Activism Archives - Page 161 of 161

Mary L Bonauto

Mary L. Bonauto is an American lawyer and civil rights advocate who has fought against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. US Representative Barney Frank called her “our Thurgood Marshall.” In 1990, she began working with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, later re-named GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). Bonauto worked with the Maine legislature to pass a same-sex marriage law and helped to defend it at the ballot during the 2009 election campaign, narrowly losing. These efforts yielded results wen, in the 2012 election, voters approved the measure, making Maine the first state to allow same-sex marriage via ballot vote. Bonauto is best known for being lead counsel in the case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which, in 2004, made Massachusetts the first state where same-sex couples could marry. She also led the first strategic challenges to section three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
On April 28, 2015 Bonauto was one of three attorneys who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, arguingthat state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. The highly publicized case established that state bans against same-sex marriage are unconstitutional; it is considered one of the most important civil rights cases to come before the U.S. Supreme Court in modern history.

Mary Morello

Mary Morello is an American activist who founded anti-censorship group Parents for Rock and Rap in 1987, which earned her the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment in 1996. In the 1960s, Morello was involved in the US civil rights movement and the NAACP; she is also a long-time activist for the Chicago Urban League. In 1991, Morello began volunteering with the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center in Waukegan, Illinois, teaching adult literacy. She was involved in the Cuba Coalition in Chicago, which works toward lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Morello is also known for advocating in 1999 on behalf of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted (possibly wrongly) of the 1982 shooting of a Philadelphia police officer. His death sentence was overturned by a Federal court in 2001

Unity Dow

Unity Dow a Motswana judge, human rights activist and writer currently who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from 2 November 2019 – 26 August 2020. She successfully challenged a law that limited citizenship, inherited by children from the fathers but not from their mothers (Attorney General of Botswana v Unity Dow (1992)). The father of Unity’s children was not a Botswana citizen, meaning the children were not either. She later became Botswana’s first female High Court judge. She was also co-founder of the country’s first all-female law practice and was one of the founding members of the women’s organization Emang Basadi.
Dow has published several books, often addressing issues around the struggle between Western and traditional African values, as well as gender issues and her nation’s poverty.
In 2005, Unity Dow became a member of a UN mission to Sierra Leone to review the domestic application of international women’s human rights. On 13 December 2006, she was one of three judges who ruled on the prominent Kgalagadi (San, Bushmen or Basarwa) court decision, concerning the rights of the San to return to their ancestral lands. The court ruled that the residents had been forcibly and unconstitutionally removed, though forced relocation continued.
Since 2007, Dow has been a member of a special mission to review the Rwandan Judiciaries preparedness to take over the hearing of the 1994 genocide cases. Dow was also sworn in as Justice of the IICDRC (Interim Independent Constitutional Dispute Resolution Court) of Kenya by the Kenyan President to serve implementing the new constitution in Kenya.

Malala Yousafzai

At age eleven, Malala Yousafzai was already advocating for the rights of women and girls. As an outspoken proponent for girls’ right to education, Yousafzai was often in danger because of her beliefs. However, even after being shot by the Taliban, she continued her activism and founded the Malala Fund with her father. By age seventeen, Yousafzai became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work.

“Cherokee Beloved Woman of Sugartown”

sought to prevent war with the Muscogee Creeks in 1774