11 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
American internet media entrepreneur — founder of Breitbart News and The Huffington Post's initial helper — who pioneered the aggregation-plus-outrage model of political internet media before his death at 43.
Somali-Dutch-American activist and author — former Dutch MP — who escaped a forced marriage, collaborated with Theo van Gogh (assassinated 2004 for Submission), was placed under permanent death threat, and has written extensively on Islam and women's rights — converted from Islam to atheism, then to Christianity in 2023.
American rapper and co-founder of Public Enemy whose delivery, rhetoric, and political consciousness defined the golden age of political hip-hop — and who called hip-hop 'the CNN of black America' — establishing the template for the conscious rapper.
American hip-hop group from Long Island who created the most politically charged music of the hip-hop golden age — It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988) being the defining political rap album — through Chuck D's rhetorical intensity and The Bomb Squad's dense sonic collage.
Saul Alinsky's 1971 guide to community organizing — providing 13 rules for effective power-building and political action — the most influential organizing manual and the most cited radical politics strategy book.
American community organizer and author — who created modern community organizing in Chicago — author of Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals — whose organizing methods became the model for subsequent political organizing on both left and right.
British parliamentarian and evangelical Christian who led the 46-year campaign to abolish the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire — dying three days after Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act (1833).
Egyptian Islamist intellectual who, after spending two years in the United States (1948-1950), developed the theological framework for modern jihadist ideology — executed by Nasser in 1966.
Spanish Dominican friar and former colonist who became the first systematic advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples — documenting Spanish atrocities in A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542).
American birth control activist who founded Planned Parenthood — a central figure in reproductive rights history whose legacy is complicated by her eugenics advocacy.
Wokeness denotes heightened awareness of systemic injustice — particularly racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and other forms of structural oppression — and the moral imperative to challenge them. As a cultural phenomenon it encompasses a cluster of commitments: centring lived experience and identity, dismantling whiteness and patriarchy as structural forces, recognising intersecting axes of marginalisation, and reforming or abolishing institutions seen as perpetuating inequity. Contested by critics as ideologically rigid and divisive.