Famous Activists a to z

Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher whose work in applied ethics has led to controversial views on abortion, animal liberation and infanticide.

After her impressive 2006 debut, professional dancer Karina Smirnoff went on to star in six more seasons of Dancing with the Stars.

Trey Songz is a Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter known for hits like "Can't Help but Wait."

Susan Sontag was a critical essayist, cultural analyst, novelist and filmmaker. She wrote On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, The Volcano Lover and In America.

Mira Sorvino is an Academy Award-winning actress who starred in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite.

Edwin Stanton served as secretary of war under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. He later served under President Andrew Johnson.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an early leader of the woman's rights movement, writing the Declaration of Sentiments as a call to arms for female equality.

Social activist, writer, editor, and lecturer Gloria Steinem has been an outspoken champion of women's rights since the late 1960s.

Jerry Stiller is an actor and comedian known for his roles on Seinfeld and The King of Queens. He is the father of actors, Amy Stiller and Ben Stiller.

Lucy Stone was a leading activist and pioneer of the abolition and women's rights movements.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author and social activist best known for her popular anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Percy Sutton was a Freedom Rider, civil rights activist and prominent African-American lawyer best known for representing Malcolm X.

Hilary Swank is an American actress who has won Academy Awards for her starring roles in the films Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don't Cry.

Helen Taft was a schoolteacher, political adviser and U.S. First Lady who was the wife of President William Howard Taft.

Japanese-American actor George Takei played Lieutenant Sulu in the original Star Trek television series and movies and is a popular social-media presence.

Mary Church Terrell was a charter member of the NAACP and an early advocate for civil rights and the suffrage movement.

Charlize Theron is a South African-born actress, best known for her roles in such films as North Country and Monster, for which she won an Academy Award.

A counterculture icon, Hunter S. Thompson was an American journalist best known for writing 1971's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and creating "Gonzo journalism."

Communist Leon Trotsky helped ignite the Russian Revolution of 1917, and built the Red Army afterward. He was exiled and later assassinated by Soviet agents.

William Monroe Trotter was a Harvard-educated journalist and activist who championed equal rights for African Americans.

Sojourner Truth is best known for her extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?", delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad.

Denmark Vesey was a freed slave who held meetings to organize what would have been the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history.

Lana Wachowski, along with brother Andy, is a producer, director and screenwriter known for The Matrix film trilogy, V for Vendetta and Cloud Atlas.

Labor activist and later Polish president Lech Walesa helped form and lead communist Poland's first independent trade union, Solidarity and won a Nobel Prize.

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African-American novelist and poet most famous for authoring The Color Purple.

David Walker was an African American abolitionist whose pamphlet was one of the most radical documents of the antislavery movement.

Australian Aboriginal writer and political activist Kath Walker is considered the first of the modern-day Aboriginal protest writers.

Madam C.J. Walker was the first American woman to become a self-made millionaire. Her business was worth more than $1 million at the time of her death.

Maggie Lena Walker was grand secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke, an organization dedicated to the social and financial advancement of African Americans.

Mary Walker was a physician and women's rights activist who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War.

Swedish businessman and diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is best known for saving thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II.

John Walsh hosts the TV series America's Most Wanted, as a result of his son being abducted and murdered in 1981.

Julia Ward Howe was a women's rights activist, abolitionist and writer who penned the poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Educator Booker T. Washington was one of the foremost African-American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founding the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now known as Tuskegee University.

Kerry Washington has appeared in such films as Ray, She Hate Me, The Last King of Scotland and Django Unchained (2013). She also stars on the TV series Scandal.

Faye Wattleton, former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood—as well as the first African-American, first female and youngest president in the organization's history—has been one of the strongest champions of women's rights and reproductive health for more than four decades.

Liberian soccer star George Weah was named African, European and World Player of the Year in 1995 and has since become a prominent humanitarian and politician.

Max Weber was a 19th century German sociologist and one of the founders of modern sociology. He wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1905.

Simone Weil was a French intellectual, activist and Christian Mystic.

Bob Weir was a rhythm guitarist for the legendary rock band the Grateful Dead from 1964 to 1995 and later reunited to tour with former members as The Other Ones.

Gideon Welles was a 19th century journalist and politician who served as secretary of the U.S. Navy under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.

Betty White is a comedic actress who has been in show business, from TV to film, since the 1950s, most notably on The Golden Girls.

Pearl White was an American silent film actress best known for her role in The Perils of Pauline, in which she did her own stunt work.

John Greenleaf Whittier was an American poet and abolitionist who, in the latter part of his life, was a household name in both England and the United States.

Simon Wiesenthal was a survivor of the Holocaust who worked as an author and Nazi hunter, wishing to ensure that what befell his community would be remembered.

Jeffrey Wigand became famous in the 1990s when he took public his knowledge that cigarette companies had tried to conceal the dangers of smoking.

Harvey Washington Wiley was an American chemist known as the "Father of the FDA." Throughout much of his career, Wiley campaigned for reforms in food manufacturing and in food labeling.

Roy Wilkins was best known as the executive director of the NAACP and a leader of the African-American civil rights movement.

Sarah Winnemucca was a member of the Native American Paiutes nation, an activist for her people and the first Native woman to publish in the English language.

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer who advocated for women's equality. Her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman pressed for educational reforms.

Victoria Woodhull was a spiritualist, activist, politician and author who was the first woman to run for the presidency of the United States.

African-American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the 1950s and '60s.

Thom Yorke is the lead singer and songwriter of the English alternative rock band Radiohead, whose hit albums include OK Computer and The Bends.

Andrew Young, Jr is a clergyman and was an activist during the civil rights movement. He was also a member of congress and twice elected at the mayor of Atlanta.

Neil Young is one of the most influential songwriters and guitarists of his generation, known for writing and recording such time-transcending songs as "Old Man," "Harvest Moon" and "Heart of Gold."

Émile Zola was the most prominent French novelist of the late 19th century. He was noted for his theories of naturalism as expressed in Les Rougon-Macquart.