Inspirational Activists You Won’t Learn About in School

By Allie Firestone

The recent popularity of the movie Milk, starring Sean Penn, made me wonder why I never learned Harvey Milk's story in classroom discussions of civil rights, especially considering I grew up in San Francisco, where Milk carried out his work. As a result, I started searching for other activists who have changed our world, but have been left out of the usual history lesson. These people have made great strides toward gender equality, women's liberation, and civil rights. Without them, the world wouldn't be what it is today.

Fred Shuttlesworth: Champion for Civil Rights
After Alabama outlawed the NAACP in 1956, this Baptist minister founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, announcing that he would act out against all segregation laws. He led sit-ins, boycotts, and strikes, and his work in Alabama was a major force in pressuring Congress to overturn segregation. He fought against violent racism with peaceful activism—white supremacists bombed his house multiple times, a white mob beat him with whips and chains and, after his leadership during the mass protests in Birmingham, he was slammed against a wall by high-pressure fire hoses. He later became one of the first officers in Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and King described him as "one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters." Still alive today, Shuttlesworth is a pastor and directs the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation, an organization that helps low-income families purchase homes.

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon: Challenging the Norm
In 1955, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon co-founded Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian organization (named after a fictional lover of Sappho—the famously lesbian Greek poet). In 1964, they helped start the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, a group that sought to join religious leaders and gay activists to discuss marriage equality. Martin aided in the successful campaign for the American Psychiatric Association to take homosexuality off its list of mental illnesses. Meanwhile, Lyon became the first openly gay woman on the National Organization for Women's board in the '70s. They also co-wrote two books, Lesbian/Woman and Lesbian Love and Liberation, during the same decade. Four years ago they were the first of thousands of couples married in San Francisco when Mayor Newsom began allowing gay marriage, though it was suspended a month later by the Supreme Court. They were able to marry again in 2008 after the court ruled in favor of marriage equality, but Martin passed away only two months later.

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