Levan Ramishvili (28 March 1973) is a key figure in Georgia's democracy movement, which successfully forced authoritarian Eduard Shevardnadze to resign through strategic nonviolent action. Since 1996 he is one of the founders and director of the Georgian human rights and public interest advocacy organization, the Liberty Institute.
He was actively involved in trainings for civil activists, and in 2003, trained Kmara activists in nonviolent campaigning techniques. He is author of the country’s Freedom of Information Law, the law on Freedom of Speech and Expression, law on Broadcasting, student's rights and academic freedom chapter in laws on General Education and Higher Education.
He is a long-time civil liberties activist, and became involved in civil liberties battles in 1991 as an active member of the student movement for Georgia's Liberation. Later in 1992 he was actively campaigning against the nationalist government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
In 1992 he got involved with the Center of Social Management at the Cabinet of Ministries. In 1994 he was appointed as a chair of the division of sociology at the International Center for Federal Development of Georgia. He was actively engaged in journalistic work working as a co-editor for newspaper Mimomkhilveli in 1992, co-editor with newspapers: Business Courier (international politics, world economy) 1994 and Argumenti (International reporting, letters to editor) 1995 and 1996. In 1996 and 1997 he worked as a political analyst with the independent TV Channel Rustavi 2.
From 2009 he is editor of world section in Magazine "Tabula".
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.
Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian politician, dissident, scholar, and writer who became the first democratically elected President of Georgia in the post-Soviet era.
James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.
The Rose Revolution or Revolution of Roses was a nonviolent change of power that occurred in Georgia in November 2003. The event was brought about by widespread protests over the disputed parliamentary elections and culminated in the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze, which marked the end of the Soviet era leadership in the country. The revolution derives its name from the climactic moment, when demonstrators led by Mikheil Saakashvili stormed the Parliament session with red roses in hand.
Kmara was a civic youth resistance movement in Georgia, active in the protests prior to and during the November 2003 Rose Revolution, which toppled down the government of Eduard Shevardnadze. Consciously modeled on the Serbian nongovernmental organization (NGO) Otpor!, which had been instrumental in defeating Slobodan Milošević's regime in 2000, the Kmara members were trained and advised by the influential Georgian NGO Liberty Institute and funded by the United States-based Open Society Institute (OSI). The movement was a hybrid of social movement and virtual NGO, which was highly successful in mobilizing the young Georgians, mostly students, against Shevardnadze's rule. Although Kmara was allied with the opposition parties, especially Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement, its behavior and tactics were nonpartisan, focusing on criticizing corruption and failures of the Shevardnadze regime, rather than promoting any particular politician or political party.
Ivane "Vano" Merabishvili is a Georgian politician and 9th Prime Minister of Georgia from 4 July to 25 October 2012. A former NGO activist, he became directly involved in Georgia's politics in 1999 and emerged as one of the government's most influential members after the 2003 Rose Revolution, especially as Georgia's Minister of Internal Affairs.
Diane Judith Nash is an American civil rights activist, and a leader and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement.
Liberty Institute is a Georgian research and advocacy organization affiliated with Ilia Chavchavadze State University. The Institute provides legal services in the field of civil and human rights, runs public campaigns, and conducts legal, educational, and legislative activities to promote democratic values, liberal values, public accountability, and control mechanisms to support the development of democratic institutions in Georgia.
Giorgi (Giga) Bokeria is a Georgian politician and was the secretary of the National Security Council of Georgia from November 2010 to November 2013. He is currently chairman of the Movement for Liberty - European Georgia.
Anne McCarty Braden was an American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator dedicated to the cause of racial equality. She and her husband bought a suburban house for an African American couple during Jim Crow. White neighbors burned crosses and bombed the house. During McCarthyism, Anne was charged with sedition. She wrote and organized for the southern civil rights movement before violations became national news. Anne was among nation's most outspoken white anti-racist activists, organizing across racial divides in environmental, women's, and anti-nuclear movements.
James Luther Bevel was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its Director of Direct Action and Nonviolent Education, Bevel initiated, strategized, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma voting rights movement, and the 1966 Chicago open housing movement. He suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963. Bevel strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Clayborne Carson is an American academic who is a professor of history at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985, he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.
Cordy Tindell Vivian was an American minister, author, and close friend and lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Vivian resided in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute, Inc. He was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Cordell Hull Reagon was an American singer and activist. He was the founding member of The Freedom Singers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leader of the Albany Movement and a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song.After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved” translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers, and finally to the Freedom Voices, made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful, a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
Bernard Lee was an activist and member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the Civil Rights Movement. He was a key associate of Martin Luther King Jr.
Charles Melvin Sherrod was an American minister and civil rights activist. During the civil rights movement, Sherrod helped found the Albany Movement while serving as field secretary for southwest Georgia for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also participated in the Selma Voting Rights Movement and in many other campaigns of the civil rights movement of that era.
Samuel Leamon Younge Jr. was a civil rights and voting rights activist who was murdered for trying to desegregate a "whites only" restroom. Younge was an enlisted service member in the United States Navy, where he served for two years before being medically discharged. Younge was an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a leader of the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League.
Tinatin "Tina" Khidasheli is a Georgian jurist and politician. A Republican Party member and former civil society activist, she was appointed as Georgia's Minister of Defense on 1 May 2015, becoming the country's first ever female defense minister. She resigned on 1 August 2016, after her party decided to leave the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
