fela Kuti | 1938 | 1997 | multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre, human rights activist, and political maverick | |
| Diane Nash | 1938 | SNCC and SCLC activist and official, strategist, organizer | ||
| Claudette Colvin | 1939 | Montgomery Bus Boycott pioneer, independent activist | ||
| Jack Herer | 1939 | 2010 | pro-hemp activist, speaker, organizer, author | |
| Julian Bond | 1940 | 2015 | activist, politician, scholar, NAACP chairman | |
| Prathia Hall | 1940 | 2002 | SNCC activist, a leading speaker in the civil rights movement | |
| Bernard Lafayette | 1940 | SCLC and SNCC activist, organizer, and leader | ||
| John Lewis | 1940 | 2020 | Nashville Student Movement and SNCC activist, organizer, speaker, congressman | |
| Stokely Carmichael | 1941 | 1998 | SNCC and Black Panther activist, organizer, speaker | |
| Jesse Jackson | 1941 | civil rights activist, politician | ||
| James Orange | 1942 | 2008 | SCLC activist and organizer, a voting rights movement leader, trade unionist | |
| Gerd Fleischer | 1942 | human rights activist | ||
| Marsha P. Johnson | 1945 | 1992 | Gay liberation activist, STAR co-founder, AIDS activist with ACT UP | |
| Heather Booth | 1945 | SNCC activist, women's movement organizer, and founder of the Midwest Academy | ||
| Angelina Atyam | 1946 | human rights activist for the Aboke abductions | ||
| Dana Beal | 1947 | pro-hemp activist, organizer, speaker, initiator | ||
| Ashok Row Kavi | 1947 | LGBT rights activist, gay rights pioneer, founder of Humsafar Trust | ||
| Benjamin Chavis | 1948 | activist, chemist, minister, author, leader of Wilmington Ten, led Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, campaigner against Environmental Racism, executive director of NAACP, national director of Million Man March | ||
| Fred Hampton | 1948 | 1969 | NAACP youth leader and Black Panther activist, organizer, speaker | |
| Judy Shepard | 1952 | gay rights activist, public speaker | ||
| Barbara May Cameron | 1954 | 2002 | advocate for the rights of Native Americans, lesbians, and women | |
| Bobby Sands | 1954 | 1981 | hunger striker for better conditions for Irish prisoners in British prisons. | |
| Al Sharpton | 1954 | clergyman, activist, media | ||
| Will Roscoe | 1955 | gay rights activist | ||
| Rigoberta Menchú | 1959 | Indigenous rights leader, co-founder Nobel Women's Initiative | ||
| Eulalie Nibizi | 1960 | Human rights activist, trade unionist | ||
| Steven Goldstein | 1962 | gay rights advocate, political activist | ||
| Chee Soon Juan | 1962 | politician, former political prisoner, democracy and human rights activist | ||
| Manasi Pradhan | 1962 | women's rights activist, founder of Honour for Women National Campaign | ||
| Deborah Parker | 1970 | Indigenous rights and women's rights activist who was critical in ensuring the passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 | ||
| Harish Iyer | 1979 | gender and sexuality rights activist, campaigner against child sexual abuse and for animal rights | ||
| Edvin Kanka Ćudić | 1988 | Human rights activist, founder and coordinator of UDIK in Bosnia and Herzegovina | ||
| Malala Yousafzai | 1997 | advocate for education for girls, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate |