page_title: List of Puerto Ricans
section_title: Civil rights and/or political activists
hierarchical_section_title: List of Puerto Ricans / Civil rights and/or political activists
caption_attribution_description: English: Maria de las Mercedes Barbudo, Independence Leader from Ponce, Puerto Rico, circa 1815
context_page_description: This is a list of notable people from Puerto Rico which includes people who were born in Puerto Rico and people who are of full or partial Puerto Rican descent. The Government of Puerto Rico has been issuing "Certificates of Puerto Rican Citizenship" to anyone born in Puerto Rico or to anyone born outside of Puerto Rico with at least one parent who was born in Puerto Rico since 2007. Also included in the list are some long-term continental American and other residents and/or immigrants of other ethnic heritages who have made Puerto Rico their home and consider themselves to be Puerto Ricans.
  The list is divided into categories and, in some cases, sub-categories, which best describe the field for which the subject is most noted. Some categories such as "Actors, actresses, comedians and directors" are relative since a subject who is a comedian may also be an actor or director. In some cases a subject may be notable in more than one field, such as Luis A. Ferré, who is notable both as a former governor and as an industrialist. However, the custom is to place the subject's name under the category for which he/she is most noted.
context_section_description: Mariana Bracetti a.k.a. "Brazo de Oro" ("Golden Arm"), political activist; leader of the Lares's Revolutionary Council during the Grito de Lares; knit the first flag of the future Republic of Puerto Rico
  Mathias Brugman, political activist; leader of the Grito de Lares; founded the first revolutionary committee in the City of Mayagüez; his revolutionary cell was code named "Capa Prieta" (Black Cape)
  María Cadilla, women's rights activist; one of the first women in Puerto Rico to earn a doctoral degree
  Luisa Capetillo, labor activist; one of Puerto Rico's most famous labor organizers; writer and an anarchist who fought for workers and women's rights
  Alice Cardona, activist and community organizer
  Dennis Flores, activist and filmmaker.
  Tito Kayak, political activist; gained notoriety when a group of Vieques natives and other Puerto Ricans began protesting and squatting on U.S. Navy bombing zones after the 1999 death of Puerto Rican civilian and Vieques native David Sanes, who was killed during a U.S. Navy bombing exercise
  Sylvia del Villard, Afro-Puerto Rican activist, founder of the Afro-Boricua El Coquí Theater; an outspoken activist who fought for the equal rights of the Black Puerto Rican artist; in 1981, she became the first and only director of the Office of Afro-Puerto Rican Affairs of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (Puerto Rican Institute of Culture) (see also "Actresses")
  Isabel González, civil rights activist; young Puerto Rican mother who paved the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship
  Lillian López, librarian and labor activist; founder of the New York Public Library South Bronx Project; advocate for library and education services for Spanish-speaking communities
  Óscar López Rivera, pro-independence activist; the longest incarcerated FALN member
  José Maldonado Román, a.k.a. "Aguila Blanca" (White Eagle), revolutionary
  Eliana Martínez, AIDS activist; was in a notable Florida court case regarding the rights of HIV+ children in public schools
  Felícitas Méndez (née Gómez), activist; with her husband, in 1946, led a community battle which set an important legal precedent for ending de jure segregation in the United States (see Mendez v. Westminster); credited with paving the way for integration and the American civil rights movement
  María de las Mercedes Barbudo, political activist; often called the first female Puerto Rican "Independentista"
  Ana María O'Neill, women's rights activist and educator; in 1929, became the first female professor in the field of commerce in the University of Puerto Rico, which she taught until 1951; urged women to participate in every aspect of civic life and to defend their right to vote
  Manuel Olivieri Sánchez, civil rights activist; court interpreter and a civil rights activist who led the legal battle which granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii
  Olivia Paoli, suffragist and activist who fought for the rights of women in Puerto Rico. She was also the founder of the first theosophist lodge in Puerto Rico.
  César A. Perales, civil rights lawyer; founder of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now LatinoJustice PRLDEF); won precedent-setting lawsuits combating discrimination; New York Secretary of State
  Sylvia Rae Rivera, transgender activist; veteran of the 1969 Stonewall riots
  Anthony Romero, civil rights leader; executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
  Helen Rodríguez Trías, physician and women's rights activist; first Latina president of the American Public Health Association; a founding member of the Women's Caucus of the American Public Health Association; recipient of the Presidential Citizen's Medal; credited with helping to expand the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations in the US, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East (see also "Educators" and "Scientists")
  Ana Roque, women's rights activist, educator and suffragist; one of the founders of the University of Puerto Rico
  Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, civil rights and pro-indepe
caption: María de las Mercedes Barbudo
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