Political Activism

An activist in a police state should know when to sprint. Mohamed Abdel Aziz has bolted from trouble a number of times, including dashing from security forces closing in on a demonstration in the port city of Alexandria. His less mercurial moments have three times landed him in police stations, but upon each release he has returned to his computer, opened his blog and conspired in cyberspace to end President Hosni Mubarak's 27-year rule of Egypt. That's an unlikely prospect.

As they retired from South Los Angeles pulpits, civil rights-era ministers known as the "old lions" took with them a kind of social justice-oriented "Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other" Christianity that has been quietly fading in African American churches. Theirs was neither the popular "prosperity gospel," which preaches that God will reward the faithful with material riches, nor the soul-saving ministry of televangelists and mega-churches dedicated to preparing people for Judgment Day.

The icons of revolutions past have found rebirth in Tehran. Opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has been cast on Twitter as the "Gandhi of Iran" who speaks of his own martyrdom and, while not naturally an inspiring figure, has led hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets. In criticizing the crackdown in Tehran, President Obama has quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and reminded the Iranian government that "the world is watching."

For some people the Harry Potter books made for good beach reading, but for others they inspired a call to social activism. Andrew Slack, the 29-year-old director of the nonprofit Harry Potter Alliance, sits firmly in the second camp.

Conservatives are calling it their August Revolt -- a surprising upsurge of activism against President Obama's proposed healthcare overhaul. Spurred on by the success of their efforts to dominate the news at Democratic town hall meetings, conservative groups are reporting increases in membership lists and are joining forces to plan at least one mass demonstration in Washington next month. But the conservative mobilization has also created an unusual dilemma for Republican leaders, who want to turn the enthusiasm into election victories next year but find themselves the target of ire from many of the same activists.

Like their parents before them, many of the so-called fourth generation of the Kennedy family are public servants, attorneys, authors and activists. They, too, have suffered addiction, divorce and untimely ends. With the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the family patriarch, public attention has naturally turned to the next generation of the family many liken to American royalty. The question on many minds: Will the Kennedys ever produce another political giant? It may not, however, be a question the Kennedys are asking themselves.

It is one of the enduring questions of religion and science, and lately of American politics: When does a fertilized egg become a person? Abortion foes, tired of a profusion of laws that limit but do not abolish abortion, are trying to answer the question in a way that they hope could put an end to legalized abortion. Across the country, they have revived efforts to amend state constitutions to declare that personhood -- and all rights accorded human beings -- begins at conception.

For years Kai Chen enjoyed the good life of a professional basketball player in China, playing on the national team and traveling around the world. But he was never happy representing a government that he said tore his family apart and was responsible for millions of deaths in his country. So after Chen married U.S. foreign exchange student Susan Gruenegerg in 1981, the couple moved to the United States to start a new life together. Chen eventually earned a degree in political science from UCLA and has since become a passionate anticommunist crusader.

Trevor Niemann has grown up along the cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean as his backyard playground. To this 17-year-old avid beachgoer, it just makes sense to be concerned about the welfare of the coastal waters and marine life. Niemann, a senior at the Chadwick School, signed up for marine biology this year, but he and his classmates have taken their studies outside of the classroom, supporting proposals under review by a state-appointed task force to preserve a large swath of coastal water from fishing.

Every Friday, Mohammed Khatib's forces assemble for battle with the Israeli army and gather their weapons: a bullhorn, banners -- and a fierce belief that peaceful protest can bring about a Palestinian state. A few hundred strong, they march to the Israeli barrier that separates the tiny farming community of Bilin from much of its land. They chant and shout. A few teenagers throw stones. Khatib helped launch the weekly ritual five years ago in an attempt to "re-brand" a Palestinian struggle often associated with rocket attacks and suicide bombers.