58 Education activists

Thelma C. Davidson Adair is a Presbyterian educator, church leader, advocate for human rights, peace and justice issues, writer, guest speaker, educator, and activist. She has been a resident of Harlem, New York, since 1942. She has been active with Church Women United, a Christian women's advocacy movement. She is an ordained Elder for the Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church of New York City in Harlem. Adair was the moderator for the 1976 Assembly United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA}. Her husband is the late Reverend Arthur Eugene Adair, founder and minister of the church from 1943 to 1979, who died in 1979.

Muzoon Almellehan is a Syrian activist and refugee resettled in the United Kingdom. She is known for her work to keep Syrian girls in school, and has been referred to as the "Malala of Syria". In June 2017, she has become the youngest GoodWill Ambassador to UNICEF.

Gillian Leigh Anderson, is an American actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the series The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies's film The House of Mirth (2000), DSU Stella Gibson in the BBC crime drama television series The Fall, sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of Netflix drama series The Crown. Among other honors, she has won a Primetime Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has resided in London since 2002, after earlier years divided between the United Kingdom and the United States.

Elizabeth Blackwell was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer, and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is often referred to by the honorific nicknames "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted over 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.

Julio A. Cabral Corrada is an entrepreneur, social advocate and policy advisor from Puerto Rico. He focuses on Latin America and Puerto Rico's fiscal, economic, and political affairs.

Vincenza Carrieri-Russo is a model, actress, entrepreneur and beauty pageant titleholder from Newark, Delaware.

Kenny Ray Carter is an American business owner, education activist and former high school basketball coach. Carter attended college at San Francisco State, then Contra Costa College, and finally George Fox University, where he played basketball. He was portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the 2005 film Coach Carter.

Kevin Pernell Chavous is an American lawyer, author, education reform activist, and former Democratic Party politician in Washington, D.C., in the United States. He served as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia from January 1993 to January 2005, and was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of the District of Columbia in 1998.

Cordell Cleare is an American civil rights activist and prominent politician in Harlem, New York City. She has been politically active in her community since the late 1990's and she is a founding member of the Michelle Obama Community Democratic Club.

Frederika Alexis Cull is an Indonesian-Australian actress, model, activist and beauty pageant titleholder who won the title of Puteri Indonesia 2019 representing DKI Jakarta 1. She represented Indonesia at the Miss Universe 2019 pageant, where she placed in the Top 10. Frederika became the seventh Indonesian, and the first representative of Jakarta SCR to be placed as a finalist in Miss Universe history.

Dame Myra Curtis DBE (1886–1971) was an editor, civil servant, and the Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1942 to 1954.

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.

Sandra Deal is an American education activist and former public school language arts teacher. As the wife of Georgia state's governor, Nathan Deal, she had served as the First Lady of the U.S. state of Georgia from 2011 to 2019.

Elvira Devinamira Wirayanti is an Indonesian actress, Model, Beauty Pageant titleholder who was crowned Puteri Indonesia 2014, and represented her country at the Miss Universe 2014 pageant held at the FIU Arena at the Florida, United States, where she placed in the "Top 15" and won "Best National Costume" award for the second time for Indonesia, after Agni Pratistha in 2007. She is the third Indonesian and the first Javanese to be called as Miss Universe Finalists.

Elisabeth Dee DeVos is a former American government official who served as the 11th United States secretary of education from 2017 to 2021. DeVos is known for her support for school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools. She was Republican national committeewoman for Michigan from 1992 to 1997 and served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000, with reelection to the post in 2003. She has advocated for the Detroit charter school system and she is a former member of the board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. She has served as chair of the board of the Alliance for School Choice and the Acton Institute and headed the All Children Matter PAC.

Ewaryst Estkowski (1820–1856) was a Polish teacher, education activist, and editor of Szkoła Polska magazine. Ewaryst Estkowski died 1856 in Germany Bad Soden am Taunus near Frankfurt Main.

Henrietta "Netta" Franklin, CBE born Henrietta Montagu was a British educationist and suffragist. She championed the Parents' National Educational Union and the ideas of Charlotte Mason.

Janet Anne Galloway (1841–1909) was an advocate for higher education for women in Scotland, supporter of the Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women and secretary of Queen Margaret College.

Helen Hills Newell Garfield was an American socialite and advocate for deaf education. She was herself hard of hearing in adulthood. During World War I, she worked with the American Red Cross and raised funds for the care of French orphans.

Jennifer Anne Garner is an American actress and producer. Brought up in Charleston, West Virginia, Garner studied theatre at Denison University and began acting as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. She made her screen debut in the television adaptation of Danielle Steel's romance novel Zoya (1995). She had guest television appearances and supporting film roles, as well as a featured role on the teen drama television series Time of Your Life (1999–2000) and a supporting role in the war drama Pearl Harbor (2001).

Henriette Goldschmidt (1825–1920) was a German Jewish feminist, pedagogist and social worker. She was one of the founders of the German Women's Association and worked to improve women's rights to access education and employment. As part of that effort, she founded the Society for Family Education and for People's Welfare and the first school offering higher education to women in Germany.

Mohammad Shafiq Hamdam is a writer and a political activist in Afghanistan. He was a senior government official in Afghanistan and served as a Deputy Senior Advisor to The President Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, a Senior Analyst/ Advisor to NATO and the Chairman of the Afghan Anti-Corruption Network (AACN).

Bushra Hyder is a Pakistani schoolteacher and peace activist. Hyder has a Master's in English literature.

Fabrice Jaumont is a French-born author and educator best known for his advocacy for dual-language bilingual education around the world. He is the author of several books translated in multiple languages.

Bunga Jelitha Ibrani is an Indonesian actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Supermodel International 2011 and also Puteri Indonesia 2017. She represented Indonesia at the Miss Universe 2017, where she didn't make into the Top 16, but she won "Miss Photogenic" award.

Ewing Marion Kauffman was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Major League Baseball owner.

Gerard van Leijenhorst was a Dutch politician and chemist. He was a member of the defunct Christian Historical Union (CHU) party and later of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party.

Karen Lewis was an American educator and labor leader who served as president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Chicago's division of the American Federation of Teachers, from 2010 to 2014. For nearly 20 years before becoming president of the teachers union, she was a high school chemistry teacher.

Eva Jacqueline Longoria Bastón is an American actress and producer. After a number of guest roles on several television series, she was recognized for her portrayal of Isabella Braña on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, on which she starred from 2001 to 2003. She is most known for her role as Gabrielle Solis on the television series Desperate Housewives, which ran from 2004 to 2012, and for which she received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. She has also appeared in The Sentinel (2006), Over Her Dead Body (2008), For Greater Glory (2012), Frontera (2014), Lowriders (2016), and Overboard (2018). From 2015 to 2016, she starred as Ana Sofia Calderón on the short-lived NBC sitcom Telenovela, and was an executive producer for the Lifetime television series Devious Maids. She has also been an executive producer of social issue documentaries, including Food Chains and The Harvest.

Mary Kathleen Lyttelton was a British activist, editor and writer. She devoted much of her life to fighting for women's suffrage and for the improvement of women's lives in general.

Maria Josephine Catherine Maramis, more commonly known as Maria Walanda Maramis, is recognized as a National Hero of Indonesia for her efforts to advance women's rights and conditions in Indonesia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Trinidad María Enríquez was a Peruvian teacher and student. After completing the only education available to her, she founded a school to teach other girls and complete the necessary requirements to enter university. Appealing to the president, she was granted the right to attend if an examination proved she was adequately prepared. Passing her review, Enríquez completed courses at the National University of Saint Anthony the Abbot in Cuzco, becoming the first Peruvian woman to earn a university degree in 1878. Though she graduated, she was denied a license to practice law and fought her case through the legislature and court systems until her death in 1891.

Vivian Carter Mason was a staunch advocate for gender and civil rights as well as an ardent supporter of universal education. She served as an influential president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) from 1953 to 1957. She is well-known for founding the Women's Council for Interracial Cooperation in communities such as Norfolk and Arlington, Virginia in 1945. Mason also founded the Committee of 100 Women, which allowed for underprivileged children of color in New York City to attend summer camp for free.

Raden Roro Ayu Maulida Putri is an Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly Ambassador, National Head of Communication of the Indonesian COVID-19 Response Acceleration Task Force, fashion model and beauty pageant titleholder who won the title of Puteri Indonesia 2020. Maulida is the third delegate from East Java to ever be crowned Puteri Indonesia after Putri Raemawasti in 2007 and Elvira Devinamira in 2014. She represented Indonesia at the Miss Universe 2020 pageant where she placed in the top 21, becoming the 8th and 3rd consecutive Indonesian woman to place at the pageant.

Maud Nathan was an American social worker, labor activist and suffragist for women's right to vote.

Ebenezer Norman is a Liberian philanthropist, humanitarian, public speaker, and founder of the education non-profit A New Dimension of Hope (NDHope). He is involved in humanitarian efforts in Liberia and throughout West Africa, notably for efforts to build schools in attenuated or war-torn communities after the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and the Ebola virus epidemic in Liberia in 2015.

Hanna Ihorivna Novosad is a Ukrainian educational activist, civil servant and politician. The Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine in the Honcharuk Government.

Patricia Ocampo is an Argentine activist involved in community development and creation of libraries in Misiones Province. By 2014, she had worked with community organizers and celebrities to found 20 libraries. The organization she co-founded provides basic assistance to those in poverty and with disabilities and attempts to empower people through education and access to books and libraries. She is also involved in trying to stop child labor in Argentina, specifically in the yerba mate regions.

Zuriel Elise Oduwole is an American education advocate and film maker best known for her works on the advocacy for the education of girls in Africa. Her advocacy has since made her in the summer of 2013 at the age of 10, the youngest person to be profiled by Forbes. In November 2014, at age 12, Zuriel became the world's youngest filmmaker to have a self-produced and self-edited work screened, after her film showed in two movie chains, and then went on to show in Ghana, England, South Africa, and Japan.

Ariska Putri Pertiwi is an Indonesian talk show host, doctor, philanthropist, model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Puteri Indonesia Perdamaian 2016, She had a chance to represent Indonesia at Miss Grand International 2016 pageant, and later crowned Miss Grand International 2016 in Westgate Las Vegas, Nevada – United States of America. She is the first Indonesian woman, Asian woman and Muslim woman to win the Miss Grand International title.

Samuel Jarvis Peters was an American businessman and education activist. He is notable for his support of public education in New Orleans. The Times-Democrat described him as the "Father of New Orleans Public Schools".

Mariano Puigdollers Oliver (1896-1984) was a Spanish academic, politician and civil servant. Between 1920 and 1966 he held various jurisprudence chairs in numerous Spanish universities, mostly in Valencia (1924-1936) and in Madrid (1940-1966); he is known among key representatives of Spanish Natural law of the 1940s and 1950s. Initially a conservative monarchist, in the mid-1930s he joined Carlism and briefly served as its regional Valencian jefe. Since the late 1930s he identified himself with the Franco regime. During early and mid-Francoism he was employed at key posts at Dirección General de Asuntos Ecclesiásticos department within the Ministry of Justice, at Consejo Superior de Protección de Menores and at Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Between 1943 and 1965 he served in the Francoist Cortes. He is considered one of key officials implementing post-civil-war purges among the academics.

Aron Ra is an American author, podcaster and atheist activist. Ra is the host of the Ra-Men Podcast and a regional director of American Atheists. He had previously served as president of the Atheist Alliance of America and ran as a Democratic candidate for Texas' District 2 Senate seat.

Rona Ramon was a public activist STEM influencer and supporter of the education and advancement of youth in Israel. Ramon was the widow of Colonel Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. She was the mother of Captain Assaf Ramon, a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force who was killed in a training accident on September 13, 2009.

Jesús Requejo San Román (1880-1936) was a Spanish Catholic militant, theorist of society and politician; the Catholic Church declared him a martyr and a candidate for sainthood. He was locally known in the provinces of Zamora and Toledo for his activity in education, charity and agrarian syndicalism. His key work, Principios de Orientación Social, made some moderate impact among Spanish Catholic intellectuals of the mid-1930s. Politically he evolved from centre-left to extreme right: initially Requejo supported the Romanonista dynastic Liberalism, then he turned towards accidentalist Acción Católica, and finally he joined Carlism. His career climaxed in the mid-1930s; since 1934 he headed the provincial Carlist structures in Toledo and in 1936 he served as a Carlist deputy to the Cortes.

Florence M. Rice is an American Harlem-based consumer activist and educator. She is the founder of the Harlem Consumer Education Council. She has been called the "Ralph Nader of Harlem" and is also known as the mother of the Harlem Consumer Movement.

Gloria J. Romero is active in the charter school industry in California, a former California State Senator and the Democratic majority leader of the California State Senate from 2001 until 2008. She was the first woman to ever hold that leadership position.

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was an American singer, songwriter, spokesperson, businesswoman, model, actress, and fashion designer. Referred to as the "Queen of Tejano music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century. Billboard magazine named her the top-selling Latin artist of the 1990s decade, while her posthumous collaboration with MAC cosmetics became the best-selling celebrity collection in cosmetics history. Media outlets called her the "Tejano Madonna" for her clothing choices. She also ranks among the most influential Latin artists of all time and is credited for catapulting a music genre into the mainstream market.

Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, known as Nora to her family and friends, was a physics researcher assisting Lord Rayleigh, an activist for the higher education of women, Principal of Newnham College of the University of Cambridge, and a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research.

Richard Matthew Stallman, also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a manner such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License.

Iffat bint Mohammad Al Thunayan was the most prominent wife of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. She is sometimes called Queen Iffat or Princess Iffat. She is known for her efforts in the improvement of Saudi education. She was the founder of Taif model school and the first girl's college in Saudi Arabia.

Esther Walls was an African American librarian and an international advocate for literacy. She is known for her work in the New York Public Library and with the Franklin Book Programs advocating for literacy in developing nations around the world.

Mary Jane Ward was a Cambridge-based Irish suffragist, lecturer and writer. In spite of her lack of formal schooling, she was accepted to study at Newnham Hall, Cambridge, in 1879 becoming the first woman to pass the moral sciences tripos examination with first class honours. She lectured at the college, and remained associated with it for many years.

Julia Willebrand is an environmental, peace and education activist and was the Green Party nominee for the office of Comptroller of the State of New York in the 2006 New York state elections.

Stephen Gary Wozniak, also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Inc. with business partner Steve Jobs, which later became the world's largest information technology company by revenue and the largest company in the world by market capitalization. Through their work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he and Jobs are widely recognized as two prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.

Malala Yousafzai, often referred to mononymously as Malala, is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate. She is known for human rights advocacy, especially the education of women and children in her native Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northwest Pakistan, where the local Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan had at times banned girls from attending school. Her advocacy has grown into an international movement, and according to former Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become "the most prominent citizen" of the country.

Sulejman Zalla (1892–1966) was an Albanian teacher, patriot and activist of the Rilindja Kombëtare of the early 20th century. He was the founder of the first modern Albanian school in the County of Durrës.