Celebrating 50 Years of the Animal Rights Movement

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s the perfect time to take a moment to celebrate the golden anniversary of two extraordinary events that sparked the birth of the Animal Rights Movement in the United States. In 1975, a group of brilliant and passionate minds came together to launch a campaign to protect vulnerable beings who cannot fight for themselves. For the past 50 years, animal rights activists have worked tirelessly to create a better, safer world for all animals. To commemorate the anniversary of these historic, life-saving events, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) and Vegan Linked have collaborated to produce an exclusive six-part video series documenting the birth and evolution of the Animal Rights Movement in our nation.

The Two 1975 Events That Sparked a Movement

The first inciting event began with a book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer. Singer’s groundbreaking book, Animal Liberation, challenged Americans to rethink their relationship with nonhuman animals. The author drew on Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian principle, which states: “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?'” Benthem argued that as a species, we can no longer ignore the injustices of the systematic exploitation of animals for food, fashion, experiments, and entertainment.

The second event occurred in the summer of 1975, when the World Vegetarian Congress convened in the United States. This assembly marked the first time that vegetarians from across the globe gathered to share knowledge, inspiration, and strategies. Activists who were already living without meat or animal products found strength in numbers. This gathering spurred the creation of 60 new local vegetarian societies and a flood of publications about plant-based eating.

Together, these two events laid the foundation for one of the most transformative social justice movements of the late 20th century.

The Landscape Before Animal Rights in 1975

To understand the magnitude of 1975, it’s important to examine the years leading up to it.

Animal protection in the United States had deep roots but a narrow focus. Animal rights organizations, including The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA/1866), The American Humane Association (1877), The Animal Welfare Institute (1951), The Humane Society of the United States (1954), Friends of Animals (1957), The Fund for Animals (1967), and The Animal Protection Institute (1968) did meaningful work in areas like sheltering, wildlife conservation, welfarism, and opposing vivisection.

Most of these organizations focused their campaigns on causes they deemed acceptable, such as cats, dogs, and laboratory animals, while overlooking the plight of farmed animals. Although they worked on behalf of animals, none of these organizations advocated the fundamental right of animals to live completely free from human exploitation.

At the time, vegetarianism was not a well-known lifestyle. The few local groups of vegetarians that did exist focused on organizing potlucks, picnics, and lectures, but overall had little visibility or influence on others. It was a moment in time when the infrastructure for a national movement simply did not exist.

The 1975 publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and the United States’ convention of the World Vegetarian Congress were revolutionary in creating the philosophical framework and grassroots base that the movement had been missing.

From Vegetarianism to Animal Rights

In the years immediately following 1975, activists saw two parallel paths unfold.

On the first path, the World Vegetarian Congress energized the plant-based community. Within five years, dozens of local societies flourished, new books were published, and a genuine subculture of people who did not eat animals took root in America. Unfortunately, the energy faded almost as quickly as it had begun. By the end of the decade, most of those groups had dwindled to organizing social gatherings instead of campaigning for change.

The second path saw Animal Liberation inspiring a new wave of activists who were unwilling to settle for potlucks. Within the movement, a dozen or so individuals decided it was time to act (including Henry Spira, Alex Pacheco, Ingrid Newkirk, Richard Morgan, Doug Moss, Connie Salamone, Michael Budkie, Karen Budkie, and Jim Mason). Animal Liberation launched bold campaigns against animal experiments, fur fashion, and the abuse of animals in the entertainment industry.

• Henry Spira famously shut down cat-blinding experiments at the American Museum of Natural History and later ended cosmetic testing on rabbits’ eyes.
• Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk exposed the horrors of experiments on monkeys, then went on to found PETA.
• Richard Morgan organized massive international protests opposing vivisection.
• Karen Budkie and Michael Budkie founded Stop Animal Exploitation Now!, which successfully shut down many cruel research facilities.

These early animal rights pioneers interpreted Singer’s work as a call for animal rights, even though Singer himself emphasized reducing suffering rather than declaring inherent rights for animals. These two ideologies converged in 1981 at the Action for Life Conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This animal rights event brought passionate vegetarians and animal rights activists together in a melting pot of inspiration. In response to the event, many lifelong vegetarians decided to abandon dairy and eggs, embrace veganism, and join the fight for animal rights. This conference marked the true birth of the U.S. Animal Rights Movement.

The Philosophical Roots of the Animal Rights Movement

The events of 1975 were the culmination of centuries of shifting thought about animals.

In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle reduced animals to “living machines” designed to serve humans. Christian thinkers like Paul the Apostle, Thomas Aquinas, and René Descartes also adopted this mindset. This thought process prevailed for centuries because human survival seemed to depend on animals for food, clothing, labor, and war.

The dawn of the industrial age opened new possibilities for animal liberation. Inventing kerosene ended humanity’s reliance on whale oil, steam and gasoline engines gave horses a reprieve from the transport and labor industries, and telegraphs replaced homing pigeons. As human dependence on animals waned, more questions emerged about the ethics of using animals.

In 1789, reformer Jeremy Bentham made the radical argument that animals’ ability to suffer, not their ability to reason, was what mattered morally. His ideas inspired the founding of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the world’s first organization dedicated to animal cruelty.

In 1892, Henry Salt took this idea further, declaring that animals had rights of their own, independent of human convenience.

In 1965, Brigid Brophy’s editorial The Rights of Animals reignited this idea and inspired young Oxford philosophers to publish Animals, Men & Morals. This intellectual climate inspired Singer’s Animal Liberation.

The Crucial Distinction Between Animal Welfare & Animal Rights

Singer’s utilitarianism called for minimizing suffering, but Tom Reagan advanced a different philosophy in his 1983 book The Case for Animal Rights. Reagan proposed that all sentient beings have inherent rights to life and liberty. This distinction became crucial as the movement began to turn its attention to food. Under utilitarianism, raising and killing animals humanely might be permissible, but under rights theory, there is no ethical justification for using animals.

As we entered the 21^st century, the divide between welfarism and animal rights was more apparent than ever. Wealthy donors and foundations poured millions into animal welfare reforms to reduce suffering in factory farms. At the same time, abolitionist groups, like Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), insisted that fighting for reform risked legitimizing animal exploitation instead of ending it.

Fifty Years of Progress for the Animals

Despite internal debates, the progress over the past five decades is undeniable. Here are a few examples of the progress the animal rights movement has made in the last fifty years.

• Only a handful of vegetarian groups existed in the U.S. in 1975. Today, vegan festivals, sanctuaries, and activist networks flourish in every region.

• In 1975, vegan was an unknown term, but today it’s on restaurant menus, supermarket labels, and well-known in the mainstream media.

• Laws protecting animals were unheard of in 1975. Currently, dozens of law schools offer courses on animal law, and many attorneys litigate on behalf of animals.

• In 1975, nearly all medical schools used live animals for surgical training, but by 2025, few did.

• Fur, leather, and wool dominated fashion in the mid-70s. In 2025, innovative plant-based and synthetic fabrics will often replace them.

• Public demonstrations for animals were rare in 1975. But now marches, conferences, and global days of action bring together thousands of activists each year.

Advancements in animal rights have significantly increased public awareness of the cause. Animals were once invisible victims, but today millions of people recognize their suffering and question their exploitation.

Looking Ahead to the Future of Animal Rights

The golden anniversary is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the pioneers of our movement while sending out a call to action for the future. The movement is still young compared to struggles for human rights, civil rights, or women’s rights. Billions of animals continue to suffer and die each year in factory farms, laboratories, and entertainment industries.

If the past fifty years have shown us anything, it’s that change is possible and even inevitable when compassion is on our side. Each generation since the pioneers of the 1970s has carried the torch further.

In honor of the golden milestone, Farm Animal Rights Movement recommits to the same mission we have championed for decades, ending the use of animals for food and creating a world where all beings are free. We are proud to have documented the golden anniversary of the animal rights movement in an exclusive six-part video series now available at www.fivedecades.org.