Agents of change

ACTIVISTS

Successfully campaigned to have her family's Lloyd Wright-designed house in Reseda designated a historic-cultural landmark.

Captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Holocaust survivors to Palestine built support for Israel's founding.

Russian writer who was among the last wave of dissidents to be expelled from the Soviet Union.

North Carolina newspaper publisher and editor whose crusades against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s earned him a Pulitzer Prize.

Activist drew attention to the 1990s killings of several hundred women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and founded her region's first rape crisis center

Children's advocate, philanthropist and arts leader in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles community activist who with his wife documented a series of allegations that pushed City Councilman Louis R. Nowell to leave his post in the late 1970s.

Activist for HIV-infected people battled FDA to expedite drug testing.

Actress was member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre civil rights activist in L.A.

Dachau survivor emerged as tireless activist against Soviet repression of Jews.

Pacoima activist backed San Fernando Valley secession.

Civil rights activist in L.A.

South L.A. activist helped found the Watts Summer Festival

An exiled Polish philosopher who turned against his Marxist beliefs and became an intellectual leader of Poland's democracy movement.

Forceful advocate for the right of librarians to stock their shelves without fear of censorship.

Gay-rights activist who set up the first AIDS hotline in 1981, before the disease even had a name, and later ran influential AIDS service groups, committed suicide.

Cerebral secretary of defense who was vilified for prosecuting America's most controversial war and then devoted himself to helping the world's poorest nations.

Advocate for hearing impaired persons.

South African AIDS activist whose radio diaries of her struggle against the virus won her audiences and admiration around the world.

American Indian activist who was acquitted of killing two FBI agents in a 1975 shootout in South Dakota.

Aviation advocate who pushed to rejuvenate struggling small aircraft manufacturers in the 1990s.

Defiant factory worker inspired Academy Award-winning movie "Norma Rae."

Anti-apartheid activist in South Africa and one of the few whites to win the respect of the country's black majority.

Native American historian who pressed for repatriation of ancestral remains to tribes.

One of the first physicians to detect the AIDS epidemic and who became a national advocate for AIDS research, treatment and prevention.

Los Angeles activist who started Alternative Living for the Aged.

Physicist in the development of the atomic bomb who later became an arms-control advocate and founding chancellor of UC San Diego.

ADVANCED RIGHTS

Activist lawyer known for battling government injustice.

South African poet and former political prisoner who fought apartheid.

Human rights activist and expert on 1994 Rwanda genocide, died in plane crash near Buffalo, N.Y.

Deputy LAPD chief worked to fix department's image in minority communities.

Believed to be the oldest African American in the San Fernando Valley and a driving force for civil rights.

Veteran civil-rights lawyer who for 40 years fought for victims of police misconduct.

Advocate for migrants' rights at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Activist who championed the wrongly convicted young Mexican Americans in the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon trial.

Southern lawyer won numerous civil rights cases before Supreme Court.

Sportswriter for the American Communist Party newspaper the Daily Worker who crusaded to end segregation in major league baseball in the 1930s and '40s.

Advocate for the blind who helped craft legislation that expanded the civil rights of Americans with disabilities and aided in the launching of an audible newspaper service.

Argentine singer who emerged as an electrifying voice of conscience throughout Latin America for songs that championed social justice in the face of government repression.

Musician was instrumental in desegregating L.A. unions.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Environmentalist successfully pushed for the California Desert Protection Act

Environmental activist and founding member of the Clamshell Alliance led protests against Seabrook nuclear plan in New Hampshire.

Environmental lawyer who battled toxic waste facilities, mega-dairies, mining companies and other pollution threats in poor and minority communities.

Grass-roots community organizer and environmental activist in the north San Fernando Valley.

Attorney for Environmental Defense Fund who helped influence water policy in California.

Folk singer, songwriter and naturalist based in San Diego.

Only American alpine skier to win two gold medals in a single Olympics and who went on to become a leading conservationist in the Eastern Sierra.

Director of Izaak Walton League who developed a code of ethics governing outdoor activities.

Norwegian philosopher developed concept of "deep ecology" which suggests that the living environment as a whole has the same rights as humans do to flourish.

State senator was among first Latino politicians to fight for environmental protection.

Orange County environmental activist whose causes included the preservation of the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

FEMINISTS

Broke into the male-dominated sport of bullfighting at 13 and became one of the world's first famous female matadors.

First woman elected to the Senate without family connections.

Wife of hockey great Gordie Howe and one of the first female sports agents.

First black woman to serve as a police commissioner in the U.S. when she stepped into that role in 1971 in Los Angeles.

Lawsuit in the mid-1970s established a divorced woman's right to revert to her birth name.

Known as the "Mother of Judo" partly for her role in bringing women's judo to the Olympic Games.

First woman in North America to become a licensed ship captain.

One of the first female combat correspondents covering the Vietnam War.

First woman to win a Sports Car Club of America national championship and a participant in the original "Cannonball Run."

Longtime CBS executive was one of first women to get through entertainment industry's glass ceiling.

Feminist author and scholar was a founding member of NOW.

First Native American woman to be selected as state district judge in U.S.

A well-connected political power broker who founded the first major Washington lobbying firm to be led by a woman.

First woman to manage a major Las Vegas Strip casino.

Hall of Fame women's basketball coach at North Carolina State who won more than 700 games while earning fans with her fight against breast cancer.

INNOVATORS

Writer and producer helped pioneer the made-for-TV format and launch a generation of young directors.

Businessman invented the Quarter Pounder during his long career with McDonalds.

Crusty ex-cowboy and longtime mayor of Palm Springs helped turn the desert outpost into a destination for Hollywood's elite.

Cotton magnate created California's first giant agribusiness and one of the nation's largest farming empires.

Pioneering camera effects artist for Walt Disney productions.

Father of the Grammy Awards telecast, he convinced network bosses to air the annual ceremony.

Yacht designer and author.

Physician who is credited with saving millions of lives by pioneering the use of cocktails of antibiotics to treat tuberculosis.

USC professor of dentistry developed program to help patients overcome fear of dental work.

Self-made millionaire who founded Habitat for Humanity.

Cardiologist who co-invented the Swan-Ganz catheter for monitoring heart conditions and one of the first physicians to use clot-busting enzymes to open blocked arteries that cause heart attacks.

Former chairman of Icelandair pioneered cheap flights between Europe and the United States.

Former marketing vice president for Netscape who pioneered commercial use of the World Wide Web.

Educator co-founded Elderhostel program.

NBC reporter pioneered economic news on television.

Pasadena orthdontist helped establish phone use for the deaf.

Computer scientist and Stanford University professor who developed new ways to search enormous databases and mentored the founders of Google.

The trained engineer founded a tableware firm in 1954 to introduce Scandinavian design to Americans.

The virtuoso guitarist, VARIETY and relentless innovator who helped pave the way for rock 'n' roll.

Businessman changed the retail industry by founding the landmark warehouse chain Price Club.

Recreation league director who pioneered T-ball as an organized youth sport in the 1950s.

Pioneer in field of suicide prevention.

Superior Court judge pioneered civil referee program in his Glendale courthouse to reduce case load.

California psychiatrist whose struggle with remarriage issues led him to co-found a national organization to advocate for stepfamilies.

INVENTORS

One of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game.

German inventor of Playmobil toys that were the rage in the 1970s.

Aerospace scientist invented Taser stun gun.

Rand Corp. mathematician and inventor whose near-blindness led him to help others with limited sight.

Invented vibrating Magic Fingers bed.

Built the first kidney dialysis machine and the first successful artificial heart.

Inventor of an implanted electrical pump for heart-failure patients.

Aeronautical engineer considered the father of modern hang gliding for inventing a flexible wing in 1948.

Inventor whose idea to put air-cushioned bags in the soles of shoes became Nike's Air Sole technology.

Co-developed the Kevlar vest which saved lives of more than 3,000 law enforcement officers.

Aeronautical innovations help airplanes fly farther and faster using less fuel.

LITIGANTS

First inmate to use a federal civil rights law to sue for DNA testing that not only cleared him of a Louisiana rape conviction but also sent his brother to prison for the same crime.

A Florida pediatrician and lifelong smoker whose tobacco lawsuit resulted in the largest punitive damage award in U.S. history.

She revealed unsafe practices she saw as a Northrop Corp. electronics technician in the '80s. The firm paid fines of $17 million.

U.S. District Judge whose rulings shattered old Texas.

Model who pitched Winston cigarettes and later sued tobacco industry, dies of throat cancer.

Ex-lover of Rock Hudson won multimillion-dollar settlement from Hudson's estate.

Her claims as the onetime live-in girlfriend of actor Lee Marvin led to a landmark ruling that established the legal concept of palimony.

Flamboyant lawyer who won billions in verdicts against makers of breast implants, pharmaceuticals and tobacco products.

Radical lawyer helped defend Angela Davis.

REFORMERS

Brought democracy to the Philippines as president

Engineer-turned-consumer advocate whose campaign against sugary cereals led manufacturers to disclose and improve the nutritional value of their products.

Unhappy divorce led him to help write California's pioneering joint custody law.

A geophysicist and mathematician whose statistical research and expert testimony led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that eliminated sex bias in newspaper want ads.

Former Catholic priest wrote best-selling book calling for reform in the church.

Former Black Panther convicted of murder later led successful program to rehabilitate ex-cons.

Character actor who was well known in the Alcoholics Anonymous movement in Los Angeles.

Legendary probation officer in East Los Angeles guided more than 5,000 youths to clean up their lives.

Advocate for the mentally retarded helped bring people with special needs into the mainstream of American life.

Risked censure in the United Methodist Church for appointing his denomination's first openly gay pastor in 1982.

New York-based journalist whose family tragedy helped lead to changes in the number of hours medical residents work.

SOCIAL CATALYSTS

Bishop who advanced a tradition of social activism at Pasadena's All Saints Episcopal Church in the 1960s.

Art photographer whose pictures of everyday life in New York City's Harlem neighborhood helped clarify the black experience for a wider audience.

A bestselling author of popular black fiction who shattered barriers by writing about gay characters.

California photographer admired for his stirring images of migrant workers, endangered landscapes and the Black Panthers.

Educator was founding director of Whittier College's Center of Mexican American Affairs.

Educator and co-founder of groups promoting science education for minority students and advanced degrees for African Americans.

Educator who turned a Compton school in a model of racial harmony and integrated its faculty years before the court rulings and civil rights protests of the 1960s.

Trailblazing African American cinematographer whose credits include the landmark 1970s TV miniseries Roots.

His severe injuries in Disneyland ride at age 4 helped put spotlight on amusement park safety.