Bianca Jagger (b. 1945)
Filed under the name Bianca · May 11, 2026
Bianca Jagger has spent decades now campaigning on human rights and the environment, which is a longer stretch of steady devotion to a cause than most folks manage, and she came to it from Nicaragua originally before her name got known the world over. I don't follow the ins and outs of every cause somebody takes up, but I do respect a person who picks something bigger than themselves and sticks with it past the point where it's fashionable. I had a former student who became something of an activist herself, always writing me about one cause or another, and I used to tell her the same thing I'd tell Bianca Jagger if she ever wandered into my kitchen: conviction is worth more when it costs you something to keep it. Seems like Jagger's kept at it a long time, well past when the cameras cared. That's the kind of staying power I was always trying to teach in a two-room schoolhouse, in my own small way.