Category: Activist / page 15

Ernestine Rose
Ernestine L Rose


Ernestine Louise Rose was born January 13, 1810, in Piotrkow, Poland. A rabbi's daughter, she received more education than was common for women at that time. After her mother's death when Rose was 16, her father arranged a marriage without her consent. Rose refused the match and successfully sued to retained her inheritance from her mother. At 17, she left home for Berlin, where she supported herself by tutoring and marketing perfumed papers of her own invention. She studied the texts of the great religions and concluded that all were […]
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling


British author famous for writing the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling is also a social activist. Rowling has used her platform as the first-ever billionaire author to donate and champion causes and charities, including Amnesty International, One Parent Families (Gingerbread), Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, Comic Relief, the Maggie’s Centres for Cancer Care, the UK Labour Party and Doctors Without Borders. She is the founder and president of the international children’s non-profit organization the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), now known as Lumos, which works to end the institutionalization of children […]
Gertrude Rush
Gertrude Rush


Gertrude E. Rush was a lawyer, civil rights activist, suffragist and author, and the first African American female lawyer in Iowa. Rush was born on August 5, 1880, in Navasota, Texas. After graduating from high school in Quincy, Illinois, she was a teacher from 1898 to 1907. In 1907, Rush married Des Moines attorney James B. Rush and began studying law with him while working in his office. She earned a Bachelor of Arts at Des Moines College (now Des Moines University) in 1914 and a law degree through correspondence […]
Margaret H Sanger
Margaret H Sanger


Margaret Sanger was proponent for scientific contraception (birth control) and family planning, but also a supporter of eugenics. Sanger was born on September 14, 1884, in Corning, New York, into a Roman Catholic family as one of eleven children. Sanger was greatly influenced by her father's political views in support of women's suffrage and tax reform, although these and other beliefs caused the family to be seen as radical in the eyes of their neighbors. After graduating from Claverack College at Hudson, New York, Sanger took a teaching position in […]
Linda Sarsour
Linda Sarsour


Linda Sarsour is a Palestinian American political activist and former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. She was a co-founder of the Women's March on Washington and a national co-chair until July 2019. Sarsour was born in 1980 in Brooklyn, New York. After being placed in an arranged marriage at the age of 17, Sarsour attended college at Kingsborough Community College and Brooklyn College with the goal of becoming an English teacher. Shortly before the September 11 attacks, Sarsour began volunteering at the Arab American Association […]
Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis Schlafly


Phyllis Schlafly was a lawyer, activist, author and speaker, and founder of the Eagle Forum known for her staunch social and political conservatism and her successful campaign against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Schlafly was born August 15, 1924 in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned her A.B. Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University, in St. Louis in 1944, a master of arts degree in government from Radcliffe College in 1945, and her J.D. from Washington University Law School in 1978. In 1946, Schlafly became […]
Rose Schneiderman
Rose Schneiderman


Rose Schneiderman was a Jewish suffragist, labor rights activist and orator. Her diminutive stature—she was only 4’9”—flaming red hair, powerful speaking skills and penchant for socialism earned her the nickname “The Red Rose of Anarchy.” Schneiderman was born on April 16, 1882, to working-class parents in Poland. The family immigrated to New York City in 1890 and three years later, Schneiderman’s father died leaving behind three children and a pregnant wife. In 1895, at the age of 13, she had to drop out of school and start working as a […]
Stephanie Schriock
Stephanie Schriock


Stephanie Schriock is president of EMILY's List, an organization dedicated to recruiting pro-choice Democratic women to run for elected office. Schriock was born in 1973 in Morton Grove, Illinois. She graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 1995. In addition to serving at president of Emily's List since 2010, Schriock serves on the board of advisors of Let America Vote, an organization working to end voter suppression. Previously, Schriock was campaign manager for the 2008 Senate race of Al Franken. She was also campaign manager for Jon Tester's 2006 Senate […]
Fawn Sharp
Fawn Sharp


Fawn Sharp is the 23rd president of the National Congress of American Indians and vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. She was elected as NCAI president on October 24, 2019. She was named as vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation on March 26, 2021. In 2021 Sharp became the first tribal leader issued diplomatic credentials. Sharp was born in Aberdeen, Washington, on May 20, 1970. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice from Gonzaga University in 1990. In […]
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw


Anna Howard Shaw was an American suffragist who became the first woman minister of the Methodist Protestant Church. Shaw was born February 14, 1847, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England. In 1851, Shaw's family immigrated to the United States. To help support her family, at age 15, Shaw worked as a teacher at a frontier school. After the Civil War, Shaw was able to attend high school and then college. She entered Albion College in 1873, but left in 1876 to attend Boston Theological Seminary. She graduated in 1878 as the only […]