Albert Schweitzer

(1875-1965), German-born theologian, philosopher, musicologist, medical missionary, and Nobel laureate.

The son of a Lutheran pastor, Schweitzer was born in Kaysersberg, Upper Alsace, Germany (now Haut-Rhin Department, France). Schweitzer was educated at the universities of Strasbourg, Paris, and Berlin and received three advanced degrees from Strasbourg—a doctorate in philosophy (1899), a licentiate (a higher degree than a doctorate) in theology (1900), and a doctorate in medicine (1913). He was ordained as the curate of the Lutheran Church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg in 1900; a year later he became principal of the theological seminary there. In music he gained fame as an organist and authority on organ construction. His best-known musicological work, Johann Sebastian Bach, was published in French in 1905 and rewritten in German in 1908; an English translation appeared in 1911. In this work Schweitzer emphasized the religious nature of Bach’s music and advocated the simple, undistorted style of performing Bach’s works that was accepted afterward as the standard type of presentation.

At the age of 30 Schweitzer turned away from the successful career he had established in theology and music. From 1905 to 1913 he studied medicine and surgery with the intention of serving humanity by becoming a medical missionary in Africa. In 1913 he and his wife, a trained nurse, went to Lambaréné, French Equatorial Africa (now in Gabon), and set up a hospital; there he cared for some 2,000 patients during his first year. For two years during World War I (1914-1918) Schweitzer and his wife, both German nationals, were interned in a prison camp in France. He wrote during that period two volumes of a projected philosophical study of civilization, The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics (both 1923; trans. 1923). Concerned in these volumes with ethical thought in history, Schweitzer contended that modern civilization is in decay because it lacks the will to love. He suggested that people should develop a philosophy based on what he termed “reverence for life,” embracing with compassion all forms of life.

Schweitzer remained in Europe for several years after World War I ended. He returned to Africa in 1924, without his wife or their daughter, Rhena, who had been born in 1919. The African climate and internment had left his wife in poor health. In spite of many obstacles, he rebuilt his hospital and equipped it to provide care for thousands of Africans, including 300 lepers. He returned frequently to Europe to lecture, give organ recitals, visit his family, and raise money for his hospital; in 1949 he visited the United States. In 1952 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Schweitzer died in Lambaréné on September 4, 1965, by which time Rhena had joined him in Africa. She took over the administration of the hospital after his death. Schweitzer’s other works include the theological studies Indian Thought and Its Development (1935; trans. 1936), The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity (1967; trans. 1968), and the autobiographical Out of My Life and Thought (1931; trans. 1933).

Schweitzer was world renowned as a musician, ethical philosopher, and humanitarian. The variety of his interests was unified largely by the profound religious meaning he found in the natural world as well as in all of the accomplishments of humankind.

“A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.”

Albert Schweitzer

“Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.”

Albert Schweitzer

“You don't live in a world all alone. Your brothers are here too.”

Albert Schweitzer

“You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. “

Albert Schweitzer

 David Bornstein

After extensive travels in Bangladesh, India, Brazil, North America and Eastern Europe, David Bornstein has emerged as a leading expert in the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?

Bornstein draws parallels between the characteristics and styles of both the business entrepreneur and the social entrepreneur, while itemizing the qualitative differences. What types of investors will have the 20-year vision and the patience to see "social return on investment?" What are the vast entrepreneurial opportunities that emerge in the wake of disaster?

In light of the successes and failures of recovery efforts after hurricane Katrina and the tsunami, Bornstein calls for a change in the operating principles of traditional structures, such as government services and foundations. These changes include more transparency, easier communications, better performance metrics, and more accurate assessments of what the impact of those organizations have on us -- as individuals, as families, and as communities.

The author describes a compelling near-term future: "Far-thinking business people, who recognize that in order to have businesses that are going to continue to be successful twenty years from now, we can't have a generation of children grow up illiterate; we can't completely muck up the environment; we can't continue to have millions and millions of people who are unhealthy, living without health insurance, and so forth; we can't continue to have this kind of inequality that leads to a disillusion of the social fabric."

Given the preponderance of bad news in the media, we could be forgiven for believing that no progress is being made in fixing the social, economic and political ills that plague some of the world's most vulnerable people. But good things are happening, and in some surprising places. To find out about them, we should all spend a little time with David Bornstein.

How to Change the World

David tells compelling stories about how, with determination and innovation, individuals and organizations around the globe are achieving massive and meaningful changes through social entrepreneurship. Along the way he highlights the messages, strategies and inspirations, creative ways of using limited resources that have made these individuals or groups highly successful in their endeavors. He defines the qualities of successful social entrepreneurs and their particular patterns of innovation or their "lenses" that allow them to identify opportunity where others might read road blocks or insurmountable challenges. He closes his talk by emphasizing the through lines, the common threads that link these diverse, successful social entrepreneurs.

On October 25th 2007, writer David Bornstein received the 2007 Human Security Award for his pioneering work on social entrepreneurship. The Human Security Award is given annually by the Coalition Advocating Human Security (CAHS) to recognize an individual who is working to protect and empower the world’s most vulnerable people. CAHS is a program of the University of California Irvine’s Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (CUSA). 

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is a modest man with much to be immodest about. In the mid-1970s, he started providing small loans to the poor of Bangladesh and in 1983 he established a bank, which he called Grameen (“of the village” in Bengali). Grameen flourished, and now employs 25,000 people. Every year it lends over $500m in small loans, primarily to women. This “microcredit” model has been copied all over the developing world, and in 2006 Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize.

Not content with setting up one business, Yunus has created a series of companies under the Grameen brand name to provide cheap goods and services to the poor: mobile phones, student loans, knitwear, a textile mill, an eye clinic and, most recently, a joint venture with the French company Danone to sell low-cost yoghurt to rural children. Yunus has also written a manifesto for his style of entrepreneurship, which he calls “social business.” This, he claims, will make it possible to put an end to world poverty, and on a shorter timescale than most people think achievable. It is, then, a very big idea, even if he is only partly right about the scale of the benefits involved.

James P. Grant

Grant conceived of and orchestrated a global campaign to stop the needless deaths of millions of children each year from easily preventable illnesses. The "child survival and development revolution" that he launched in 1983 mobilized massive international support to bring cheap, life-saving medicines and technologies to children in developing countries including vaccinations and oral rehydration therapy to prevent death from diarrhoeal dehydration, the single biggest killer of children. By 2000, this revolution for children was estimated to have saved 25 million young lives.

The energetic advocate for children James P. Grant (1922 - 1995) became UNICEF's third Executive Director in January 1980.

Grant was a visionary who insisted on strategic action and measurable results. He led UNICEF in a major campaign to combat what he called a "global silent emergency," the deaths of millions of children each year from easily preventable illnesses. This 'child survival and development revolution', launched in 1983, mobilized international, national and local initiatives to bring life-saving, cost-effective techniques to children in developing countries. These included immunization, oral rehydration therapy to prevent death from diarrhoeal dehydration, and breastfeeding. By the end of the 1980s, this revolution for children was estimated to have saved 12 million young lives.

As the 1980's drew to a close, Grant helped expedite another milestone for children, the 1989 adoption by the UN General Assembly of the ground-breaking treaty The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force as a part of international law within a year.

The growing global support for the Convention and for children's rights and well-being inspired UNICEF to become a driving force behind the1990 World Summit for Children, at the time the largest-ever gathering of Heads of State and Government. Summit participants created a global Plan of Action and established concrete goals for children's health, education, well-being and protection. To help add substance to the promises made and to further mobilize the world's leadership for children, Grant successfully urged countries to formulate national plans of action. For the first time, the global community began work on international goals -- at the highest political level -- to reduce rates of mortality and disease, malnutrition and illiteracy, and to reach specific targets by the year 2000.

Kailash Satyarthi

Kailash Satyarthi has saved tens of thousands of lives. At the age of 26 he gave up a promising career as an electrical engineer and dedicated his life to helping the millions of children in India who are forced into slavery by powerful and corrupt business- and land-owners. His original idea was daring and dangerous. He decided to mount raids on factories — factories frequently manned by armed guards — where children and often entire families were held captive as bonded workers.

After successfully freeing and rehabilitating thousands of children, he went on to build up a global movement against child labor. Today Kailash heads up the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2000 social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries.

Yet even as he has become a globally recognized figure, Kailash continues the gritty work of leading raids to free slaves. Kailash believes that he must focus on a range of activities -- from the most grassroots to the most visionary -- in order to win the fight.

Andrew Carnegie

Faced with sudden poverty in Scotland, Andrew Carnegie's family emigrated to America. Determined to escape poverty, Carnegie went on to become the richest man in the world. After amassing a fortune by crushing his competitors and exploiting his workers, Carnegie, in a move that underscored his inner conflicts, systematically gave away millions.

"I think Carnegie's genius was first of all, an ability to foresee how things were going to change," says historian John Ingram. "Once he saw that something was of potential benefit to him, he was willing to invest enormously in it."

Carnegie was unusual among the industrial captains of his day because he preached for the rights of laborers to unionize and to protect their jobs. However, Carnegie's actions did not always match his rhetoric. Carnegie's steel workers were often pushed to long hours and low wages. In the Homestead Strike of 1892, Carnegie threw his support behind plant manager Henry Frick, who locked out workers and hired Pinkerton thugs to intimidate strikers. Many were killed in the conflict, and it was an episode that would forever hurt Carnegie's reputation and haunt the man.

Still, Carnegie's steel juggernaut was unstoppable, and by 1900 Carnegie Steel produced more of the metal than all of Great Britain. That was also the year that financier J. P. Morgan mounted a major challenge to Carnegie's steel empire. While Carnegie believed he could beat Morgan in a battle lasting five, 10 or 15 years, the fight did not appeal to the 64-year old man eager to spend more time with his wife Louise, whom he had married in 1886, and their daughter, Margaret.

Carnegie wrote the asking price for his steel business on a piece of paper and had one of his managers deliver the offer to Morgan. Morgan accepted without hesitation, buying the company for $480 million. "Congratulations, Mr. Carnegie," Morgan said to Carnegie when they finalized the deal. "you are now the richest man in the world."

Fond of saying that "the man who dies rich dies disgraced," Carnegie then turned his attention to giving away his fortune. He abhorred charity, and instead put his money to use helping others help themselves. That was the reason he spent much of his collected fortune on establishing over 2,500 public libraries as well as supporting institutions of higher learning. By the time Carnegie's life was over, he gave away 350 million dollars.

Carnegie also was one of the first to call for a "league of nations" and he built a "a palace of peace" that would later evolve into the World Court. His hopes for a civilized world of peace were destroyed, though, with the onset of World War I in 1914. Louise said that with these hostilities her husband's "heart was broken." Carnegie lived for another five years, but the last entry in his autobiography was the day World War I began.

Hua Mulan

A historical figure famous for disguising herself as a man is Hua Mulan. Her name has long been synonymous with the word "heroine", yet opinions differ as to whether this is her real name. According to Annals of the Ming, her surname is Zhu, while the Annals of the Qing say it is Wei. Xu Wei offers yet another alternative when, in his play, Mulan Joins the Army for Her Father', he gives her the surname Hua. Others using The Ballad of Mulan as their guide have attributed her surname to be Mu.

There is also some confusion concerning her place of origin and the era in which she  lived. She is said by some to have come from the Wan County in Hebei, others believed she came from the Shangqiu province in Henan and a third opinion is that she was native of the Liang prefecture in Gansu. One thing seems certain though. Hua Mulan was from the region known as the Central Plains.

Cheng Dachang of the Song Dynasty recorded that Hua Mulan lived during the Sui and the Tang Dynasties. Song Xiangfeng of the Qing Dynasty asserted that she was of Sui origins (AD 581-618) while Yao Ying, also of the Qing Dynasty, believed she was from the time of the Six Dynasties. No record of her achievements appears in official history books prior to the Song times. Stories circulated in China's Central Plains indicate that she must have lived before the Tang Dynasty.

Both history books and legends do at least agree on one thing - her accomplishments. It is said that Hua Mulan's father received an order to serve in the army. He had fought before but, by this time, was old and infirm. Hua Mulan knew it was out of the question for her father to go and her only brother was much too young. She decided to disguise herself as a man and take her father's place.

The troops fought in many bloody campaigns for several years before they obtained permission to return home. Hua Mulan was summoned to the court by the emperor, who wished to appoint her to high office as a reward for her outstanding service. Hua Mulan declined his offer and accepted a fine horse instead.

Only later, when her former comrades in arms went to visit her, did they learn that she was a woman.

The story of Hua Mulan is well known and has provided much inspiration for poetry, essays, operas and paintings.

Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez

By the age of 16, Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez had already dedicated his life to achieving peace in his home country of Colombia, South America. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and honored for his years of work for peace in Colombia and in the world. Currently he is attending law school at The Universidad Nueva Granada in Bogota.

Pérez and the Children's Movement for Peace were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, a few years after being awarded the National Peace Award from a pool of nominees that included bishops, NGOs and community leaders. Over the years, Pérez has met with three Latin American presidents, various ministers and ambassadors, Queen Noor of Jordan, Netherland´s Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Rigoberta Menchú and Jody Williams. Pérez was the first child to speak before the Colombian Congress.

A few years ago, Pérez wrote a song entitled, "Constructores de Paz," the proceeds of which assist the rehabilitation of children hurt by the Colombian landmines. On behalf of Children's Messages to the World, in which Pérez is one of the contributing authors, I nominated him for the 1999 Global Youth Peace and Tolerance Awards. On Nov. 16,1999, the United Nations Day for Tolerance, Pérez received this honor at the UN Headquarters in New York City. He shone bright from his heart and soul and positively impacted all who heard his words of strength, peace and determination.

He has worked for peace since he was 10 years old. And this year he was nominated to the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez (17) has been the victim of the very violence he has been working against for years. Last week, on the streets of Bogotá, Gerson was stabbed by unknown assailants and for unknown reasons.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is my hero. His story has come to symbolize the struggle against the apartheid machine in South Africa. Apartheid, the terrible, and often violent, institutionalized racism that for so long held South African society in its grip, was not an easy policy to fight against--especially since he was oppressed within the system. Mandela understands what it means to fight against enormous odds; he went to prison for nearly three decades for his work, because he knew there was no alternative. He believes that every human being is of equal value.

Mandela is my hero because he survived many years of life as a subject of colonialism. As a child in Africa, Mandela was a victim of the European colonial project in that involved "civilizing" indigenous folks by silencing African lifeways in favor of so-called Eurocentric high culture. Perhaps finding his Xhosa name, Rolihlahla, too cumbersome or primitive, a teacher assigned him the decidedly more English "Nelson" when he was a student at a British colonial boarding school.

Mandela is my hero because he embraces all people like brothers and sisters. He is one of the greatest civil rights leaders in world history. Mandela is my hero because his spirit cannot be crushed. Imprisoned for his political views in the early 1960s, Mandela refused to compromise his position, which was equality and justice for all people. He sacrificed his own freedom for the self-determination of all South Africans. He is courageous and uncompromising.

Mandela is my hero because is a man of great personal honor, strength, and integrity, but he was always fighting for something greater than himself, and that was the freedom of an entire nation. It is painful to imagine that this man, who radiates so much love, who espoused so many truths, could have spent so much of his life in prison.

Mandela is my hero because he triumphed over injustice, and not in a small way. Almost unimaginable just a few years before, Nelson Mandela became the first democratically-elected president of South Africa in 1994 and served in that position for five years.

More than anyone in the world, Mandela embodies the hopes and dreams of a true, lasting justice and equality, not just for South Africans but for all people. It is Mandela—through his unselfish and constant presence on the international stage raising awareness about AIDS, peace, debt relief, the environment--who most inspires us to think responsibly of our fellow man and of our planet.

Nelson Mandela has always inspired me to think beyond myself, to think of people in the wider world as part of a common humanity. I love him for what he has accomplished, for what he has been through, for his journey forward. He remains a hallmark of what it really means to give of oneself selflessly--which is, indeed, a gift for us all.

JOSE MANUEL RAMOS-HORTA

Of mestiço descent, Ramos-Horta was born in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste on 26th December 1949. The President was born to a Timorese mother and a Portuguese father who had been exiled to what was then Portuguese Timor by the Salazar dictatorship. He was educated in a Catholic mission in the small village of Soibada. He is one of eleven children.

During the 24 years of the occupation, José Ramos-Horta was the international voice of the Timorese people. In exile from his country from 1975 to 1999, he was the Permanent Representative to the United Nations for the Timorese independence movement. The youngest UN diplomat in history and an international human rights figure, he is one of the central figures in the country's struggle for independence.

In 1996 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Carlos Belo, the religious leader of Timor-Leste, "to honour their sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people." A portion of the funds received from the Nobel prize were used to establish the José Ramos Horta Microcredit Fund for the Poor, which is in full operation today, with a payback rate of 97%.

In 1999, under the umbrella of the United Nations, Timor-Leste held a referendum allowing the Timorese to vote on independence. When the referendum results showed more than 78.4% favouring independence, Indonesia-backed militia were unleashed across the country. They killed thousands in the streets, displaced hundreds of thousands, and burned 85% of the buildings in the country. After the entry of an International peacekeeping force, Ramos-Horta returned to his homeland to help rebuild the country from the devastation. Working closely with the UN and Sergio Vierra de Mello, the head of the UN Administration in Timor-Leste until 2002, he helped to bring about peaceful elections of the country's President and Parliament, who in turn drafted the country's constitution.

After serving for seven years as the new country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, when turmoil and civil war threatened the new country he became Prime Minister immediately restoring calm to the country.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

How difficult it is, out of all the people in the world, for someone to lay a finger on a single soul and be able to say, "This person is my hero." It is a true search of one's self to find a person who is totally and completely admirable. Even if someone loves seemingly everything about a person, a small personality trait can change one's whole opinion.

I have decided that my hero must be a person able to overcome obstacles, to pass life's tests with flying colors. My hero must be someone who worked hard for what was right, not what was popular or easy. A hero to me must have enough confidence in herself to believe that she could make a difference, and enough strength and willpower to change the world. Most importantly, my hero must have loved all people, regardless of race, gender, social status or age, and must have tried her hardest to serve those less fortunate than herself.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on Oct. 11, 1884, in New York City to Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt. She was not blessed with a happy family life; her conceited mother often referred to Eleanor as "Granny" because of her appearance, and her father, whom she adored, was an alcoholic and was not often home. Eleanor's mother died in 1892, and she went to live with her grandmother. Her father died two years later, and when she was 15 years old, Eleanor was sent to Allenswood, a boarding school for girls in England. Before attending Allenswood, Eleanor had been terribly shy and self-conscious. However, the headmistress, Marie Souvestre, recognized Eleanor's superior intellect and pushed her to work her hardest and to become a leader within the school.

In 1902, Eleanor returned to New York for her debut into society, but disliked its strict rules and rituals. She tried to escape by working with the poor at a settlement house, where she got her first taste of community service and began to understand the realities of discrimination and poor working conditions in factories. She also saw the horrible conditions that poverty-stricken immigrants were forced to live in. Three years later, Eleanor married Franklin Roosevelt (her distant cousin). As Franklin climbed the political ladder, Eleanor became his helper and was able to learn and understand politics and social issues. This would prove to help her later in life.

In 1912, Eleanor joined the Red Cross and often visited wounded W. W. I veterans in American hospitals--something that she would continue to do throughout her life. In 1920, she joined the League of Women Voters, an association for the promotion of women's involvement in politics. There, she began public speaking. In 1922, Eleanor joined the Women's Trade Union League and the Women's Division of the Democratic State Committee. With the help of other activists she met in these associations, Eleanor founded a school for poor girls named Todhunter, where she taught government and history. While Eleanor was doing all of these things, her husband Franklin contracted polio, and she took time to become (as many say) his "eyes and his ears." She made speeches, especially on the topics of civil rights and feminism, on behalf of her husband and observed those of his rivals. Despite all she did, Eleanor kept devoting much of her time to Franklin until his death. She was continuously by his side and convinced him to stay in politics when his disease started to take its mental toll, and her speeches made on his behalf maintained his presence on the political scene when he was too sick to be there himself.

Eleanor did not stop being involved in civil rights when Franklin became president in 1932. She became the first First Lady to hold a press conference (she went on to hold more than 300), and she allowed only female reporters to attend, thus pressuring newspapers to hire female reporters. Later in the 1930s, she headed a housing project for West Virginian coal miners, and in 1934, helped instigate the National Youth Administration, which acquired employment rights for young workers. Throughout Franklin's first presidential term, Eleanor spoke at meetings and conferences about the role of women in politics and her strong disagreement of segregation in the South. She took her passion for this topic very far; she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (a feminist league) when it banned Marian Anderson, an African-American singer, from performing during its conference in Washington, D.C. The previous year, Eleanor also violated a segregation law when she refused to sit in the white section of auditorium at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama.

In 1945, Eleanor became a United States delegate for the United Nations. She was not an expert on international law as were her colleagues at the UN, but she represented the common person. The Commission on Human Rights (a branch of the UN) even elected Eleanor its chairperson. Her enthusiasm and general knowledge of what people needed to have out of life made up for her lack of international experience. Eleanor's dream, derived from her great knowledge and understanding of what human beings needed to flourish, was to form a document in which the basic rights of all humans would be clearly stated. This dream came true when she helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor considered this her greatest accomplishment of her life. Her dedication to the declaration made it a document that has been universally accepted as a "standard of achievement for all nations." After drafting the declaration, Eleanor resigned from the UN in 1948, only to join again four years later. She continued to be active in the UN and the human rights scene until her death on Nov. 7, 1962.

The former Democratic presidential candidate named Adlai Stevenson once said that Eleanor Roosevelt would "rather light a candle than curse the darkness." This is exactly why she is my hero. Not only did Eleanor devote her life to gaining rights for others, she did so when it was a very unpopular thing to do. She was often criticized for the active role she played in her world, but she never faltered. Eleanor endured a poor childhood during which she received very little love or attention, and went on to love and fight for people less fortunate than herself. These qualities not only earned her the nickname "The First Lady of the World," but also make her a true hero in my eyes.

FRED KOREMATSU

Fred Korematsu is an ordinary man who defied the order to go to the Japanese-American internment camps during W.W. II because he believed it wasn't right. His case changed legal history and resulted in an apology by our government for wrongdoings, as well as reparations to 120,000 living Japanese-Americans.

Fred grew up in Oakland, Calif., and worked in his family's nursery. He ate hamburgers and lived a typical American life. He worked as a welder in the shipyard until he lost his job for no reason. Rumors about "Japs" splashed the headlines in the newspapers. War was brewing. Some restaurants refused to serve Japanese-Americans. In 1942, the U.S. government sent those of Japanese descent to internment camps in the Western desert. Fred didn't want to go because he was an American. We were fighting the Japanese, Germans and Italians, but no German-Americans or Italian-Americans were rounded up.

Fred's family feared his resistance would shame them, but Fred was a true citizen who loved his country. He was being targeted because of the color of his skin and the shape of his eyes. Soon arrested, Fred was sent to Tanforan Race Track where families lived in horse stalls that smelled like manure. He was then sent to Topaz, a camp in the Utah desert. Barbed-wire fences surrounded the innocent prisoners and guards perched on watchtowers armed with machine guns.

After four years in the camps, the Japanese-Americans carried their shame with their silence as they returned home quietly. Homes, farms, businesses and possessions were lost. Fred journeyed to Salt Lake City where he repaired water tanks at an ironworks plant and then worked in Detroit in 1944. He had begun a legal case protesting the internment that progressed all the way to the Supreme Court, but he lost. Fred married and had two children. Like many Japanese-Americans, he didn't discuss the camps over the years. Yet he believed "it may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it."

In 1988, almost half a century after the orders were issued, justice prevailed. Government officials had claimed that the internment was due to "military necessity," but evidence revealed that the order was based on racial prejudice. The U.S. government admitted that the Japanese-Americans had posed no danger of spying or risk to security. In 1998, President Clinton honored Fred Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor any American can ever hope to receive. After serving his family, his church, many civic organizations and his community, Fred was finally rewarded for his courage and perseverance. President Clinton said Fred was a man of quiet bravery who wanted only to be treated like every other American.

 AUNG SAN SUU KYI

 In 1947, Burma achieved independence from Britain. Following the subsequent rise of a military dictatorship, many courageous people have worked for political freedom in Burma, including Aung San Suu Kyi. Aung San is a leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), whose election in 1990 would have made her the first democratic political leader in recent history.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was born in 1945 in Rangoon, Burma. Her father, General Aung San, had been a national hero who had helped Burma to gain its independence from Britain. Her mother was Daw Khin Kyi. Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old when her father was assassinated. She remained in Burma until her mother received an appointment as Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960. The appointment was in Delhi. Aung San Suu Kyi studied at Delhi, and later Oxford University, where she received a degree in politics, philosophy and economics.

In the years that followed, Aung San Suu Kyi worked as Assistant Secretary of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions and as a research officer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bhutan. There she married Dr. Michael Aris and returned to Oxford, England, where she worked and raised two children.

In March of 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma to care for her mother, whose health was failing. At the same time, students were igniting protest rallies against the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) regime. These protests coincided with the abdication of the chairman of the Socialist party, after which pro-democracy protests spread throughout the nation.

On August 26, 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi addressed a massive rally in Rangoon, calling for democracy for Burma. Half a million people participated in the protest. The military government responded by killing or incarcerating hundreds of dissident leaders. By that time, Aung San Suu Kyi herself had become a target, representing what the governmental powers considered a danger to their authority. In fact, the following spring, Aung San Suu Kyi was nearly assassinated by an army unit ordered to shoot her, until a major intervened at the last second.

Threat of assassination did not stop Aung San Suu Kyi from sending her message to anti-governmental dissidents. A few months later, without charge and without trial, Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.

Despite the fact that the NLD won in a landslide vote during the May 1990 elections, the military junta refused to give up power, and Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest. The UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar, as well as human rights activists from around the world, called for her release, but the military refused to acknowledge them. They had been holding her in this way for more than two years when the Nobel Prize Committee announced that Aung San Suu Kyi had received the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace. With the $1.3 million-dollar prize money, Aung San Suu Kyi surreptitiously set up a trust fund for the health care and education of people of Burma. Finally, after the military government kept changing its laws to allow for longer and longer detentions of its political prisoners, pressure from the outside world grew too great, and Aung San Suu Kyi was released on July 10, 1995, six years after her arrest.

Throughout the late 1990s, Aung San Suu Kyi was sporadically held under house arrest, and forbidden from traveling to meet her supporters or her party members. In a 1997 speech smuggled out from the country, as reported by the Free Burma Coalition, Suu Kyi said:

"The cause of liberty and justice finds sympathetic responses in far reaches of the globe. Thinking and feeling people everywhere, regardless of color or creed, understand the deeply-rooted human need for a meaningful existence...Those fortunate enough to live in societies where they are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate in other parts of our troubled planet. Young women and young men setting forth to leave their mark on the world might wish to cast their eyes beyond their own frontiers to the shadowlands of lost rights... Please use your liberty to promote ours."

From September 2000 until May 6, 2002, Suu Kyi was again under formal arrest. As she was released, she expressed the hope that Burma can have freedom for all political parties and all people.

On March 20, 2003, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Newharth FREE SPIRIT OF THE YEAR Award, which is given annually to the person, "who has stirred our hearts by demonstrating the human capacilty to dream, dare and do."

She did not attend the awards for fear that she would not be allowed back into Burma. She continues to devote herself to building a democratic nation in Burma that respects and cherishes human dignity.

DR. OSCAR ELIAS BISCET

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez was born of humble origins in Havana, Cuba, on July 20, 1961. Dr. Biscet is the founder of the Lawton Foundation, an organization considered illegal by the Cuban government. The Lawton Foundation peacefully promotes the defense of all human rights through nonviolent civil disobedience. Dr. Biscet is a follower of the Dalai Lama, Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and wants to bring democracy and justice to Cuba.

As a nonviolent activist struggling to bring about democracy, justice and freedom to Cuba, Dr. Biscet embodies all the dreams, hopes and frustrations of 11 million Cubans on the island. As a victim, he represents everything that is horribly wrong with the 45-year-old tyrannical regime of dictator Fidel Castro.

By using nonviolent means to expose the crimes of the government of Cuba, and by being a young, charismatic black man, he threatens to demystify all the lies of the revolution of 1959. For this he has been singled out. When dictator Fidel Castro personally condemned Biscet as a counter-revolutionary "ring leader" before his trial, his fate was sealed.

Before his sentence, Dr. Biscet had been arbitrarily detained 26 times in 18 months. In February 1998, he was expelled from the Cuban National Health System and he and his family were evicted from his home. On several occasions, Cuba's State Security tried to subject Dr. Biscet to psychiatric examinations and pressured him to leave Cuba, to which he has responded that he will never abandon his country. He knows that the struggle is in Cuba and that in order to bring about change one has to stay and fight from the inside.

For his peaceful, pro-democracy struggle, Dr. Biscet served a three-year sentence in a maximum security prison in Holguin Province, 768 kilometers away from his home. He was released October 31, 2003, only to be arrested 36 days later on Dececember 6, when he was about to hold a meeting with fellow activists. Dr. Biscet remained incarcerated and was included in a wave of repression that took place throughout Cuba from March 18 to April 11 when almost 80 human rights activists, independent journalists, and other political dissidents were taken before summary trials and given sentences of up to 28 years in prison. On April 7, 2003, Dr. Biscet was tried and sentenced to 25 years for serving as a "mercenary to a foreign state" for demanding the respect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On November 12, 2003, Dr. Biscet was transferred from Kilo Cinco y Medio Prison to another maximum security prison in the Province of Pinar del Rio calle Kilo 8. He was put in a subterranean punishment cell with violent common criminals for peacefully protesting with 6 other prisoners of conscience. Dr. Biscet was confined for 21 days in a cell described as a "dungeon," without family visits, food supplies, toiletries, writing or reading materials, in a cell with no windows, electricity, or running water. His cell was heavily infested with rodents (rats) and many insects, including scorpions. Cuban authorities and prison guards denied Dr. Biscet access to proper medical and dental care, family visits or the possesion of his Bible.

In a fragment of a clandestine letter written to his wife, Dr. Biscet reported:

I'm arbitrarily confined in a cell with characteristics that violate the law, there are no windows, only walls; a gloomy space lacking sunlight and the sky's visibility. I cannot go out in the sun at the hour assigned because authorities want to handcuff me with my hands behind my back, a practice which violates prisoners' most elemental regulations. This is humiliating and illegal. Unsuccessfully, I have repeatedly requested "internal control" personnel to be alerted. My prison visit in November was arbitrarily suspended, prohibiting me from seeing my parents and wife. Of the eight months I have been imprisoned in Pinar del Rio, I have seen my family only once, during 2 hours, in the month of August. I am not allowed to have any type of communication with my son and daughter who live abroad.

Dr. Biscet has continued his fight for justice from prison. He has staged protests against Cuba's violation of human rights at the prison with acts of civil disobedience, such as fasting and holding prayer services.

So you ask yourself, who is Dr. Biscet? He is a man declared prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He is Fidel Castro's worst nightmare. He is a man wrongly imprisoned for believing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for promoting democracy, social justice and liberty for all Cuban people. This is the reason I admire Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzales. He is a man of incomparable moral convictions and valor.

REVEREND PETER NGUYEN VAN HUNG

In the middle of Taiwan, one modern-day hero tirelessly labors to end human trafficking. This hero is the Reverend Peter Nguyen Van Hung. Van Hung is a 48-year-old Catholic priest, who started the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office in Taiwan. In the three years they have been open, Van Hung and his staff have helped over 2,000 Vietnamese women escape exploitation. Over 7,000 Vietnamese migrant workers and brides are in Taiwan today, and many of their lives are being saved by Van Hung.

I chose Van Hung as a hero because he exemplifies true heroic qualities. He has taken his own life experiences and beliefs, and now dedicates his life to helping those who do not have the power to do so themselves. As a woman myself, I cannot imagine the lives of these Vietnamese women. I am so humbled that a hero like Van Hung is working endlessly to restore human freedom and dignity to women.

Van Hung grew up in Vietnam in a household which opened its doors to strangers and those in need. Van Hung would even use his own earnings as a child to buy food for the poor. He grew up with stories of communist atrocities, and at the age of 21, escaped on a boat to Japan. He then joined a missionary society and was ordained as a Catholic priest. When he was assigned to Taiwan, he witnessed a whole new atrocity.

Vietnamese women come to Taiwan as brides, maids, and factory workers. Often their lives are negotiated through labor brokers and bosses, and they arrive only to be exploited and abused. Van Hung says Vietnamese “are always suspicious and easily controlled, it is part of the psychic problem of Vietnamese society." He goes on to say, "When I come to talk and to empower them about their rights, I discover a huge hidden fear.” If they choose to protest their treatment, the government does not allow the women to work while their case is being heard. For this reason, Van Hung opened the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office. Here the women can go to take self-improvement and language classes, receive counseling, and receive refuge.

Van Hung works eighteen hours a day, arguing cases in court, rescuing new victims, and working for international reform. Van Hung is one of the few religious leaders speaking out against these horrible atrocities. And because of his love and devotion, thousands of women have been saved from life as a slave. Also, because of his efforts, the U.S. State Department has listed Taiwan on their Tier 2 Watch List for human rights violations. Even though Hung is threatened and often in personal danger, he keeps fighting for human rights. "I try to be careful, but if it happens I'm ready [to die]." What greater hero can there be?

JOHN ADAMS

My hero is John Adams, the second president of the United States of America. Before the American Revolution, he was a farmer and a lawyer. His hardest case came when he was defending the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre. Believing the soldiers were provoked, he chose to defend them. People who criticized him publicly for taking the case congratulated him privately on winning this case for liberty.

Even though he defended British soldiers in that instance, he fought for America's independence from Great Britain. It was John Adams who convinced Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, and Adams was one of the first to sign it. Most of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence were ideas which John Adams had repeatedly expressed. During the first Continental Congress, Adams was the one who nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Adams was the first U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and first U.S. minister to Britain. He served as vice president under George Washington and as president of the U.S. Senate.

When he took office as president in 1779, John Adams faced a new set of difficulties in running a brand-new country. One of his major diplomatic victories involved preventing the U.S. from going to war. Critics called him a coward when, instead of declaring war on France, he started peaceful trade with them. John Adams once said, "There is no such thing as a good war and a bad peace."

Adams married Abigail Smith, and had many sons and daughters. One, John Quincy Adams, grew up to be a fearless and outspoken lawyer and eventually became the nation's sixth president.

I like John Adams because he was honest, true, strong, smart and didn't back down when it came to saying or doing something he believed in. He was always ready to speak out for liberty and offer his talents to anyone in trouble. He is a true hero.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

Marian Wright Edelman's father, Arthur Wright, expected his children to do two things: to work hard at getting an education and to serve others. Every night, the Wrights gathered together in the kitchen for a study session, which they had to participate in whether they had assignments or not. Arthur Wright also required his children to perform community-service work as part of their chores.

Perhaps it was this advantageous upbringing that not only propelled Marian Wright Edelman into a brilliant law career, but also made her one of the country's leading advocates for children.

In the 1960s, just out of Yale Law School, Marian Wright achieved the distinction of being the first African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar. During the Civil Rights Movement, Wright established the course of her career by directing the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Office and later serving as counsel for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's March. She then founded the Washington Research Project, which would engender the Children's Defense Fund.

The Children's Defense Fund, founded in 1973, gives every child a healthy and fair start in life. The fund purchased Haley Farm where young people are trained to work with children in disadvantaged areas of the country.

Wright married Peter Edelman, a Washington D.C. lawyer, and had three children: Joshua, Jonah and Ezra. Most recently, Wright Edelman published the book Lantern: A Memoir of Mentors. In a recent television interview, Wright Edelman said this about one of her heroes:

"This is a book about the great natural mentors in my life: my parents, my community co-parents. Some of the most important people were well-educated, but some didn't have a whole lot of education formally. [Some] really were like community elders who cared for kids as if they were their own. I have portraits in here of Ms. Tea Kelly and Ms. Lucy McQueen and Ms. Kate Winston who were community women and women of faith who instinctively knew what Walker Percy wrote about: 'You can get all As and still flunk life.' And they cared for me as if I was their own child, and the other children in the community....They were like Ms. Oseola McCarty, who died not too long ago. Everybody was so surprised that this black washerwoman would give $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to educate children, to give them a chance that she didn't have. But I knew Ms. Oseola in less dramatic ways all of my life, and it's so wonderful to be able to say thank you in this book to them."

Marian Wright Edelman gave a commencement speech to the graduating class of Tarbut V'Torah in Irvine, Calif., and MY HERO was there.

"My generation learned that if we wanted to accomplish anything, we would have to get off the dime. Your generation must learn to get off the paradigm? It is the responsibility of every adult, parent teacher, religious leader and professional to make sure that young people hear what we have learned from life that helped us survive and succeed."

Six Lessons for Life

The first lesson that I keep telling over and over again: There is no free lunch in life. Please don't feel entitled to anything you don't sweat and struggle for. Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, reminded us that "many women may not get all they pay for in this world, but they will certainly pay for all they get." You've got to work your way up hard and continuously. And I know I don't have to say this: Don't be lazy, do your homework, pay attention to detail, take great care and pride in your work. Don't assume a door is closed; push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you're going to be left behind.

The second lesson is to assign yourself. My daddy couldn't stand to see us unengaged in constructive work. And he used to ask us when we had come home from school, "Did the teacher give you any homework?" If we'd say no, he'd say, "Well, assign yourself some." Don't wait around for your boss or your friends or teachers to direct you to do what you're able to figure out and do for yourself. And don't do just as little as you can to get by. And as you grow up and become citizens?please don't be a political bystander and grumbler. I really hope every one of you will register to vote and vote every time. A democracy is not a spectator sport. And if you see a need, please don't ask, "Why somebody doesn't do something?" Ask "Why don't I do something?" Initiative and persistence are still the non-magic carpets to success for most of us.

The third quick lesson: Never work just for money. Money alone won't save your soul or build a decent family life or help you sleep at night. We're the richest nation on Earth, with the highest number of imprisoned people in the world. Our drug addictions and child poverty [rates] are among the highest in the industrialized world. So don't ever confuse wealth or fame with character. And don't tolerate or condone moral corruption, whatever it is and whether it is found in high or low places. Be honest and demand that those who represent you be honest. And don't ever confuse morality with legality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Martin Luther King told us, "everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not moral." Don't give anybody the proxy for your conscience.

The fourth lesson: Don't be afraid of taking risks or of being criticized. An anonymous saying is, "If you don't want to be criticized, don't do anything, don't say anything and don't be anything." Don't be afraid of failing; it is the way you learn to do things right. Don't be afraid of falling down; just keep getting up. And don't wait for everybody to come along to get something done. It's always a few people who get things done and keep things going. Our country and our world desperately need more wise and courageous shepherds and fewer sheep who do not borrow from integrity to fund expediency.

Fifth lesson: : Listen to the sound of the genuine in yourself. "Small," Einstein said, "is the number of them who see with their own eyes and feel with their own heart." Try to be one of them. There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in [yourself]. And it is the only true guide [you] will ever have. If you cannot hear it in yourself, you will spend all of your life on the end of strings that somebody else pulls. Today, there are just so many noises and so many competing pulls on us. I hope that you'll find ways and times and spaces to be silent to listen to yourselves and to listen for other people.

Last lesson: Never think life is not worth living or that you can't make a difference. Never give up. I don't care how hard it gets, and it will get very hard sometimes. An old proverb says, "When you get to your wit's end, that's where God lives." Harriet Beecher Stowe said, "When you get into a tight place and you think that everything goes against you until it seems that you can't have another minute, never give up then, for that is just the place and the time when you will see the tide turn." So I hope when you get discouraged and afraid, you will hang in with life and remember and imagine and keep striving to build a new world. As Shel Silverstein said, "Listen to the mustn'ts, child/ listen to the don'ts/ listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts/ but then listen to the never haves and listen close to me/ anything can happen, child/ anything can be."

CRAZY HORSE

Why Crazy Horse Was an American Hero (1857 to 1875)

I think that to be an American hero you have to be brave, kind, and clever. I also think that Crazy Horse has all of these qualities. Because of these qualities, Crazy Horse became Chief of the Oglala Sioux, second only to Sitting Bull in the entire Sioux Nation. He was feared by many whites because of his bravery and cleverness in battle.

Crazy Horse was a natural leader in war, but was also very kind to his people. After a hunt, or whenever he had some extra food he didn’t need, he kept only what he needed and gave the rest away to people who couldn’t easily provide food for themselves. After the Battle of Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was faced with a very tough decision. He could either stay off a reservation and die fighting (which was what he wanted to do), or go onto one and live. Crazy Horse did not want to live on a reservation because that meant he would be closely guarded and basically locked up. But he always thought of the people first, so, sadly but truly, Crazy Horse led his people onto the reservation of Red Cloud. Whenever I think of Crazy Horse, I will remember that great act of caring and kindness.

Crazy Horse was not only a brave fighter, but he was brave enough to go against the entire U.S. Cavalry and their firepower. About 2/5 of Crazy Horse's warriors had guns and they weren’t very good guns compared to the Cavalry rifle called the Winchester. He was very brave to challenge the U.S. with such little firepower. Once, when Crazy Horse was a boy, his tribe was warring against the Crow Indians and was being beat badly by them. Curly charged forward and killed two men, took three coup, and basically turned the momentum of the battle in the Sioux’s favor. He was very brave to do that. In the Battle of Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was brave enough to stand up to the many young warriors who wished to win war honors by fighting one-on-one rather than use strategy or fight together. Crazy Horse could’ve been killed by his warriors because they wanted to charge forward without a strategy. They could’ve charged forward for individual honor and recognition.

Crazy Horse was very clever and smart in his fighting strategy. Even the Indian scouts who worked for Custer knew he was clever, because they had fought Crazy Horse before in battles for Powder River Country. Because they had fought Crazy Horse before, that saved them many times. Crazy Horse attacked in Custer’s front where they numbered the most, then sent a small party around the back. Because they were attacking at the back, men from the front had to pull back to fight in the back. The flanks were nearly unguarded. Crazy Horse quickly took full advantage of the mistake and basically bashed the flanks apart and the soldiers had to fight hand-to-hand (which they were not very good at). Crazy Horse obliterated the cavalry men and only one horse lived. Crazy Horse was obviously a great strategist.

Crazy Horse was a true American hero. He stood up for what he believed in and fought with determination that has no comparison. He loved his people, loved being free, and hated prisons and being locked up. He was respected by nearly the whole reservation that he lived on and many others.