- Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph.D (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, and a prolific author and lecturer. He is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century. - Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney and political activist, who has promoted a wide range of issues, including consumer rights, feminism, humanitarianism, environmentalism and democratic government. Nader has been a staunch critic of American foreign policy in recent decades, which he views as corporatist, imperialist, and contrary to the fundamental values of democracy and human rights. - Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is a professional civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, and is a prominent leader of the American Christian left. He is the father of Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. - Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American Academy Award-winning actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and small time musician. He is the longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon, with whom he shares strong liberal political views. - Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is Founding Director of Global Exchange. For over twenty years, Medea has supported human rights and social justice struggles around the world. Medea is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice (see www.unitedforpeace.org ). She is also the co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a women's group that has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of Iraq. - John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 - 8 December 1980), was an Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, singer, musician, graphic artist, author and political activist who gained worldwide fame as one of the founders of The Beatles. Lennon and Paul McCartney formed a critically acclaimed and commercially successful partnership writing songs for The Beatles and other artists. Lennon, with his cynical edge and knack for introspection, and McCartney, … - Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian journalist, author and activist. Her grandfather was fired for labor organizing at Disney in the United States. Her father Michael, a physician, was a Vietnam War resister (draft dodger) and became a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her film-maker mother, Bonnie, won fame with her anti-pornography film, "Not a Love Story". Her brother Seth is director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. - George Soros
George Soros (born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz) is an American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist. He peacefully promotes democracy in Eastern Europe. Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. His support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, … - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17 1790) was one of the most critical Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, political theorist, politician, printer, scientist, inventor, civic activist, environmentalist, and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation, … - Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26 1941, in Butte, Montana) is a prominent American writer, columnist, feminist, socialist and political activist. - Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks ( February 4 1913 a October 24 2005 ) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement ". ... Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee , Alabama on February 4 , 1913 , to James McCauley and Leona Edwards , respectively a carpenter and a teacher, and was of African-American , Cherokee - Creek , [1] and Scots-Irish [2] ancestry. - Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American essayist, novelist, intellectual, filmmaker, and activist. - Bob Marley
Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He is the most widely known performer of reggae music. A faithful Rastafari, Marley is regarded by many as a prophet of the religion. Marley is best known for his reggae songs, which include the hits "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Three Little Birds", "Exodus", "Could You Be Loved", "Jammin", "Redemption Song", and "One Love". - James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3 1933 – December 25 2006), commonly referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business," was an American entertainer recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music. He was renowned for his shouting vocals, feverish dancing and unique rhythmic style. As a prolific singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, … - Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook April 24, 1954) is an African-American journalist, political activist, and former militant leader from Philadelphia. An early member of the Black Panther Party, Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner. Originally sentenced to death, Abu-Jamal's sentence, but not his conviction, was overturned in December 2001 by Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. - George Monbiot
George Monbiot (born January 27, 1963) is a journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist in the United Kingdom who writes a weekly column for "The Guardian" newspaper. He is on the advisory board of "BBC Wildlife" magazine. - Michael Stipe
John Michael Stipe (born January 4, 1960 in Decatur, Georgia) is the lead singer of the American rock band R.E.M. Stipe has become well-known (and occasionally parodied) for the "mumbling" style of his early career and for his complex, surreal lyrics, as well as his social and political activism. - Gloria Steinem
Steinem's lifelong career as a writer and journalist began after college. A co-founder of New York magazine in 1968, Steinem was always active in a wide array of political and social causes. She became a major feminist leader in the late 1960s and in 1971 co-founded MS Magazine, where she serves as contributing editor today. - Jim Hightower
James Allen "Jim" Hightower (born January 11, 1943) is a populist activist and a former Texas Agriculture Commissioner. - Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, (18 May 1872 - 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, and pacifist. A prolific writer, he was also a populariser of philosophy and a commentator on a large variety of topics, ranging from very serious issues to those much less so. Continuing a family tradition in political affairs, he was a prominent anti-war activist, … - Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder (born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, name later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris), is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Wonder has recorded more than thirty Top 10 hits, won twenty-two Grammy Awards (a record for a solo artist), plus one for lifetime achievement, won an Academy Award for Best Song and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame. - Angela Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Davis's main association however, was her membership in the Communist Party USA. She first achieved nationwide notoriety when she was linked to the murder of judge Harold Haley during an attempted Black Panther prison break; she fled underground, … - Danny O'Brien
Danny O'Brien is the International Outreach Coordinator for the EFF. He works to help us collaborate with organizations and individuals fighting for liberties across the world. Danny has documented and fought for digital rights in the UK for over a decade, where he also assisted in building tools of open democracy like Fax Your MP . - Starhawk
Starhawk (born Miriam Simos in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 17, 1951) is an American writer, activist, anarchist and witch. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. Starhawk lives in San Francisco, where she works with Reclaiming, a tradition of Witchcraft that she co-founded in the late 1970s. She is internationally known as a trainer in nonviolence and direct action, … - Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva (b. November 5, 1952, Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India), is a physicist, ecofeminist, environmental activist and author. Shiva, currently based in New Delhi, is author of over 300 papers in leading scientific and technical journals.<br /> Shiva participated in the nonviolent Chipko movement during the 1970s. The movement, whose main participants were women, adopted the tactic of hugging trees to prevent their felling. - Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King was the wife of the assassinated civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., and a noted community leader. Coretta King is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal. - Abbie Hoffman
Abbott Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 - April 12, 1989) was a self-identified communo-anarchist, social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine. - Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American abolitionist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, which became known as "Ain't I a Woman?", was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Before she became a well known abolitionist she was a follower of "The Kingdom of Matthias," an evangelical cult of the Second Great Awakening of America. - Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American feminist, activist and writer, best known for starting what is commonly known as the "Second Wave" of feminism through the writing of her book "The Feminine Mystique". - Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 - April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she linked with rape and other forms of violence against women. An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin became a radical feminist after escaping an abusive marriage in the Netherlands, and went on to publish ten books on radical feminist theory and practice. - Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk (born July 11, 1949) is a British-born animal rights activist, author, and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world's largest animal rights organization. She co-founded PETA in 1980 with American activist Alex Pacheco, and is the author of several books about animal liberation, including "Free the Animals", "You Can Save the Animals", and "Making Kind Choices", which has a foreword by Sir Paul McCartney. - Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese: "Nhất Hạnh"; IPA: is an expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. A teacher, author, and peace activist, Nhat Hanh was born in central Vietnam on October 11, 1926. He joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, studied Buddhism as a novice, and was fully ordained as a monk in 1949. Commonly referred to as Thich Nhat Hanh, the title "Thích" is used by all Vietnamese monks and nuns, … - Margaret Atwood
Many commend Margaret Atwood for her ability of depicting individual and worldly troubles of universal concern (Study Guide). Over thirty years, Atwood has written more than twenty volumes of verse, novels, and nonfiction. Although she is noted for all of these volumes, she is better known for her novels. In these work of fiction, themes such as feminism, mythology and power of language pervade. - David Harris
David Harris (born 1946 in Fresno, California) is an American journalist and author. He is known chiefly for his role as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War, most notably as a leading opponent of the Draft. - Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the penname and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and communist politician Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto. Having his works translated into dozens of languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. Neruda was accomplished in a wide variety of styles, ranging from erotically charged love poems (such as "White Hills"), surrealist poems, historical epics, … - Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman is the founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. Builder AU recently caught up with RMS about his achievements, the Free Software movement and his concerns with the US-Australian Free Trade Agreement. He will be in Australia on October 5 to speak at the Builder Conference in Sydney. - Laurie David
Laurie Lennard David (born 22 March 1958) is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of the Advisory Board of The Children's Nature Institute. She is a contributing blogger to the The Huffington Post, and a political activist. She was also married to Larry David (co-creator of "Seinfeld" and creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), for fourteen years. - Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi's "Freedom Summer" for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. - Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee (born October 27, 1924) is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist. - Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada's largest citizen's advocacy organization as well as the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which works to stop commodification of the world's water. She is also a Director with the International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco based research and education institution opposed to economic globalization.
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