The Most Important Public Figures Who Never Held Elected Office (opens in new tab)

1. Martin Luther King Jr.In 1955, few had heard of him yet. A mere eight years later, he was moving mountains.2. Frederick DouglassBorn into bondage, he was King’s nineteenth-century precursor and the country’s conscience during the Civil War and after.“A champion of civil rights before FDR, Eleanor [Roosevelt] wrote her own column for 27 years before and after he was president, and she led the committee that wrote the U.N. [Universal] Declaration of Human Rights.”—Amy Fried, University of Ma...