Paul David “Bono” Hewson
Paul David “Bono” Hewson As the lead singer of U2, one of the most popular and influential rock bands of the last 30 years, Bono is a figure adored and admired both within and outside of the music industry. As a rock star, his music with U2 has earned him legions of devoted fans across [...]
Sean Penn
Sean Penn Penn’s political voice began stirring controversy eight years ago when he placed a $56,000 ad in the Washington Post for an appeal to President George W. Bush to end torture and face the truth. Three years later, he traveled to Iraq in support of humanitarian relief work. While he was getting criticized for his [...]
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie Jolie has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees since 2001, and frequently travels to remote countries to draw attention to the plight of people in Third World nations. In 2003, she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicled her early work with [...]
George Clooney
George Clooney Clooney took up the cause after first traveling to Sudan in 2006. Since then, he and others have tried to put the spotlight on issues there, like Darfur — a region racked by genocide resulting in the murders of thousands and the displacement of 2.5 million people. “The simple truth is I was [...]
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean Haiti activist Wyclef Jean has spent a great deal of time working on behalf of the people of his native country in previous years, but recently he has stepped up efforts even further, announcing a run for president until he was prevented from registering for the election due to his failure to meet [...]
Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys In addition to being a prolific artist, Alicia Keys is also a devoted AIDS activist and philanthropist. In 2003 Alicia Keys and Leigh Blake, longtime AIDS activist and film/TV producer, co-founded Keep a Child Alive (KCA), a people’s movement that provides life-saving AIDS medicine and surrounding care to children and families in Africa [...]
William A. Jones
William A. Jones His concept of religion centered on helping the poor and dispossessed. He led campaigns to integrate building trade unions, organized boycotts to force A.&P. and other supermarket chains to hire more minority workers, and opened a banquet hall and cafeteria to serve residents of his overwhelmingly poor neighborhood. “You can’t talk religion [...]
John Brown
John Brown John Brown was a man of action — a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized [...]
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Bridges Civil Right activist. Born Ruby Nell Bridges on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. She grew up on the farm her parents and grandparents sharecropped in Mississippi. When she was four her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, moved to New Orleans for the hope of a better life in a bigger city. Her [...]
Homer Plessy
Homer Plessy Homer Plessey was the man in the middle of the 1896 Supreme Court ruling that confirmed the rule of “separate but equal” in U.S. law. Plessey was a light-skinned Creole of European and African descent. He was arrested and jailed in 1892 for sitting in a Louisiana railroad car designated for white people [...]
