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Reform & Rights

Abolitionists, suffragists, organizers and advocates who changed what Americans were entitled to.

All Civil Rights & Social Reform Indigenous Leaders & Native Nations Environment, Agriculture & Food
Role: Any Activist 70 Author 21 Tribal Leader 18 Abolitionist 12 Conservationist 12 Military Commander 10 Religious Leader 10 Biologist 7 Journalist 7 Suffragist 7 Educator 6 Legislator 5 Catalyst 4 Labor Organizer 4 Lawyer 4 Public Health Leader 4
Order: Most notable By term A–Z Born earliest Born latest Longest lived Shortest lived

12 people

Harriet Tubman 1822–1913Civil Rights & Social ReformAbolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds to freedom via the Underground Railroad.Frederick Douglass 1818–1895Civil Rights & Social ReformFormer slave who became a leading abolitionist, orator, and advocate for equal rights.Susan B. Anthony 1820–1906Civil Rights & Social ReformSuffragist and civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement.Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811–1896Civil Rights & Social ReformAuthor of Uncle Tom's Cabin whose novel galvanized the abolitionist movement.Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815–1902Civil Rights & Social ReformPrincipal theorist and organizer of the nineteenth-century women’s rights and suffrage movements.Sojourner Truth 1797–1883Civil Rights & Social ReformAbolitionist and women's rights activist whose Ain't I a Woman? speech became a rallying cry for equality.John Brown 1800–1859Civil Rights & Social ReformMilitant abolitionist whose raid on Harpers Ferry sharpened sectional conflict preceding the Civil War.William Lloyd Garrison 1805–1879Civil Rights & Social ReformEditor of The Liberator and founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society.Nat Turner 1800–1831Civil Rights & Social ReformLed the 1831 Virginia slave rebellion that prompted harsher slave codes across the South.Lucretia Mott 1793–1880Civil Rights & Social ReformAbolitionist and women’s-rights organizer who helped convene the Seneca Falls Convention.Wendell Phillips 1811–1884Civil Rights & Social ReformAbolition's great orator, who refused to disband the movement when slavery ended.Denmark Vesey 1767–1822Civil Rights & Social ReformFree Black carpenter executed for organizing a large planned slave revolt in Charleston.