Unknown author · Public domain

Ashley Montagu, born Israel Ehrenberg in London, became one of the most visible public intellectuals of his era, writing more than 60 books and appearing regularly on American television and in magazines to argue against biological theories of race. In 1950 he drafted UNESCO's landmark statement rejecting scientific racism, work that shaped how a generation understood race as a social rather than biological category. He taught at Rutgers, Harvard, Princeton and NYU, was forced out of Rutgers amid the McCarthy hearings, and rebuilt his public career as a television and magazine fixture; in 1995 the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year.