Throughout my life, the individuals listed below were my heroes. Each person on the list demonstrated incredible courage and determination in achieving her or his goals. Most, though not all, were well educated. All were extraordinary in different ways. After compiling the list I realized that eleven of the seventeen were activists of one sort or another and five were scientists and one a painter, which should tell Readers a lot about me.
Harriet Tubman—born enslaved in Maryland around 1821 or 1822, escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 and became free. Despite risks of capture and death, especially since a bounty of $40,000 was placed on her capture by enraged slave owners, Tubman returned to Maryland and other Southern states nineteen times, typically disguised as a man or elderly woman, helping more than three hundred slaves to escape via the Underground Railroad to the North. Unknown until recently, Tubman also worked as a spy for the Union Army, becoming the first woman to successfully plan and lead a military expedition against the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 2021, Tubman was inducted into the Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame.
Eugene Debs—Founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World and outspoken champion of workers and the oppressed.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—Founder of mass civil resistance movements and nonviolence; in many ways the creator of modern India.
Rosalind Franklin—Physical chemist and discoverer of DNA’s double helix who was aced out of the Nobel Prize by colleagues who used her work without paying her the credit she was due.
Chien-Shiung Wu—Chinese-American experimental physicist who changed the way physicists understand the world. Her critical discovery, that parity is not conserved, resulted in her colleagues winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics while Wu’s pioneering work went unrewarded.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—Founder of mass civil resistance movements and nonviolence; in many ways the creator of modern India.
Rosalind Franklin—Physical chemist and discoverer of DNA’s double helix who was aced out of the Nobel Prize by colleagues who used her work without paying her the credit she was due.
Chien-Shiung Wu—Chinese-American experimental physicist who changed the way physicists understand the world. Her critical discovery, that parity is not conserved, resulted in her colleagues winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics while Wu’s pioneering work went unrewarded.
Thurgood Marshall—Perhaps America's greatest 20th Century lawyer; a civil rights whirlwind nonpareil and first black American Supreme Court justice.
Pauli Murray—Pathfinder, lifelong civil rights and women's rights activist, lawyer who graduated first in her class, Episcopal priest, author, gender-bender, and intersectionalist long before the term was invented. She became the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School and was the first African-American woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest.
Saul Alinsky—Labor organizer, writer, founder of modern community organizing; an unapologetic leftist.
Malcolm X—unapologetic advocate of black self-determination; a towering figure vastly underrated by white America.
James Baldwin—Author, civil rights advocate, powerful intellectual who saw America's race problem for what it was and is: white supremacy.
Wilma Rudolph—World-class athlete, polio survivor who was told by her doctor as a child she would never be able to walk unaided but didn't know the meaning of can't.
Tommie Smith/Peter Norman/John Carlos—Olympic medalists/athletes who put their careers on the line for human rights and were punished by white racists for their beliefs.
Daniel Elsberg—Harvard PhD economist, courageous whistle-blower who released the Pentagon Papers and winner of the 2018 Olof Palme Prize for his "profound humanism and exceptional moral courage."
Marjorie Harris Carr—Biologist, environmentalist, organizer without equal, winner of lost cause battles against opponents far more powerful than she.
Helen Frankenthaler—Pioneering Color Field painter who changed American art in what was then an extremely macho art world; a master of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures especially in large formats.
Malcolm X—unapologetic advocate of black self-determination; a towering figure vastly underrated by white America.
James Baldwin—Author, civil rights advocate, powerful intellectual who saw America's race problem for what it was and is: white supremacy.
Wilma Rudolph—World-class athlete, polio survivor who was told by her doctor as a child she would never be able to walk unaided but didn't know the meaning of can't.
Tommie Smith/Peter Norman/John Carlos—Olympic medalists/athletes who put their careers on the line for human rights and were punished by white racists for their beliefs.
Daniel Elsberg—Harvard PhD economist, courageous whistle-blower who released the Pentagon Papers and winner of the 2018 Olof Palme Prize for his "profound humanism and exceptional moral courage."
Marjorie Harris Carr—Biologist, environmentalist, organizer without equal, winner of lost cause battles against opponents far more powerful than she.
Helen Frankenthaler—Pioneering Color Field painter who changed American art in what was then an extremely macho art world; a master of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures especially in large formats.
Dorothy Day—American journalist, social activist/anarchist who converted to Catholicism without abandoning her political radicalism and who, with Peter Maurin, co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement.
Martin Luther King Jr.—Civil rights activist who struggled mightily to awaken the conscience of white America.
Aldo Leopold—Ecologist, environmental ethicist, and writer who inspired generations.
John Gofman—Physical chemist, medical doctor, courageous critic of nuclear energy whose legacy will live for many decades.
Rachael Carson—Marine biologist and writer who inspired global environmentalism.
Cesar Chavez/Dolores Huerta—Farm workers, union organizers, labor activists, role models to millions. Full credit to Dolores for creating the acclaimed warcry: "Sí, se puede!"
Paul Crutzen—Atmospheric chemist, Nobel Laureate who refused to give up his dream of being a scientist.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg—The Notorious RBG, the U.S.’s most successful litigator on behalf of women's rights, she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 where she has fought tirelessly for the rights of women and minorities.
Edward Snowden—computer systems expert and courageous whistle-blower who kept his vow to protect the U.S. Constitution while the U.S. Government did its best to subvert that Constitution by destroying the privacy of every American citizen.
Hmm. Interesting list. Wilma Rudolph~inspiring!
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