3 Lessons in Activism from the World’s most Effective Animal Rights Advocate
Henry Spira pressured corporate giants and governments to change widespread lab testing practices.
Working in activism and advocacy is tricky. Progress is often painfully slow, and no matter if you work as an individual or are part of a grassroots organization, there are days when it’s hard to remain hopeful and believe that your efforts have a meaningful impact. After all, how much influence can one person have in a system driven and funded by corporate interests and upheld by a vast bureaucratic apparatus?
More than you may dare to believe — as the life and legacy of animal rights advocate Henry Spira shows!
The Belgian-American was a merchant seaman and unionist who only became interested in animal rights in 1973 at the age of forty-five when he — initially reluctantly — looked after a cat for a traveling friend. Shortly after that, Spira read an article on animal liberation by Peter Singer in the New York Review of Books. Both experiences fundamentally changed Spira’s perspective on animal rights, and he started to campaign tirelessly on issues such as laboratory testing and factory farming. His campaigns were remarkably effective and pressured global corporations such as Revlon, Avon, Bristol…
