I think a better analogy - they remind me a LOT of the Radical Republicans who led the charge to end slavery long before the rest of the country supported the idea.
God damn though, 165 years gives a different look to things. We're talking these guys:
Charles Sumner
He was their leader for a long time, fighting against slavery before the war and for the full rights of Black folk after. His dad had been an OG abolitionist who taught Sumner that freeing the slaves was bullshyt unless they were given equal rights too. He was the guy who nearly got beat to death on the Senate floor (I'm not exaggerating, a southern senator beat him so hard with a cane it nearly killed him) for this speech:
Thaddeus Stevens
Stevens was fighting for Black equality and the vote for thirty years before it happened. He was a freaking congressman and yet was actively participating in the Underground Railroad, coordinating actions and even having a secret tunnel and hidden cistern for fugitive slaves in his own damn house. When the Fugitive Slave Act was being pushed he shyt on the establishment in ways pretty damn reminiscent of the Squad.
He was also one of the main pushers of forty acres and a mule. He was extremely upset when Congress refused to guarantee land to Black folk and felt that it was even more important than getting the vote.
William Seward
He was fighting for Black rights for 20+ years before the Civil War broke out, and actually nearly won the nomination for president in 1860 over Lincoln (who was personally anti-slavery but not determined to end it like the radicals were). When Stephen Douglas said n----r on the Senate floor Seward got up and shyt all over him and said no bigot like him would ever be president. That racist Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth who killed Lincoln tried to have Seward killed too, Seward was shot but survived.
The Radicals were shytting on the Southerners, the Democrats, AND the moderates in their own party in the 1850s and all through the war, but even though they were an outspoken minority they became the main driving force behind pushing their party and then the nation to eventually end slavery. They finally rose to power in 1866 when Reconstruction was going poorly and the rest of Republicans agreed that the freed slaves needed more support from the federal government, pushed the 14th Amendment through, pushed to keep former Confederates out of power, and fought the KKK, then lost power in the 1870s when moderates from their own party turned on them (claiming enough had already been done to help Black people) and the split allowed the Democrats to take power and and destroy Reconstruction.
It's crazy shyt that the fukking Confederates have 100x as many memorials and statues as these guys do.