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Aguon, an indigenous Chamoru human rights activist from Guam, is using legal advocacy, critical scholarship and community organizing to protect the cultural integrity and environment of Pacific Islanders in the face of massive waves of development and militarization.

Founder of Workers' Awaaz; courageous organizer of immigrant and domestic workers subjected to cruelty, abuse, and exploitation.

Co-founder and Executive Director of People Organized in Defense of the Earth and her Resources (PODER); leader in the struggle to raise public awareness of environmental, community, and health effects of toxic waste.

Salvadoran refugee, leader of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights In LA's Day Labor Union, Pablo Alvarado has transformed street-corner hiring sites into innovative labor centers and spearheaded an organizing network to close the gap between undocumented workers and organized labor nationwide.

Executive Director of the North Panola Community Resource Development Corp.; President of Panola County Board of Supervisors; organizer of cooperative ventures including affordable housing, banking services, water supply, and a federal enterprise on behalf of his underdeveloped community.

Driving force of the Watsonville Human Rights Committee; adult high school teacher; activist for labor rights, social justice, better housing, and improved access to education for the Mexican-American and Mexican communities.

Co-Director of Justice for Families; a passionate leader working to transform families from victims of the prison epidemic to leaders of the movement for fairness and opportunity for all youth.

Founder of Committee for the Heights-Inwood Homeless; recognized for her dedication to seeking and implementing solutions to the problems of homelessness in urban America.

Documentary filmmaker; recognized for her depiction of political and personal courage in The Restless Conscience, a film about resistance to Hitler within Nazi Germany.

Advocate for cultural identity; community education activist; outpatient counselor for Centro de Anistad; recognized for her advocacy over 30 years for the cultural identity and autonomy of her Yaqui and Latino community.

Former U .S. Marine Captain and founding director of the Service Women's Action Network, Bhagwati speaks out about misogyny, racism and homophobia in the armed services, advocates for equal opportunity at the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and works to heal women veterans and service members suffering from trauma, abuse and homelessness.

Physician, medical scholar and professor; recognized for his tireless advocacy for the rights and fundamental freedoms of Knaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiians) and other indigenous peoples.

Founding director of Resources Information Help for the Disadvantaged and co-founder of the Community Restoration Campaign, Branch-Kennedy has taken on the full range of obstacles encountered by prisoners and their families and lobbies for restoration of parole and voting rights in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Today, a dozen anti-immigrant organizations—with combined annual budgets of more than $15 million—maintain national profiles. Encouraged by their virulent rhetoric, between January 2005 and January 2007, new state and local anti-immigrant organizations increased in number by 600 percent.

Chicago community organizer; founder and President of Woodlawn East Community & Neighbors; recognized for advocacy that has led to jobs, housing and education for thousands in southwest Chicago.

Executive director of grassroots anti-poverty group Working for Equality and Economic Liberation and legislator in Montana House of Representatives, Caferro is a powerful voice for increasing the minimum wage and reforming the healthcare system.

Recognizing that systematic corruption was poisoning the civic life of his community and obstructing economic revival, James Callen co-founded the Citizen's League of Greater Youngstown and has waged a courageous 20-year battle to break the stranglehold of the mob on local politics and commerce.

Founder and Director of Raising Others' Children; recognized for her nurturing and development of a support system for inter-generational kinship care and empowerment.

Co-founder and President of Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles; recognized for her contribution to social, economic, and environmental equity in Los Angeles minority and low-income neighborhoods.

Principal of H.L. Harshman Junior High School; recognized for her dedication to education reform and racial justice in the urban schools on the Near East Side of Indianapolis.

Staff director of CAAAV Youth Leadership Project since the age of 19, Chhoum harnesses the energy of her young peers to remedy urban poverty in a Southeast Asian immigrant community that lost much of its adult generation.

Community organizer; co-founder and Director of the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond; recognized for his efforts to combat racism in America.

Founder of Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and the Sudan; a courageous voice in the United States against contemporary human bondage.

Carrie and Mary Dann, grandmothers and founders of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, have withstood decades of hardship, hostility, corporate greed and government harassment to assert the land rights and human rights of Native Americans.

Founder and Director of the Southern Prison Ministry; co-founder and partner of the Open Door Community; recognized for her service to the inhabitants of Georgia's death row and the Atlanta homeless.

Founding co-director of the Community Water Center, DeAnda educates and organizes low-income residents of the San Joaquin Valley to become advocates for clean, affordable drinking water.

By the sheer power of her personality, Geraldine DeGraffenreidt, foster mother of many and maternal outreach worker for the Chatham County, NC, Public Health Department, has not only persuaded scores of unwed mothers to take advantage of county health services but has also encouraged the young men who fathered their children to become productive participants in their childrens' lives.

Founder and Director of the Council for Unity; recognized for creating a model cross-cultural program in public schools to defuse gang violence, fight racism, and redirect the lives of New York urban youth.

In a conservative religious environment, Marian creates strategic partnerships to transform the hostile culture toward LGBT youth who face family rejection, homelessness and high suicide rates.

Founder and Executive Director of the Healthy Babies Project; nurse and provider of health education and clinical services for pregnant women and teens, especially those struggling with substance abuse.

CEO of One Degree; fervent, innovative advocate to ensure all families have access to services they need to overcome poverty.

Coordinator of National Native American Prisoners' Rights Coalition; Director of Navajo Nations Corrections Project; advocate for prisoners' religious freedoms.

Businessman and community activist; recognized for his leadership in creating partnerships among the community, the private sector, and the city government to preserve and revitalize Chicago's West Side neighborhoods.

Police officer, community organizer, and co-founder of 100 Black in Law Enforcement; activist on behalf of his precinct's neighborhood residents and outspoken critic of police brutality and police racism.

Founder of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, Guajardo has enabled low-wage Latino workers in Chicago to gain passage of the strongest state wage-protection legislation in the country and to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in owed wages.

Violinist, teacher, founder of Opus 118; recognized for her commitment to broadening educational opportunities of East Harlem's public school children through the arts.

Calyton Guyton, founder of the Rose Street Community Center, put his life on the line to reclaim his East Baltimore neighborhood from the degradation of drugs, violence, despair and neglect.

Community organizer; Minister of Plymouth Congregational Church; recognized for his efforts on behalf of minority neighborhoods, including advocacy for law enforcement consistent with constitutional safeguards.

Director, Movement for Justice in El Barrio; an organizer who empowers and fosters leadership in NYC’s low-income communities to fight oppression.

Founder of the Cambodian Documentation Commission; recognized for his work in the cause of international human rights in Southeast Asia.

Ingenious organizer for Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, Haleemah Henderson has brought affordable banking services and financial literacy to welfare recipients and others victimized by loan sharks, pawnshops and unscrupulous check-cashing businesses.

Founding co-director of Added Value, an inner-city farm and market project that fosters the leadership and business skills of at-risk teenagers and provides safe space, opportunity and fresh foods to the isolated and underserved neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Founder of Righteous Men's Commission; a leader of Anacostia's ongoing struggle for civic participation, mutual respect and unified action on issues of common concern.

Leader, organizer, mentor and strategist, Jimenez continues her four decades of work to build the capacity of community stakeholders and to enable new leadership to take root and take charge of the long struggle for immigrants' rights and dignity.

Co-founder of the Black Mesa Water Coalition and member of the Navajo Green Economy Commission, Johns is working to replace the royalties and environmental degradation of fossil fuel industries on Native American land with sustainable initiatives based on traditional indigenous values and practices.

Founder of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence; leader of The Silent March, a memorial to gun victims; leader of grassroots activism on behalf of gun control.

Co-founder and Director of the Detention Resource Project; friend of isolated immigrants, including children and asylum seekers detained under severe prison conditions; organizer of volunteer legal assistance and social services.

Educator and community organizer; recognized for his commitment to and support of urban youth in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood.