For me it has to be Malcom X, I’m not American, but I read his autobiography when I was young and it left a life long impression on me about justice and resiliency. He grew up in an extremely oppressive society, his dad was murdered and his mother was sent to the loony bin and he was clearly lost and traumatized. When he went to jail he was smart enough to be like what the hell, why am I here? Educating himself and channeling his energy into caring about others and justice transformed him into one of the most powerful and well respected leaders of his time.

He is often denigrated by Americans as violent and contrasted with King Jr. but by all accounts whenever he was in a position to project violence he chose de-escalation like during the Harlem riots and saved lives as there were people in the US in positions of military power who would have loved an excuse to do to them what they did to the indigenous across the entire country.

He was angry but principled and really set a template for me about how to be a leader and help me process my own anger and channel it into something more positive.

  • CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
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    Hans and Sophie Scholl, brother-and-sister members of the White Rose resistance movement within nazi Germany, who were executed for producing a series of anti-nazi propaganda leaflets at the ages of 24 and 21 respectively. I always have a soft spot for people who use art and language to combat fascism, and Sophie in particular had a real way with words:

    The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

    And her final words before being executed:

    How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

    NB: I should note that there’s a bit of conflict about this, as the nazi executioners were not meticulous record keepers. But it seems that it was either this or “Your heads will also roll”, but either way she apparently said both and either one is great IMO.

  • rayyy@lemmy.world
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    Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, “The Man Who Saved America.”, hands down. He single-handedly defeated a fascist overthrow of the U.S. government in 1933. AKA, the Devil Dog. He is not in history books because fascist are still in control.

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    John Stark, one of the rescuers of the Donner Party.

    In Summit Valley the remaining rescuers discussed what to do and took a vote to save only two of the children in Starved Camp. That might have been all they could manage. The others would have to stay behind.

    John Stark, above, could not abide that. That meant that nine people, mostly children, would die on the mountain, exposed to the elements down in a very deep hole in the snow. John Stark decided he would save all nine, “Already shouldering a backpack with provisions, blankets, and an axe, he picked up one or two of the smaller children, carried them a little ways, then went back for the others. Then he repeated the whole process again and again and again. To galvanize morale, he laughed and told the youngsters they were so light from months of mouse-sized rations that he could carry them all simultaneously, if only his back were broad enough.” Once they were out of the snow he would eat and rest he said, but not before. He saved all nine. That is extraordinary and that is heroism. It was also heroism he never got contemporary credit for.

    • LowtierComputer@lemmy.world
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      That’s nuts. I’ve got to look up how far he carried them.

      I recent did a snow hike with poor gear, intentionally, and boy gee is that an incredibly draining and slow exercise.

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    Marquis de Lafayette

    Fought in American revolution, key figure in French.

    Born into aristocracy them said fuck that let’s go see what liberty is about. Tried his best even through events spun out of control. Always stuck up for the people despite his position.

    Abolitionist. Tried to get Washington to free slaves as example, left Lafayette on read.

    “If I had known that by fighting for America I was creating a nation of slaves, I would have never raised my sword.” - butchered to a certain degree but sentiment remains.

    Guy was pretty neat, found himself in some of the most important events I’m history and stuck to his ideals his whole life. Admirable.

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    Cassius Marcellus Clay was the son of one of the wealthiest slave owners in America and grew up to be the single most influential and most dangerous abolitionist in American history. He had so many duels with slavers, and won so many of them, that he became statistically the most dangerous duelist to ever exist in North America.

    When his cousin, Kentucky senator Henry Clay ran for president, Cassius wanted to come campaign for him down South. Henry vetoed this out of concerns that Cassius would come down south and duel so many slave owners to the death that it could be considered election interference.

    The Fat Electrician has an excellent video on the life and times of Clay, I highly recommend it. And if you’re wondering, yes, Muhammad Ali was named after this Cassius Clay.

    • can_you_change_your_username@fedia.io
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      The Fat Electrician’s video was great but he I feel left out a couple of things that I think are important to add. First is that he used his influence in the Russian court to advocate for the end of the surf system. Slavery was his primary focus but he actively opposed all forms of indentured servitude and was involved in the freeing of more forced laborers than any other single individual in history. Also he negotiated the purchase of Alaska.

      Second is Clay’s Battalion. When the Civil War began Washington DC was undefended and there was an order to evacuate because of fears that Virginia would get soldiers there before the Federal Army. Clay was in Washington to be appointed as the ambassador to Russia and, during the evacuation, he started grabbing men off the street to defend the capital. He organized about 300 defenders and occupied the White House and the Navy Yard until federal troops arrived to take over.

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        It sounds by all accounts like he went over to Russia and just continued being the exact same man that he was back home. And the Russians of the time loved him.

        I aspire to have principles that I stick to with the gusto that Cassius Clay exhibited. I didn’t even know about Clay’s Battalion but I believe it on sight because that sounds like exactly what he would do in that situation.

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    Enkidu. Dude was pivotal in providing companionship to the king that stopped, or at least slowed, his general rape and molestation of the lower classes.

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    King was largely reviled in his time. The almost universally loved King of today is a sanitized, defanged, ahistorical version. Mandela is another example, but there are many.

    V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution:

    What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of waging a predatory war!

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      I dunno know what the Marx quite has to do with King. Very different kinds of revolution, the main one being non violent.

      Furthermore is kind of tragic what happened with Lenin’s legacy, his thought being blunted similarly into stalinist autocracy.

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        I dunno know what the Marx quite has to do with King. Very different kinds of revolution, the main one being non violent.

        MLK Jr.'s march was more violent than the BLM protests were, and MLK Jr. was the moderate option compared to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. MLK Jr.'s radicalism is intentionally blunted and obscured.

        Furthermore is kind of tragic what happened with Lenin’s legacy, his thought being blunted similarly into stalinist autocracy

        It was more Kruschev onward where the Soviet system started to meaningfully diverge from Lenin.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          Quit trying to pretend “tankie” means “communist” and not “authoritarian bootlicker.”

          As soon as Liberals stop using it to mean Communist.

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          Tankie was originally a Trotskyist term for the people that supported tolling tanks into Hungary in the 50s.

          Of course, the term “authoritarian bootlicker” is a funny one, as its purveyors have a habit of recycling and promulgating the propaganda pushes of the US State Department and opposition to that tendency is often what gets one labelled a tankie. Like when MLK spoke positively of Castro’s revolution or a Vietnam united under Ho Chi Minh rather than targeted for bombing by the US. Though I am being generous: so many people using the term are so politically illiterate that they apply it to basically anything vaguely left that they disagree with.

          I think you’d be calling him a tankie.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            You’re correct about the definition of “tankie,” but you’re taking MLK way the Hell out of context to falsely accuse him of being one.

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              That’s twice in a row you’ve just made something up on my behalf rather than criticize what I actually said. The first was that I allegedly say tankie means communist (I obviously disagree) and now you say I am calling MLK a tankie, lmao.

              For your benefit, I will remind you that I said you would have called him one, as in back when he was alive and organizing. This is for the reasons I already stated and that you have not responded to in any way.

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        Even if the ideals of the rebellion were founded in good intentions, fighting against the newborn Socialist State played into counter-revolutionary hands and aided the fascist White Army in the middle of a brutal civil war. The Anarchists placed ideals over material reality in this instance. It was also led by Petrichenko, who one year prior tried to join the White Army, and joined the White Army after the rebellion failed and the sailors turned on the rebellion.

        Had it been a time of peace with no internal or external pressure and the same measures employed, my feelings would be different on the matter, but the facts are that the stated aims and the methods employed by the rebels were at direct contradiction in the middle of a civil war.

        It’s not like Lenin hated Anarchists especially, Kropotkin was given a large State funeral and the largest rail station, Kropotkinskaya, was named after him. The Kronstadt Rebellion also factored in the transition between War Communism into the NEP.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            Interesting to hear the Anarchist’s perspective, still doesn’t change my analysis. The Anarchists weren’t simply “true leftists” and the bolsheviks “fake leftists,” they disagreed entirely on Marxism vs Anarchism and as such some Anarchists decided to take up arms against the Communists. It’s a complicated situation, but it’s also important to note that many Anarchists joined the Bolsheviks, it wasn’t a case where 100% of Anarchists detested the Marxists.

            If I were to be equally as disingenuous, I would ask you your feelings on Stepan Petrichenko, who tried to join the fascists and succeeded in joining the fascists after failing to overthrow the Communists during the Kronstadt Rebellion. I won’t, though, because that’s pointless. I suggest you read accounts from the Marxists as well as the Anarchists, the Marxists were not guilty of failing to be Anarchists because they never intended to be.

            • index@sh.itjust.works
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              If I were to be equally as disingenuous, I would ask you your feelings on Stepan Petrichenko

              I asked your thoughts on Lenin involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion and in the executions of anarchists, i didn’t claim Stepan Petrichenko to be my hero.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                I answered. The vast amount that Lenin contributed to Marxist Theory and his vital role in creating the first Socialist State, which uplifted hundreds of millions of people and supported numerous anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements the world over, is absolutely worthy of praise. He managed to contribute meaningfully to Leftist theory and put it to practice.

                The subset of Anarchists that decided to fight the world’s first Socialist State, rather than join the other Anarchists in supporting it, were certainly not innocent, as proven by high-profile leaders being aligned with the fascist White Army.

                I just find it disingenuous that you use Lenin’s indirect involvement with suppressing a rebellion led by a fascist against a newborn Socialist state during the Civil War it was still solidifying its existence to be disingenuous. What was your purpose in asking? “Just asking questions?” If I am mistaken, please let me know.

                • index@sh.itjust.works
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                  The subset of Anarchists that decided to fight the world’s first Socialist State, rather than join the other Anarchists in supporting it, were certainly not innocent

                  Some of them were fighting against a government that engaged “anarchists” in this fashion: “the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery “liquidated” the whole organisation”

                  You claim Lenin to be your hero from history so i asked your thoughts on his involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion which was suppressed with blood. It’s the first example that came to my mind of one of his shady actions that i personally wouldn’t consider heroic.

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    Heroes have a way of always disappointing. There’s people like Malcom X, John Brown or Thomas Paine who I’d say were the good guys of their time, but I really try not to lionise them beyond the flawed humans they were.