Melba Beals
Civil rights activist
One of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated an all-white high school in Arkansas in 1957, this journalism grad, pictured left, is now chair of Dominican University's Communications Department. Her awards include the Congressional Gold Medal and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Excellence in Writing.
Photo courtesy of the Central High Museum Historical Collections/UALR Archives.
Randy Hayes
Environmental pioneer
His masters thesis in environmental planning, a 16 mm film about the desert, won Best Student Film from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and led to Hayes founding the Rainforest Action Network.
Norma Hotaling
Crusader for survivors of abuse, prostitution and trauma
She died in 2008 but her legacy lives on through Standing Against Global Exploitation, an organization she founded as part of her health education coursework at SF State.
Ralf Hotchkiss
Disability activist
He used his $260,000 McArthur Foundation "genius" grant to start an SF State group that would become Whirlwind Wheelchair International, which helps people in developing countries build their own wheelchairs.
Cleve Jones
AIDS activist
The founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt was an SF State student when he stitched the first panel of what would become the world's largest, ongoing community arts project.
Wilma Mankiller
American Indian activist
Long before her selection as first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985, she was an SF State student who participated in the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island.
Joseph Marshall
Youth advocate
This MacArthur "genius grant" recipient has been called the "Repo Man" for his remarkable ability to turn around the lives of teens in trouble with drugs and gangs.
Jerry Nims
Religious activist
Jerry Falwell's successor as head of the Moral Majority turned toward conservatism after reading Marx and Lenin as an SF State student in the '60s.
Mario Savio
Free speech activist
Though most closely associated with the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, his alma mater is SF State, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1984.
Mu Sochua
Member of Cambodian Parliament, human rights advocate
Her efforts against sex trafficking won her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a Human Rights Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices Global Partnership in 2005.