133
submitted 4 weeks ago by IceHouse@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

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.

this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
133 points (97.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43719 readers
1467 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS