These are the top 10 petitions that changed 2021, according to the nonprofit tech platform Change.org:
1. Justice for Julius Jones (6.5 million signatures): At age 19, Julius Jones was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and put on Death Row. For 22 years, he and his family have maintained his innocence. Cece Jones-Davis took on Jones’ cause, starting the Julius Jones Coalition and a viral petition which gained celebrity support from Kim Kardashian, Kerry Washington and Russell Westbrook, among others. Three hours before Julius was to be executed, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted his sentence.
2. Justice for Elijah McClain (5.6 million signatures): Elijah McClain was killed by Aurora, Colorado, police officers in 2019. Outraged by McCain’s death, activist Saraya Hamidi started a petition, calls to legislators and increased public pressure, leading to a $15 million settlement this year in the McClain family’s civil rights suit.
3. Emergency stimulus checks (2.9 million signatures): In the wake of COVID-19 closings, Colorado restaurateur Stephanie Bonin started a petition urging Congress to issue recurring $2,000 monthly stimulus checks for struggling families. While stimulus checks were issued on an emergency basis, Bonin and her supporters continue fighting for continuing regular checks for the duration of the pandemic, citing an ongoing economic crisis due to the Omicron variant and inflation.
4. Juneteenth national holiday (1.6 million signatures): 95-year-old Opal Lee of Fort Worth, Texas, has been fighting for Juneteenth as a national holiday for years. She believes Juneteenth, which commemorates the day that enslaved Black Americans in Texas finally heard they were free, could be a unifier for a polarized country. Her petition galvanized national support and prominent celebrity and political endorsements. Lee was present for the historic moment when President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth federal holiday – the first new holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
5. Student loan cancellation (1.06 million signatures): Alan Collinge founded Student Loan Justice, a coalition of activists fighting for student loan cancellation. He and SLJ started a petition calling for President Joe Biden to cancel student loans by federal order.
6. Saving Idaho’s endangered wolves (515,000+ signatures): Idaho’s wolves had finally made a longhoped-for recovery, but Idaho legislators introduced a law that called for killing 90% of the wolf population. Erika Moore, a wolf advocate from Colorado, started a petition asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Idaho’s governor to reevaluate the decision.
7. Ban UNL-Fiji (500,000+ signatures): In August, news broke that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln had received severe reports of sexual assault by the campus fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. Thousands rallied to ban the fraternity with on-campus protests and online activism on Change.org.
8. LeVar Burton for ‘Jeopardy’ Host (296,000+ signatures): After icon Alex Trebek’s death, super fan Joshua Sanders started a petition urging “Jeopardy” to choose LeVar Burton as the next host. Sanders cited Burton’s legacy of Black representation on “Star Trek” and literacy efforts through “Reading Rainbow” as the perfect fit. The petition went viral, gaining massive fan and celebrity support.
9. Anti-trans legislation movement (800,000+ signatures): In early 2021, states across the country introduced legislation that would have targeted the rights and dignity of transgender youth. People flocked to Change.org to start and sign petitions on the issue.
10. End discriminatory school dress codes (604,000+ signatures): 2021 saw an explosion in youth petitions to ban discriminatory dress codes in schools across America.