New Agents Of Change

Changing the world has never been a job for the conventional or easily discouraged. But the problems of our time demand an especially crafty and determined breed of activist, because our enemies refuse to dress the part. Math illiteracy plagues black kids without wearing a hood or burning a cross. Urban sprawl doesn't need a gun to rob a community's quality of life. And hunger can hide beneath a designer T shirt.

Recognizing that, civic activists are finding new ways to take on old problems--and new ways to take on new ones. They are battling problems that have no simple cause or solution, injustices that groan under the weight of words like systemic and insidious. Government's shrinking role means activists take over services once performed by bureaucrats: a cross-country cyclist becomes a consultant who eases traffic jams; a former civil rights activist flies to Mississippi each week to teach math in a way that lets students actually learn it. At the same time, modern activists must find ways to cut through the info glut and hold the attention of a public grown wary of ideologues.

When they succeed--and TIME has found six men and women who are succeeding, in ways large and small--their victories are all the sweeter. "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause," said Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel. "The mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." These crusaders have chosen the long, humble road.

To meet more Innovators, visit our website at time.com/innovators