The social reformer's 40-year campaign sought to end the abuse of people with mental illness that she found "chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience."

At a time when people with mental illness were often abused and kept in inhumane conditions, Dorothea Dix's 40-year-long crusade for the reform of mental asylums in the US, Canada, and Europe made her renowned worldwide as a beacon of compassion and advocate for the voiceless. To transform the care of the mentally ill, the American social reformer had to first confront the attitude that nothing could be done to help people with mental illness and that such brutal treatment was the only option available. "They say, 'nothing can be done here!'" Dix once declared. "I reply, 'I know no such word in the vocabulary I adopt!'" Continue reading → Continue reading

The Detroit mother of five answered Dr. King's call for volunteers and traveled to Alabama to help during the Selma March.

On the final day of the historic Selma to Montgomery March on March 25, 1965, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo was helping shuttle marchers from Montgomery, Alabama back to Selma in her car, along with a fellow activist, 19-year-old Leroy Moton. When she stopped at a red light, a car filled with local Ku Klux Klan members pulled up alongside them. When they saw Liuzzo, a White woman, and Moton, a Black man, together, they followed them, pulled a gun, and shot directly at Liuzzo. She was killed by a bullet to the head; Moton, who was covered in her blood and knocked unconscious, was assumed to to be dead by the Klan members who investigated the crashed vehicle. The murder of the 39-year-old Liuzzo, a Detroit housewife and mother of five, shocked millions of people around the country and, along with the outrage at the violent treatment of many of the Selma protesters, helped to spur the signing of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act five months later. Continue reading → Continue reading

Greta Thunberg's leadership has inspired millions of young people to take a stand and demand action on climate change.

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen activist who founded the Youth Strike for Climate Movement and was one of 2019's most influential people, turned 17 today! She began her skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate) in August 2018 as a solo protest, but today her Fridays for Future protests span the globe. An estimated 1.4 million students in 125 countries turned out for the first Global Climate Strike in March and six million people participated in September's climate strike actions that took place in 4,500 locations in 150 countries. Greta has persisted in her work to demand action from governments to address this environmental crisis, despite frequent criticism, much of it based on her age. "I agree with [my detractors], I’m too young to do this," she wrote early in 2019. "We children shouldn’t have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue." Continue reading → Continue reading