Advocates of Human Rights

By age 23, John Lewis was already recognized as one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, along with Martin Luther King Jr. The son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he led his first demonstrations while studying theology in Nashville, Tennessee. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he was a leader in many of the most dramatic campaigns of the movement: the lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. He suffered serious injuries from mob violence and personal physical attacks, and would be arrested more than 40 times, but John Lewis would not be dissuaded from the pursuit of justice. In 1965 he led the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were attacked by Alabama State Troopers, but the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, finally committing the federal government to the enforcement of voting rights for all Americans. Over the following decades John Lewis led an explosion of minority voter registration that has transformed American politics. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, representing the city of Atlanta, Georgia, and surrounding counties. He has served in the United States Congress ever since, where he remains one of America's most courageous champions of human rights.

In this part 1 of 2 video podcast, recorded at the 2002 International Achievement Summit in Dublin, Ireland, Nader addresses the nature of democracy and civic involvement, the influence of wealth and entrenched power, and the role an engaged citizenry can play in demanding accountability from business and government.

In this part 2 of 2 video podcast, recorded at the 2002 International Achievement Summit in Dublin, Ireland, Nader addresses the nature of democracy and civic involvement, the influence of wealth and entrenched power, and the role an engaged citizenry can play in demanding accountability from business and government.

José; Ramos-Horta was born in Dili, East Timor, when the Pacific island territory was still a colony of Portugal. For years, he worked to achieve his country's independence and was forced into exile for two years. No sooner had East Timor become independent in 1975, when neighboring Indonesia attacked the country. Ramos-Horta, who served as Minister of External Relations and Information for the first provisional government, was forced into exile again. More than 200,000 people died in the invasion and subsequent occupation. Four of Ramos-Horta's brothers and sisters were killed by the Indonesian military. It is estimated that over the next 20 years, a third of the country's population lost their lives to starvation, epidemics, war and terror. For the first decade of his exile, Ramos-Horta continued to represent his country as the independence movement's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. In 1996 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless pursuit of a just and peaceful solution to the conflict. In 1999 Indonesia at last agreed to a referendum on East Timor's future, and the Timorese people overwhelmingly voted for independence. In May 2002, East Timor completed its long-delayed transition to independence. This podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 2002 Summit in Dublin, Ireland, while José Ramos-Horta was serving as his country's first Foreign Minister. He discusses the challenges of independence, and his hope and fears for his country's future. In 2007, José Ramos-Horta was elected President of East Timor.

"When I first got elected, they said: A woman has usurped a man's place! She should be killed! She should be assassinated! She has committed heresy!" At age 35, Benazir Bhutto was one of the youngest chiefs of state in the world. More than that, she was the first woman ever to serve as prime minister of an Islamic country, but the road that brought her to power had already led through exile, imprisonment and devastating personal tragedy. Only days after young Benazir Bhutto returned to her native Pakistan from university studies abroad, the country's elected government was overthrown. Her father, Prime Minister Ali Bhutto, was imprisoned and eventually executed. Young Benazir too was repeatedly arrested, then imprisoned, and finally forced into exile, but she never abandoned the hope of restoring democracy to her homeland. She returned to lead a pro-democracy movement, and when free elections were finally held in Pakistan in 1988, Benazir Bhutto herself became Prime Minister. She made hunger and health care her top priorities, brought electricity to the countryside, and built schools all over the country. Although she was herself a devout Muslim, her reforms frequently brought her into conflict with the same religious fundamentalists who had opposed the election of a woman as Prime Minister. She was elected a second time in 1993, but the president of the country dismissed her from office and dissolved the National Assembly. A military coup drove her from the country yet again, but after more than eight years in exile, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007. Weeks before a national election in which Benazir Bhutto and her party were expected to prevail, she was assassinated. Her death is a devastating loss to her country and to the cause of democracy.

Author Tracy Kidder received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his penetrating history of the microprocessor revolution, Soul of a New Machine. A Harvard graduate and Vietnam veteran, Tracy Kidder first won acclaim for his ability to make the events of everyday life an occasion for deeply moving observation of human relationships in books such as House, Among Schoolchildren and Home Town. In 2003, Tracy Kidder published his most powerful work yet. Mountains Beyond Mountains tells the extraordinary true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, who has brought sustainable first-class health care to the most desperate communities of impoverished Haiti. Kidder's subsequent works include Strength in What remains, tells the story of a refugee from the civil war in Burundi who finds a new life in America, but then returns to give back to his native country. This podcast was recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 2001 Summit in San Antonio, Texas, while Kidder was in the midst of writing Mountains Beyond Mountains. His address to the Academy's student delegates focuses on Dr. Paul Farmer and the work he is doing in Haiti, and throughout the world to combat tuberculosis and other infectious disease.

Young Coretta Scott's gift for music and enthusiasm for education led her far beyond the segregated world of her childhood, but when she met the young Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the two resolved to return to the Deep South together and pursue the cause of justice in her own home state of Alabama. The Montgomery bus boycott thrust the young couple to the forefront of a revitalized civil rights movement, even as it exposed their growing family to the retaliation of those who opposed any change in the old system. Braving death threats and surviving the bombing of their home by white supremacists, Coretta Scott King stood by the cause and her husband, from the Birmingham jail to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, from the March on Washington, to a stage in Oslo, Norway where he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace. After his assassination, she inspired the world with her courage, dignity and tireless devotion to preserving Dr. King's legacy. As founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, she saw that tens of thousands of activists from all over the world were trained in the philosophy and practice of nonviolence. She has served as an advisor to freedom and democracy movements all over the world, and as a consultant to world leaders including President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Coretta Scott King died on January 30th, 2006. One of the world's most admired women, she remained an outspoken champion of justice and human dignity to the end of her days. Ms. King spoke to students during the Academy's Achievement Summit in 1999.

From 1969 until his retirement in 2008, legendary trial attorney Gerry Spence never lost a civil case. And in his entire career, as both prosecutor and defense attorney, he only lost one criminal case, and that verdict was reversed on appeal. He began his career as a criminal prosecutor in the Rocky Mountain West, before embarking on a highly lucrative career as a defense attorney. In this podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1996 Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, Spence discusses the life choices that led him from a successful career defending big insurance companies, banks and corporations, to that of a full-time advocate for individual citizens in their struggles with larger entities, whether powerful corporations or the United States government. He first gained national representation representing the family of Karen Silkwood, winning the dead whistle-blower's family a $10.5 million settlement from nuclear power company Kerr-McGee. He later won multi-million dollar settlements from McDonald's and from Penthouse magazine. He also won memorable victories in high-profile criminal cases, winning the acquittal of survivalist Randy Weaver following Weaver's standoff with federal Agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He told the story of his many courtroom battles in a dramatic memoir, Gunning for Justice.

From 1969 until his retirement in 2008, legendary trial attorney Gerry Spence never lost a civil case. And in his entire career, as both prosecutor and defense attorney, he only lost one criminal case, and that verdict was reversed on appeal. He began his career as a criminal prosecutor in the Rocky Mountain West, before embarking on a highly lucrative career as a defense attorney. In this podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1996 Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, Spence discusses the life choices that led him from a successful career defending big insurance companies, banks and corporations, to that of a full-time advocate for individual citizens in their struggles with larger entities, whether powerful corporations or the United States government. He first gained national representation representing the family of Karen Silkwood, winning the dead whistle-blower's family a $10.5 million settlement from nuclear power company Kerr-McGee. He later won multi-million dollar settlements from McDonald's and from Penthouse magazine. He also won memorable victories in high-profile criminal cases, winning the acquittal of survivalist Randy Weaver following Weaver's standoff with federal Agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He told the story of his many courtroom battles in a dramatic memoir, Gunning for Justice.

Rosa Parks, the "mother of the civil rights movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system that lasted more than a year. The boycott raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence and resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, Rosa Parks helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. Rosa Parks addressed the Academy of Achievement at its 1995 Summit in Williamsburg, Virginia. In this audio podcast, recorded on that occasion, she shares her experiences as an activist and leader of the civil rights movement. She characterizes her own life's work as an effort to inspire others to reach their highest potential, and to help all people achieve equality and freedom. She urges the Academy's student delegates to rid themselves of prejudice, and to practice love, honesty, and goodwill.. Rosa Parks died in 2005, at the age of 92. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She is the only woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.