“Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free”

AFTER SUFFRAGE, WOMEN SECURED FURTHER POLITICAL WINS. THESE WOMEN LED THE CHARGE

PAULI MURRAY

A brilliant legal mind, Murray was an ardent advocate for women’s and civil rights. Thurgood Marshall admired the lawyer’s work and referred to her 1951 book, States’

Laws on Race and Color, as the bible of the civil rights movement. In 1966, Murray helped found the National Organization for Women and, in 1977, became the first African-American woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.

FLORYNCE KENNEDY

An impassioned activist and lawyer educated at Columbia Law School, Kennedy took on cases to advance civil and reproductive rights. She helped organize the 1968 protest against misogyny in the Miss America Pageant, toured the country giving lectures with Gloria Steinem in 1970 and founded the Feminist Party in 1971, which nominated Shirley Chisholm for president in 1972.

PATSY MINK

In 1964, Hawaii gained a second seat in Congress; Mink ran for it and won, becoming the first woman of color elected to Congress. Over 13 terms, she was a fierce proponent of gender and racial equality. She co-authored and championed Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. After her death in 2002, Congress renamed the law in her honor.

FANNIE LOU HAMER

Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Hamer was moved to become an activist after a white doctor forcibly sterilized her in 1961. The following year, Hamer tried to register to vote—and was summarily fired from the plantation where she picked cotton. In 1971, she co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, which advanced women’s involvement in all areas of political life.