Defender
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Van Jones
Van Jones is the founding director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Founded in 1996 and named for an unsung civil rights heroine, the Center challenges human rights abuses in the U.S. criminal justice system. A project of the Ella Baker Center, Bay Area Police Watch is committed to stopping police misconduct and…
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John Lewis
One of the most courageous people the civil rights movement ever produced, U.S. Congressman John Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he described as “The Beloved Community” in America. The “conscience of the U.S. Congress” grew up as the son of sharecroppers. He was inspired by…
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Jody Williams
Jody Williams has dedicated her life to achieving a global ban on antipersonnel landmines, which still claim thousands of innocent lives every year. In 1992, she launched the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), to end the production, trade, use and stockpiling of landmines, a weapon that has been in existence since the U.S. Civil…
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Jimmy Carter
Born in 1924 in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States, studied science at the United States Naval Academy and helped develop the nuclear submarine. Eventually returning to Plains, where he became involved in community work, Carter became governor of Georgia in 1971. Carter was elected president of the United States…
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Erin Merryn
At age six, Erin experienced sexual abuse for the first time by a neighbor at a friend’s sleepover. Just a few weeks shy of her seventh birthday in 1992, Erin was raped by the same person. Threatened and scared, Erin went to bed every night crying, having nightmares, afraid to tell anyone what had happened…
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Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Mairead Corrigan Maguire was not actively involved with the Northern Ireland peace movement until she came face-to-face with violence in 1976. On August 10th, Danny Lennon and John Chillingworth of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), were driving through Belfast, with a rifle in their car. The IRA wanted to form a united Ireland through…
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Kateryna Yushchenko
A child of Ukrainian WWII immigrants to Chicago, she came to Ukraine in 1991 to run the US-Ukraine Foundation, which she co-founded to support democratic and free market development in newly-independent Ukraine. Before moving to Ukraine, Kateryna held positions at the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Department of Treasury, The White House, State Department, and…
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Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel was brought up in a closely knit Jewish community in Sighet, Transylvania (Romania). When he was fifteen years old, his family was herded aboard a train and deported by Nazis to the Auschwitz death camp. Wiesel’s mother and younger sister died at Auschwitz—two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were then taken…
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Dr. Helen Bond
Dr. Bond is a University Professor in the School of Education at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and the former Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. She is also a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar to India, co-chair of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN USA), and executive council member to…
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Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai was born in Kenya in 1940 to a family of farmers, giving her a deep connection to the land. At that time, Kenya was a British colony, and British officials held the power to make decisions for the Kenyan people. But as Maathai was growing up, the British government was in the process…
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Emir Suljagić
Emir Suljagić is a journalist, activist and the Director of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial since 2019. Suljagić holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hamburg. His most recent research focuses on the role the Bosnian Serb Assembly played in the process of socially constructing Bosniaks as “Turks” within the context of the…
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Bill Russell
Those who know of Bill Russell know he was a force to be reckoned with on the court. Through his 13 years in the league, he led the Celtics to 11 championships and was recognized with five Most Valuable Player awards. As extraordinarily accomplished as he is on the court, it is his courage and…
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