Henry Spira
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Henry Spira (June 19, 1927–September 12, 1998) is widely regarded as one of the most effective animal rights activists of the 20th century.[1][2] Working with Animal Rights International, a group he founded in 1974,[3] Spira is particularly remembered for his 1976 campaign against experiments on cats at the American Museum of Natural History, after which the museum halted the research, and for his full-page advertisement in The New York Times in 1980, famously featuring a rabbit with sticking plaster over the eyes, and asking, "How many rabbits does Revlon blind for beauty's sake?"[1]
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[edit] Early life
Spira was born in Antwerp, Belgium to Maurice Spira and Margit Spitzer Spira. After his birth, the family moved to Germany, England, Panama, and then in 1940 to the United States to escape the Nazis.[4]
Spira left home when he was sixteen to became a merchant seaman, but was fired as a security risk during the McCarthy era, because of his involvement in left-wing politics. He was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving in Berlin in 1953-54. Peter Singer writes that Spira was also involved in the civil rights movement, and reported on Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba for The Militant, a left-wing newspaper.[1]
After two years in the Army, he worked at the General Motors factory in Linden, New Jersey on the assembly line. In 1958, he graduated as a mature student from Brooklyn College in New York, and in 1966 began teaching English literature in a New York high school, teaching students from the ghettos, according to Singer.[1]
[edit] Activism
One of the major influences on Spira was Peter Singer's 1973 work, Animal Liberation.
In 1974, Spira founded Animal Rights International (ARI) and in 1976, he led the ARI's campaign against vivisection on cats by the American Museum of Natural History, which was researching the impact of certain type of mutilation, including castration, on the sex lives of cats. The museum halted the research in 1977, and Spira's campaign was hailed as the first ever to succeed in stopping animal experiments.[4]
Another well-known campaign targeted cosmetics giant Revlon's use of the Draize test, which involves dripping substances into animals' eyes, usually rabbits, to determine whether they are toxic. On April 15, 1980, Spira and the ARI took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, with the header, How many rabbits does Revlon blind for beauty's sake? As a result, Revlon began research into "cruelty free" alternatives.
Henry took a picture of a primate who had been imprisoned for months in a Bethesda Naval Hospital chair to the Black Star Wire Service which sent the picture around the world. It was shown to Indira Gandhi, India's PM, who cancelled monkey export to the U.S., since she found that the picture proved that the U.S. Navy was violating a treaty with India that forbade military research on animals.
Other campaigns targeted the face branding of cattle, the poultry industry, and fast food giant KFC (with an advert that combined a KFC bucket and a toilet). Nevertheless, Spira was an advocate of gradual change, negotiating with McDonald's, for example, for better conditions in the slaughterhouses of its suppliers. He proved especially adept at leveraging the power of the larger animal welfare organizations, such as the Humane Society of the United States, to advance his campaigns.
Spira died of esophageal cancer in 1998. His life was chronicled by Peter Singer in Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Spira, Henry and Singer, Peter. "Ten Points for Activists" in Singer, Peter (ed.). In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave. Blackwell, 2006, introductory note by Peter Singer, pp. 214-215.
- ^ Francione, Gary. Rain without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement, Temple University Press, 1995, chapter 3.
- ^ "Thirty three years of measurable change", Animal Rights International, retrieved March 22, 2008.
- ^ a b "Henry Spira", The New York Times, September 15, 1998.
[edit] Further reading
- Spira, Henry. "Fighting to Win". In Peter Singer (ed), In Defense of Animals, New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 194-208.
- Singer, Peter. Ethics Into Action, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. (Describes much of Spira's work. Some excerpts available online: "Ten Ways to Make a Difference" and "A Meaningful Life").
[edit] External links
- In Memoriam - from Animal Rights International.
- What Would Henry Do? - from Satya magazine
- Henry Spira: The Vegan.com Interview
