Picking the Greatest American Progressives

When I was a sophomore years back at City College in New York I read a book that changed my life. It was Critics and Crusaders by historian Charles A. Madison, a collection of biographical sketches of Americans who made extraordinary contributions to promoting freedom and human rights. It included many people who, at that time, I had heard little or nothing about, like abolitionist Wendell Phillips, populist politician John Peter Altgeld, radical socialist Daniel De Leon, and writer-women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller. These people implanted themselves in my mind and were a force that helped lead me into a career doing grassroots community organizing and then teaching and researching methods of social change for almost a half-century.