PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: human rights
Indian social activist, lawyer, and politician
Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the Indian Independence Movement against British rule. As such, he came to be considered “the father...
American abolitionist, orator, publisher, and author
Frederick Douglass was an African American abolitionist, orator, newspaper publisher, and author who is famous for his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,...
Ugandan politician, performer, and activist
Bobi Wine is a Ugandan politician, performer, and activist who first garnered acclaim for his popular hits and socially conscious songs he called “edutainment”—the fusion of education and entertainment....
Guatemalan activist
Rigoberta Menchú is a Guatemalan Indigenous-rights activist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1992 for her efforts to promote social justice and reconciliation in Guatemala. A member of the...
Myanmar politician and opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi is a politician and opposition leader of Myanmar, daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat), and winner of the Nobel...
Iranian journalist and human rights activist
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian journalist and human rights activist who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2023. The award came after an especially tumultuous year of unrest in Iran following the death...
Soviet physicist and dissident
Andrey Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear theoretical physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights, civil liberties, and reform in the Soviet Union as well as rapprochement with noncommunist nations. In...
Indian lawyer and social activist
Baba Amte was an Indian lawyer and social activist chiefly known for his rehabilitative initiatives for underprivileged leprosy patients and his involvement in the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA; “Save Narmada...
president of Botswana
Duma Boko human rights lawyer and politician who became president of Botswana in 2024. His stunning victory ended nearly 60 years of rule by the Botswana Democratic Party, which had governed the landlocked...
Indian politician
Mamata Banerjee is an Indian politician, legislator, and bureaucrat who served as the first female chief minister of West Bengal state, India (2011–26). She founded the Trinamool Congress political party,...
Waorani leader, activist, and author
Nemonte Nenquimo is an Indigenous activist, author, and leader of the Waorani people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. She is internationally recognized for her advocacy of Indigenous rights and environmental...
victims’ rights advocate, Jeffrey Epstein accuser
Virginia Giuffre was an advocate for victims of sex trafficking and one of the principal accusers of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre said she worked as part of Epstein’s operation and was forced to sleep with...
American lawyer
Ramsey Clark was a human rights lawyer and former U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Clark—the son of Tom C. Clark, who served as attorney general under President Harry Truman and...
American disability rights activist
Judith Heumann was an American disability rights activist who fought for the integration and equality of individuals affected by disability in the United States and internationally. Because of her pioneering...
Guatemalan bishop
Juan José Gerardi Conedera was a Guatemalan Roman Catholic bishop and human rights activist. Gerardi was known for his longstanding commitment to humanitarian work, particularly among marginalized and...
president of Ireland
Michael D. Higgins is an Irish politician, human rights activist, university lecturer, and poet who served as president of Ireland from 2011 to 2025. At age five Higgins was separated from his parents,...
Mi’kmaq Indian activist
Anna Mae Aquash was a Canadian-born Mi’kmaq Indian activist noted for her mysterious death by homicide shortly after her participation in a protest at Wounded Knee. Aquash was raised in poverty and, as...
American human rights activist
Ethel Kennedy was a lifelong advocate for social justice and human rights, who is perhaps best known for the tragedy that helped define her life, including the assassination of her husband, Robert F. Kennedy,...
Uyghur entrepreneur
Rebiya Kadeer is a Uyghur entrepreneur and human rights activist. A longtime advocate of greater autonomy for China’s Uyghurs (a Turkic Muslim population that accounts for a slim majority of the population...
Indian social reformer
Kailash Satyarthi is an Indian social reformer who campaigned against child labor in India and elsewhere and advocated the universal right to education. In 2014 he was the corecipient of the Nobel Peace...
Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop
St. Óscar Romero ; beatified May 23, 2015; canonized October 14, 2018; feast day March 24) was a Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop who was a vocal critic of the violent activities of government armed...
American lawyer, professor, and activist
Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, professor, author, and activist who works to bring legal representation to poor, juvenile, mentally ill, and minority prisoners in the South. He founded the Equal...
Somalian physician, lawyer, and activist
Hawa Abdi was a Somali physician, lawyer, community leader, and human rights activist. Amid the dangerous landscape of the Somali Civil War, Abdi organized a safe shelter, school, and clinical camp for...
Somali-born Dutch American activist, writer, and politician
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch American activist, writer, and politician best known for her contention that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western democratic values, especially those...
South African activist, educator, and author
Fatima Meer was a South African antiapartheid and human rights activist, educator, and author. From the mid-20th century, she was one of the most prominent women political leaders in South Africa. Meer...
Argentine lawyer
Emilio Fermin Mignone was an Argentine lawyer and founder of the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, which documented human rights abuses committed by the Argentine military during its 1976–83 dictatorship....
Chinese-American activist
Harry Hongda Wu was a Chinese-born American activist who is best known for his efforts to expose human rights violations in China. Wu Hongda was born to a homemaker and a banker. At age 13 he began attending...
Canadian First Nations leader
Ovide Mercredi is a First Nations leader who served as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Canada from 1991 to 1997. Mercredi, who is of Cree descent, lived outside the Grand Rapids reserve...
Indian activist
Medha Patkar is an Indian social and environmental activist known chiefly for her work with people displaced by the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP), a large-scale plan to build a series of dams...
president of Ireland
Mary Robinson is an Irish lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the first woman president of Ireland (1990–97). She later was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR; 1997–2002)....
president of Czech Republic
Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). Havel was the son of...
Iraqi human rights activist
Nadia Murad is a Yazīdī human rights activist who was kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also called ISIS) in August 2014 and sold into sex slavery. She escaped three months later,...
Iranian lawyer, author and teacher
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, writer, and teacher, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran....
Tibetan scholar and political leader
Lobsang Sangay is a Tibetan scholar and political leader who became prime minister in the Tibetan Central Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, in 2011. He was both the first non-monk and the...
American educator and writer
Anna Julia Cooper was an American educator and writer whose book A Voice From the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892) became a classic African American feminist text. Cooper was the daughter of...
president of East Timor
José Ramos-Horta is an East Timorese political activist who, along with Bishop Carlos F.X. Belo, received the 1996 Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts to bring peace and independence to East Timor,...
Congolese physician
Denis Mukwege is a Congolese physician noted for his work in treating victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In 2018 he was a corecipient, with Yazīdī activist Nadia...
Spanish-born El Salvadoran priest and theologian
Ignacio Ellacuría was a Spanish-born El Salvadoran Jesuit priest, academic, philosopher, theologian, and human rights activist who was a major contributor to the development of liberation theology in Latin...
Chinese critic, professor, and activist
Liu Xiaobo was a Chinese literary critic, professor, and human rights activist who called for democratic reforms and the end of one-party rule in China. In 2010 he became the first Chinese citizen to be...
Belarusian activist
Ales Bialiatski is a Belarusian human rights activist who, with the Center for Civil Liberties and Memorial, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2022. Bialiatski had an unlikely journey to the Nobel Peace...
Mexican human rights activist and environmentalist
Edwin Bustillos García was a human rights activist and environmentalist who spent most of his life working to reduce logging and the cultivating of illicit drug crops in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental...
American antislavery activist
Samuel Cotton was an American antislavery activist and spokesman for the eradication of contemporary slavery in Mauritania and Sudan. Raised in the impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn,...
American activist
Ella Baker was an American community organizer and political activist who brought her skills and principles to bear in the founding of major civil rights organizations of the mid-20th century. She is widely...
American religious leader and activist
Troy Perry is an American religious leader, gay rights and human rights activist, and founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), better known as Metropolitan Community...
Irish statesman
Seán MacBride was an Irish statesman who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1974 for his efforts on behalf of human rights. MacBride was the son of the Irish actress and patriot Maud Gonne and her...
American disability rights activist
Ed Roberts was an American disability rights activist who is considered the founder of the independent-living movement Roberts contracted polio at age 14 and was paralyzed from the neck down. Requiring...
American poet
Carolyn Forché is an American poet whose concern for human rights is reflected in her writing, especially in the collection The Country Between Us (1981), which examines events she witnessed in El Salvador....
French jurist
René Cassin was a French jurist and president of the European Court of Human Rights. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1968 for his involvement in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights....
Australian activist and scholar
Mick Dodson is an Australian Aboriginal political activist and scholar who was named the 2009 Australian of the Year in recognition of his work to help better the lives of the country’s Indigenous peoples...
American philanthropist
Eunice Kennedy Shriver was an American social activist who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the intellectually disabled and, in an effort to provide a forum for them to compete athletically, founded...
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