Cesar Chavez

Union leader and labor organizer Cesar Chavez dedicated his life to improving treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers.

Born near Yuma, Arizona, on March 31, 1927, Cesar Chavez employed nonviolent means to bring attention to the plight of farmworkers, and formed both the National Farm Workers Association, which later became United Farm Workers. As a labor leader, Chavez led marches, called for boycotts and went on several hunger strikes. It is believed that Chavez’s hunger strikes contributed to his death on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, Arizona.

Alex Pacheco

Alexander Fernando Pacheco is an American animal rights activist. He is co-founder and former chairman of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and a member of the advisory board of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Pacheco first crewed with Captain Paul Watson in 1979 on the ship Sea Shepherd across the Atlantic Ocean, during a campaign of opposition to the Sierra, a Portuguese pirate whale-killing ship.

Aurora Castillo

Aurora Castillo was a Mexican-American environmentalist from Los Angeles, California. She co-founded the Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) in 1984. The MELA organization has fought against a scheduled oil pipeline, and against a planned toxic waste incinerator, and they stopped a waste treatment plant located close to a high school. Castillo was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1995.^[1]

Bianca Jagger

The former actress is a human rights activists, and as such, she has been vocal about genocide, women’s rights, climate change and corporate social responsibility. She also founded the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, which is dedicated to research, education and advocacy. Late last year, she talked about violence against women in a lecture. “We are deluding ourselves if we think we have eradicated discrimination from the so-called developed world,” she said. “I fear that under the surface of our western democratic, egalitarian societies, embedded deep in our culture, still lurks an institutionalized belief that women are inferior.”

Sylvia Mendez has been an education activist ever since she was a child. Her parents wanted to enroll her into an all-White school, but she was told she needed to go to the all-Mexican school. Her parents refused and sued the school, and it was Mendez’s testimony that really helped them win. It wasn’t until her mother was dying that she was inspired to tell the story of her father and to dedicate her time to education activism. She says more history, art and music are needed in schools, and parents need to play their part, too. The number one thing that the parents have to do is apoyarlos,” she told us. “Encourage them to stay in school and let them know that’s how they’re going to be successful in life.”