About Gary Yourofsky

Gary Yourofsky has spoken to thousands of students about the true meaning of animal rights. Gary's powerful and enlightening message has been heard by more than 35,000 students in 135 middle schools, high schools and universities nationwide, including UTEP, U. of Florida, Georgia Tech and Fresno State. Gary uses thought-provoking prose, inspiring stories, indisputable facts, quotes from Pythagoras, William Ralph Inge and other great thinkers, plus graphic footage from slaughterhouses (land and sea), to ask people to be kind to animals and, ultimately, go vegan.

Lecturing is a softer approach for Yourofsky, who has been arrested numerous times for random acts of kindness and compassion. In 1997, Gary even liberated 1,542 minks scheduled for certain death from the Eberts Fur Farm in Blenheim, Ontario. Several attorneys, led by Donald Perkins, Esq., tried to pass a resolution in Michigan in honor of Yourofsky's actions. "We recognize that throughout this nation's history, other individuals, acting from conscience have similarly violated certain laws and ordinances. In our own time, these same principles of nonviolent disobedience to unjust laws have been applied by such individuals as the Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom were—as was Michigan's Gary Yourofsky—sentenced to jail for their actions."

Wayne State University professor Jack Lessenberry, a former NY Times reporter who currently writes for The Oakland Press, The Metro Times and Toledo Blade, once said this about Michigan's most outspoken animal rights activist: "We murder billions of animals each year, and that's what Yourofsky has dedicated his young life to fighting. Actually, he knows he can't do much to stop it but he intends to raise our consciousness. Frankly, when I went to interview Yourofsky, I expected to meet a fanatic. Afterward, not only did I find him frighteningly sane and mostly convincing, I had the rather uneasy feeling that always comes when you realize that you are a hypocrite."

Yourofsky's inspirational actions have been covered by every newspaper, radio outlet, and TV station in his native Detroit, and by countless other media outlets nationwide. Author Charlotte Montgomery even included a chapter about Yourofsky in the book Blood Relations: Animals, Humans and Politics. Yourofsky also wrote an essay in 2004 entitled "Abolition, Liberation, Freedom. Coming to a Fur Farm Near You," which was published in the first-ever book about the Animal Liberation Front. Dr. Steve Best, chair of Philosophy at UTEP, oversaw the production of Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?. (Read Gary's essay here.) Gary has also written, produced and done several voiceovers for graphic, hard-hitting TV ads that have aired in LA and Detroit. Yourofsky, 37, holds a B.A. in journalism from Oakland U. and a radio/broadcasting degree from Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts.