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Agents of change

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Agents of change

Rimmon C. Fay, 78; longtime Venice lifeguard, marine scientist and environmental advocate (Jan. 1)

Myra Riddell, 81; psychotherapist and advocate for gay and lesbian rights (Jan. 11)

Johnnie Carr, 97; civil rights advocate took part in historic Birmingham bus boycott (Feb. 22)

Barbara Seaman, 72; advocate for women’s health questioned the safety of birth control pills in the 1960s (Feb. 27)

Dith Pran, 65; survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia became the public face of the Cambodian genocide (March 30)

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Robert Warnes Leach, 93; screenwriter who became a leading advocate for victims’ rights after his stepdaughter was killed in 1983 in Malibu (March 30)

Helen B. Aaron, 96; pioneering organizer of the Jewish community in Orange County (April 10)

Nadia Powers, 74; a longtime community advocate who was chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities and the county’s Commission on Aging in the 1990s (April 13)

Harlan Hahn, 68; USC professor advocated civil rights and access for disabled (April 23)

Mildred Loving, 68; winner of Supreme Court battle to legalize interracial marriage (May 2)

Robert W. Nudelman, 52; preservationist was a key figure in rebirth of Hollywood (May 6)

Ruth Simpson, 82; leader in the gay liberation movement who wrote a well-regarded critique of social and political attitudes toward lesbians in the 1970s (May 8)

Irena Sendler, 98; Polish social worker saved the lives of 2,500 Jews during World War II (May 12)

Sister Catherine Mulkerrin, 72; nun pressed Catholic leaders in Boston to warn parishioners about priests accused of sexually abusing children (May 17)

Jill Swift, 79; a hiking enthusiast whose love of the outdoors led her to play a central role in the creation of a national park in the Santa Monica Mountains (May 19)

Zelma Henderson, 88; the last surviving plaintiff in the Brown vs. Board of Education case in Topeka, Kan., which led to the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in public schools (May 20)

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Louise Firouz, 74; an American expatriate in Iran credited with saving the pony-sized Caspian horse from extinction and championing an ancestral link to the prized Arabian breed (May 25)

Edwina Froehlich, 93; one of seven Chicago women who started La Leche League in 1956 to support others interested in breast-feeding (June 8)

June Walker, 74; second woman to lead the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (July 29)

Anthony J. Russo, 71; Rand Corp. staffer encouraged Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers (Aug. 6)

Darren “Bo” Taylor, 42; former L.A. gang member founded Unity One, a grass-roots organization combating gang violence (Aug. 11)

Del Martin, 87; longtime leader of lesbian rights movement who, with her partner Phyllis Lyon, became the first same-sex couple to marry in San Francisco in June (Aug. 27)

Abie Nathan, 81; Israeli peace activist and founder of pirate radio station (Aug. 27)

The Rev. Simmie Lee Harvey, 90; co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped plan the march on Washington, D.C., in 1963 (Sept. 10)

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John Burnside, 91; an early gay movement activist and longtime partner of the late gay rights pioneer Harry Hay (Sept. 14)

Philip E. Clapp, 54; a veteran U.S. environmental lobbyist and an often-quoted advocate of action on climate change (Sept. 17)

Dionicio Morales, 89; activist founded largest Latino human services group in the United States (Sept. 24)

Thomas “Bud” McDonald, 85; actor appeared in some of the “Our Gang” movies as a boy and later helped to found prominent alcohol and drug treatment programs in Southern California (Sept. 22)

Marian McQuade, 91; advocate for the elderly founded Grandparents Day (Sept. 26)

J. L. Chestnut Jr., 77; first black attorney in Selma, Ala., helped in battle for civil rights (Sept. 30)

Dorothy Green, 79; founder of Heal the Bay and a giant of the California environmental movement (Oct. 13)

Les Schobert, 61; a former general curator of the Los Angeles Zoo who advocated more open space and less isolation for elephants, chimpanzees and other animals in captivity (Oct. 14)

Lois Medlock, 82; a leading community activist who spent more than 50 years battling to preserve and improve her South Los Angeles neighborhood (Oct. 31)

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The Rev. Abraham Woods Jr., 80; a founder and longtime head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Birmingham, Ala. (Nov. 7)

James C. Warf, 91; Manhattan Project chemist became peace activist and USC professor (Nov. 7)

Bettie Page, 85; the brunet pinup queen whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s (Dec. 11)

Frederick Dumas, 92; school administrator was first director of Operation Head Start in Los Angeles County (Dec. 15)

The Rev. James Bevel, 72; key top lieutenant to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a force behind civil rights campaigns in the 1960s (Dec. 19)

Al Meyerhoff, 61; a leading environmental and labor lawyer in Southern California (Dec. 21)

Marshall Truehill Jr., 60; New Orleans activist protested the destruction of low-income housing after Hurricane Katrina (Dec. 26)

Dave Wheeler, 53; youngest councilman in Costa Mesa history whose fight with cancer was the subject of a column by The Times’ Steve Lopez (Dec.26)

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Christine Maggiore, 52; vocal AIDS skeptic denounced findings of mainstream research (Dec. 27)

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