Jose Rodriguez is an American political activist. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1952 and was naturalized as a child because of his father's long career in the U.S. Air Force. Getting drafted for Vietnam changed his pro-war attitudes. As the war wound down, he spent four years in the Air Force, stationed outside of Los Angeles.

Rodriguez then moved to Virginia, enrolled in George Mason University and became involved in the anti-nuclear movement, the beginning of a career as an activist. He worked on the 1984 campaigns of Alan Cranston, Gary Hart and Walter Mondale. He did press advance for Joan Mondale.

Rodriguez went on to become associate director of Freeze Voter, the political action committee of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. He then joined the 1986 Great Peace March, both traveling on the road and working in the Washington D.C. office.