Moroccan historiography is increasingly focused on the colonial era, identifying existing lacunae in modern Moroccan history. Some Moroccan historians have contended that the protectorate period (1912-56) has not been adequately studied, and highlight many existing myths surrounding those decades. Moving beyond the historiographic need to illuminate this era's events and developments, there is a growing sense in Morocco that the roots of the country's existing political and social ailments are to be found in the protectorate era, adding a contemporary urgency to this topic. One component of this new focus on the protectorate period is Morocco's nationalist movement. Historians and other scholars question the movement's presumed unity, challenging the prevailing notion that the movement was monolithic and largely dominated by the Fez based traditional oriented elite. The nationalist movement is increasingly recognized as being far more diverse, with alternative centers and figures, and much greater variety among its leaders. This paper probes these questions further by presenting several prominent Moroccan nationalist leaders and analyzing their political profiles. While the lives and ideological positions of senior nationalist leaders such as Allal El-Fassi have been featured in various studies, this paper highlights the lives and opinions of leaders such as Ahmad Belafredj (1908-1990), Mohamed Hassan Ouazzani (1910-1978), and Mehdi Ben Barka (1920-1965) in contrast to El-Fassi. Each individual offers alternative perspectives on Moroccan nationalism and Allal el-Fassi's leadership, stemming from their positions as either el-Fassi's associates-albeit with a different background (Belafredj), personal rivals (Ouazzani) or ideological foes (Ben Barka). Beyond gaining greater familiarity with these leaders, this study shows how Morocco's nationalist movement was far from monolithic and much more complex than its image as a Fez-based, socially and politically conservative closed circle. Sources for this project include memoires, interviews, and statements of these individuals, which present their lives and ideologies as they developed over the course of the nationalist struggle for independence. These sources are complemented by Moroccan, French, and American archival material on these individuals, along with journalistic profiles and retrospective analyses of their roles in Morocco's nationalist politics. This study expands our knowledge about Morocco's nationalist movement, which remains underrepresented in studies of modern Moroccan history and modern North African nationalism. On a broader level, this paper highlights unique aspects of Moroccan nationalism, which may enrich the study of other Arab nationalist movements and ideologies.