Civil rights & activism
Gary Yourofsky
born 1970 · animal rights activist, lecturer
Detroit-born, Oak Park-raised animal rights lecturer whose 2010 talk 'The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear' became a landmark of online vegan activism.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 56- Detroit years
- 1970–
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Gary Yourofsky was born into a Jewish family in Detroit in 1970 and grew up in the inner-ring suburb of Oak Park. He later traced his activism to a visit behind the scenes at a circus, arranged through his stepfather, a circus clown, where he saw how the animals were treated. In the 1990s he founded the group ADAPTT (Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow) and took part in direct actions, including a 1997 raid on a Canadian mink farm that led to a jail term in Ontario, and several countries later barred him from entry. From the late 1990s he turned to lecturing, speaking to tens of thousands of high school and university students across the United States. His 2010 lecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, filmed and shared online, has been viewed millions of times and is credited with a surge of interest in veganism, notably in Israel.
Highlights
- Founder of ADAPTT (Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow)
- Delivered 'The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear' at Georgia Tech (2010)
- Lectured to tens of thousands of students in U.S. schools and universities
- Grew up in Oak Park, Michigan