Category: Activist / page 17

Bertha von Suttner
Bertha von Suttner


Bertha von Suttner, writer and peace activist, was the sixth person and the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1905. Suttner was born June 9, 1843, in Prague, Austria, to a noble family. Her father died before her birth, and she was raised by her mother, whose financial mismanagement necessitated that Suttner, at age 30, take a position as teacher-companion to the Suttner daughters. There, she fell in love with her charges' brother, Arthur, who was seven years her junior. She left employment with the family and […]
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi


Aung San Suu Kyi served as the first state counsellor of Myanmar from 2016-2021. On Feb. 1, 2021, she was arrested by the Myanmar military after they declared the November 2020 general election results fraudulent and imposed a one-year state of emergency. Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, Burma – now Yangon, Myanmar – on June 19, 1945. Her father is known as the founder of independent Burma (1948) and is beloved in that country. Her mother had been active in women's political groups before marrying Aung San, and the […]
Mary Burnett Talbert
Mary Burnett Talbert


Mary Burnett Talbert was an African American civil rights and anti-lynching activist and suffragist. Talbert was born on September 17, 1866, in Oberlin, Ohio. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College in 1886, the only African American woman in her graduating class. After college, she was a teacher at Bethel University in Little Rock, Arkansas, then became assistant principal of Union High School in Little Rock, the highest position held by an African American woman in the state. In 1891 she moved to Buffalo, New York, after […]
Emma Tenayuca
Emma Tenayuca


Emma Tenayuca was a labor activist in Texas during the 1930’s, best known for her passionate speeches. Born on December 21, 1916, in San Antonio, Texas, Tenayuca started her activism early. She was arrested during a protest in 1933, at just 16 years old. She graduated from Brackenridge High School in 1934. After high school, Tenayuca founded two international ladies' garment workers unions and was involved in the Worker's Alliance of America and Woman's League for Peace and Freedom. She organized a protest over the beating of Mexican migrants by […]
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa


Mother Teresa was one of the great servants of humanity. She was an Albanian Catholic nun who came to India, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, and attained Indian citizenship. Her selfless work among the poverty-stricken people of Kolkata (Calcutta) is an inspiration for people all over the world and she was honored with Nobel Prize for her work. Mother Teresa's original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was born on August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. Her father was a successful merchant and she was youngest of the […]
Mary Church Terrell
Mary Church Terrell


Mary Church Terrell was a writer, educator and activist for civil rights and women's suffrage. Terrell was born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents, both former slaves, were small business owners, and her father was the South's first African American millionaire. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1884 with a Bachelor of Arts in classical languages and earned a master's degree in education from Oberlin in 1888. After earning her bachelor's degree, Terrell taught at Wilberforce College (Ohio) and then at the M Street Colored High School […]
Greta Thunberg
Greta Thunberg


Greta Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist. Thunberg was born on January 3, 2003, in Stockholm, Sweden. She states that she became aware of the issue of climate change in 2011. In 2014, she was diagnosed with several conditions, including Asperger syndrome. Thunberg successfully urged her parents to change their lifestyle to lower the family's carbon footprint, such as adopting veganism and ending plane travel. In late 2018, Thunberg demonstrated outside the Swedish parliament and began giving speeches to protest inaction against climate change. After other students began protests in […]
Susette Tibbles
Susette La Flesche Tibbles


Susette La Flesche Tibbles Bio Susette La Flesche Tibbles, also known as Bright Eyes, was a Native American suffragist and activist. Her sister, Susan Le Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman physician. She was born in Bellevue, Nebraska in 1854 to Joseph La Flesche, the last recognized chief of the Omaha people. She attended the Presbyterian Mission Boarding Day School from 1862 to 1869. The brutality of forced assimilation at many of these boarding schools has been well documented. Native children were often forced to dress in Western […]
Ayọ Tometi
Ayọ Tometi


Ayọ Tometi (previously known as Opal Tometi) is a writer, strategist, community organizer and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Tometi grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a Masters of Arts degree in communication and advocacy from the University of Arizona. She is a former case manager for survivors of domestic violence and still provides community education on the issue. Tometi has been active in social movements for over a decade and has collaborated with […]
Grace Trout
Grace Wilbur Trout


A Maquoketa-born woman led the way to women’s suffrage in the state of Illinois and later across the United States. Her name is Grace Wilbur Trout and she was born in 1864 in Maquoketa. She became known as “The Woman Who Never Fails.” That may be because Grace Trout never gave up on her fight to gain the vote for women. On June 11, 1913, after going so far as to block the way of any legislators who might be tempted to leave the capitol before a vote was taken, […]