Australian Aboriginal writer and political activist Kath Walker is considered the first of the modern-day Aboriginal protest writers.
Julia Ward Howe was a women's rights activist, abolitionist and writer who penned the poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
In the late 18th century, slave poet Phillis Wheatley impressed everyone she met, proving to the world that the color of one's skin does not indicate one's intellect.
Walt Whitman was an American poet whose verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.
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.
Pioneering African-American writer Richard Wright is best known for the classic texts Black Boy and Native Son.
William Butler Yeats was one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.