10 Pennsylvania activists you should know about
These Pennsylvania activists might inspire you to fight for change.
From the eastern side to the western half of the commonwealth, activists in the state have long pushed for social change. Read on to learn about the legendary civil rights, environmental, and labor activists in the state, as well as some Pennsylvania organizers who are currently working for a better world.
1. Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson was born near Pittsburgh and went on to inspire the environmental movement as a scientist and writer. Her 1962 book Silent Spring outlined the harmful effects of chemicals and pesticides, especially DDT, on the natural world. The book—which asked readers to imagine a “silent spring” where birds, killed by pesticides, couldn’t sing—is credited with helping to spur the modern environmental movement and even the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
One of Pittsburgh’s “Three Sisters,” the three identical gold bridges that span the Allegheny River, is named after Carson.
2. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is considered the flagship newspaper of Pittsburgh. But members of the paper’s unions have been on strike for more than two years—since October 2022, when workers walked off the job over an unfair labor practice complaint. Staff had been working without a contract since 2017. Currently, the work stoppage is the longest ongoing strike in the country.
While they’re fighting for a contract, many members of the striking newsroom staff have started their own outlet—Pittsburgh Union Progress—so that they can continue their reporting. Meanwhile, the Post-Gazette has brought on new hires to replace striking workers.
3. Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a journalist and political activist who has been imprisoned in the Pennsylvania state prison system since 1982, primarily in solitary confinement and on death row (his death sentence was overturned in 2011). He was convicted of the 1981 killing of a police officer in Philadelphia but has maintained his innocence for the past 44 years. Amnesty International has called for a retrial in his case, writing that “the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures.”
While incarcerated, Mumia has published books and articles on the death penalty, mass incarceration, and racial bias in the criminal justice system. His case has inspired generations of activists seeking criminal justice reform.
4. Starbucks Workers United
The unionization campaign for Starbucks workers continues, with baristas in Pennsylvania—particularly in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia—recently striking for better wages and working conditions. In mid-March, members of Starbucks Workers United walked off the job at a number of locations of the coffee shop, including in Pittsburgh.
In 2022, Pittsburgh worker Tori Tambellini wrote an op-ed for The Keystone about how Starbucks illegally fired her for union organizing; she was later reinstated after a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. And in 2023, a Philadelphia barista explained to The Keystone how Starbucks retaliated against unionizing workers.
5. Cecil B. Moore
Cecile B. Moore was a legendary Philadelphia civil rights activist. A former Marine, Moore became a lawyer who fought for civil rights while representing poor Black Philadelphians, a bold leader of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and a member of the Philadelphia City Council. He also led desegregation efforts at the area’s Girard College and is remembered for his fiery, uncompromising rhetoric.
Moore’s legacy lives on in Philadelphia with the name of a North Philly neighborhood and its surrounding institutions.
6. Alma Speed Fox
Alma Speed Fox was a civil rights and social justice leader in Pittsburgh at a time when women were often delegated to less-important roles, particularly Black women like Fox. She became executive director of the local NAACP and also founded Freedom Unlimited, a Pittsburgh-area group promoting racial and economic justice.
As part of the NAACP, she helped start the United Negro Protest Committee in order to enable NAACP members to protest and demonstrate in front of businesses to urge them to hire Black workers without risking the NAACP being sued. “I was there, but in those days women were not recognized. They did the work, but they were not recognized,” she recalled in a 2011 interview. Fox said that she gave a lot to the NAACP, but she got a lot back too, explaining, “You’re trying to get justice for all people, and you are one of those all people.” Fox died in 2022.
7. Philadelphia Whole Foods workers
In January of this year, workers at Whole Foods in Center City Philadelphia voted to form the country’s first union of the Amazon-owned grocery chain. The workers joined the United Food and Commercial Workers after a campaign was launched to win better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
“We are incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we hope our success inspires workers at other Whole Foods locations and beyond to stand up for their rights,” the Whole Foods workers said in a statement upon their win. “We know this is just the beginning, and we are committed to fighting for the dignity, respect, and fairness that all workers deserve.”
8. Ya Fav Trashman
Former Philadelphia sanitation worker and current clean streets activist Terrill Haigler is more commonly known as Ya Fav Trashman. In late 2024, he acquired his own trash truck and is able to employ returning citizens in junk removal and trash pickup efforts around the city. Haigler is committed to ridding Philly of litter and making the city cleaner. “You see a problem, you get together as a community and we solve it, and we get rid of the problem,” he said in an interview earlier this year.
9. The Molly Maguires
Back when anthracite coal reigned in northeastern Pennsylvania and immigrants largely manned the mines, many Irish immigrants fought back against inhumane bosses. It’s likely that immigrants brought a secret society with them from Ireland—the Molly Maguires.
Conflicts between workers and mine owners led to a show of industrial power through which the coal companies’ private police force arrested and company attorneys prosecuted miners, accusing them of violence and murder as part of the “Mollies.” Between 1876 and 1878, 20 men—likely innocent of crimes—were hanged in the coal region.
You can see a historical marker about the Molly Maguires at Jim Thorpe’s old Carbon County Jail, now the Old Jail Museum, where four of the men were executed. A similar marker exists as the Schuylkill County Prison, where six men were hanged. In 1979, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp pardoned one of the executed miners after the urging of his descendants. Shapp said the trials were a miscarriage of justice and that “We can be proud of the men known as the Molly Maguires because they defiantly faced allegations which attempted to make trade unionism a criminal conspiracy.”
10. Maggie Kuhn
Philadelphian Maggie Kuhn was the founder of the group the Gray Panthers, which advocates for seniors in the U.S. The campaign was started when Kuhn was forced to retire from a job she loved at age 65, which was then the mandatory retirement age.
Since the launch of the grassroots group, it has been instrumental in banning the mandatory retirement age, improving accessibility, reforming nursing homes, and generally improving the lives of U.S. seniors.
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