Name: Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Dates: Born in 1918.
Biography:
Nelson Mandela is a South African statesman, former political prisoner, and leader of the African National Congress (ANC).

In the late 1940s through the 1950s, Mandela worked through non-violent means for an end to the South African government’s policy of apartheid. Mandela and more than 150 others were arrested in 1956 and tried for treason, although they were later acquitted.

In 1961, Mandela formed an armed faction within the ANC, which he explained then (and later) as a form of self-defense, necessary given the decades of ineffective resistance against apartheid. Mandela briefly led a campaign of sabotage against government and military targets, until his arrest in 1962 (after a tip from the American CIA). Mandela spent the next 27 years in prison.

In 1990, Mandela was released from prison. He immediately began leading negotiations to form a multi-racial government. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. With the first multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president.

Learn more: Wikipedia

Name: Rosa Parks
Dates: 1913-2005
Biography:
Rosa Parks is often called the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement.”

In Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950’s, African-Americans were not allowed to ride in the first 10 rows of city buses (typical of similar laws in the segregated South). On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus when ordered to do so by the white driver. Parks was arrested for this refusal, and her act of peaceful resistance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A Supreme Court decision in 1956 struck down the state and city segregation laws.

Parks became an icon in the civil rights movement, but worked as a seamstress until 1965, when she joined the staff of Michigan representative John Conyers, for whom she worked until 1988. Rosa Parks died in 2005 at the age of ninety-two.

Learn more: Wikipedia

(Yes, today is Martin Luther King Day, but I already posted MLK on his actual birthday, January 15.)

Name: Winona LaDuke
Dates: Born in 1959
Biography:
Winona LaDuke is an economist, Native American activist, environmentalist, and writer.

After graduating from Harvard with a degree in rural economic development in 1982, LaDuke became the principal of the high school on the Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) reservation in Minnesota (LaDuke herself is part Anishinaabe). She soon became involved in the struggle to regain land promised by an 1867 treaty. When the case was dismissed, she led the effort to buy back thousands of acres of lost land.

The author of both fiction and non-fiction books, LaDuke has been an outspoken critic of the United States government’s abuses of its land and native peoples. In 1996 and again in 2000, LaDuke ran as the Green Party candidate for the office of Vice President.

Learn more: Wikipedia | Mother Jones | Salon.com

Name: Harvey Milk
Dates: 1930-1978
Biography:
Harvey Milk was a city supervisor for San Francisco, California, and one of the first openly gay politicians in the United States.

After moving to San Francisco in 1972 with his partner, Milk opened a camera store in The Castro district. After running unsuccessfully several times, Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was instrumental in defeating a proposition that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in California schools.

In 1978, Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a disgruntled former supervisor named Dan White. Despite the fact that White had carried extra ammunition and crawled through a window to evade security, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead of premeditated (first-degree) murder. White was sentenced to less than eight years in prison.

Learn more: Wikipedia