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.
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.