Lisa Fithian

Lisa Fithian (born 1961 (age 63)) is an American political activist and protest consultant.

Early life and education
Fithian was born in 1961 (age 63) and grew up in Hawthorne, New York. During high school, she founded the underground newspaper The Free Thinker. She began her work in the mid-1970s as a member of her high school's student government, where she served as president. She continued advocacy work as president of the Skidmore College Student Government Association. She graduated from Skidmore in 1983. Her brother David Fithian is the 10th president of Clark University in Worcester, MA.

Activism
As a member and coordinator of the Washington Peace Center for seven years during the 1980s, Fithian organized hundreds of events and demonstrations on a range of issues, locally and nationally, and helped lead an extensive anti-racism process that transformed the Peace Center into a multicultural organization.

In the early 1990s, Fithian joined the labor movement, bringing her experience to the Justice for Janitors campaigns in Washington, D.C., Denver, and Los Angeles. She continued her work for social, economic, and environmental justice, providing training and organizing support to many of the global-justice mobilizations around the world since the shutdown of the World Trade Organization Ministerial in Seattle in 1999.

After Hurricane Katrina, Fithian worked with the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans.

Fithian previously served as a National Steering Committee member of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of over 1,000 local and national groups working to end the war in Iraq. She was also a member of the national team of Extinction Rebellion.

In 2024, she worked with Columbia University students protesting for divestment from Israel, advising students who launched an occupation of Hamilton Hall on April 29. The New York City Police Department labeled her a "professional agitator" in footage released during a press conference.

Writings
Fithian has written throughout the years, including the 2007 book anthology What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation by South End Press. She wrote the 2019 book Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance.