Connor Norton - An American spent decades exposing the ivory trade. He was just found dead in his home.

Esmond Martin, a New-York native who dedicated his life to exposing the illegal ivory trade, was just recently found stabbed to death in his house in Nairobi. For decades Martin had been putting his life on the line, venturing deep into China, Vietnam, Laos, and many African nations to carefully investigate the smuggling of rhino and elephant horns, providing detailed information concerning where the smuggling was taking place, market prices for ivory, and trade routes used to move the illicit goods to carvers and buyers. All of this never-before-seen information helped give many nations the ability to more efficiently deal with the illegal ivory trade within their borders, and the Kenyan government even released a statement thanking Martin for his work after his death. Removal of the tusks of endangered animals is illegal because doing so generally requires the animal be put down so as not to resist smugglers, though often they are also killed so that said smugglers can get to the valuable ivory ends embedded deep near the skull; groups such as Save the Elephants have long fought to put an end to such practices, and they have had an influential ally in Esmond, who Wildlife Direct chief executive Paula Kahumbu called a "global authority" on the trade which he was "at the forefront of exposing". However, this all ended when Martin was found stabbed in the neck in what Nairobi officials say looks like a botched robbery, though others speculate this was a deliberate act intended to remove the leader in the fight to end the smuggling to ivory.

This murder of an activist in pursuit of justice has many ties in American history, one being the Rev. George Lee. A black minister from Belzoni, Miss., he made it his mission to protect black voting rights as outlined in the 15th amendment as well as bringing an end to the racially separated, grossly unequal institutions made illegal by the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs Board of Education. Like Martin, he was a pioneer in his field, one of the first influential leaders to fight to get out the black vote, and like Martin he paid the price for his service: in 1955, he was shot by white supremacists in a drive-by in which no one was ever convicted. The Civil Rights Movement took a lot of lives and a long time, and America is still recovering from centuries of institutionalized racism; but even though we haven't made it to equality yet, we've definitely come a long way. Still, if that's any parallel to the ivory trade, than I gosh darn hope we do a better job with this one.