Lena Olive Smith
Lena Olive Smith was a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist during the 1920s and 1930s.
Category Archives: Activism
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Ethel Ray Nance
Ethel Ray Nance was an African American activist and writer. During the 1920s, she broke various racial and gender barriers in Minnesota, participated in the Harlem Renaissance movement, worked as a secretary for the National Urban League, and contributed to Opportunity magazine.
Eva McDonald Valesh
In 1888, a St. Paul Globe exposé of women’s working conditions penned by “Eva Gay” launched the career of Eva McDonald Valesh, a young writer. During the time that she lived in the state, Valesh left a big impression on Minnesota journalism, politics, and labor organizing.
Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple
At the turn of the twentieth century, Evangeline Whipple used her wealth to improve the lives of women, people of color, and the poor. She supported social justice for Native Americans in Minnesota, for African Americans in Florida, and for villagers and World War I refugees in Bagni di Lucca, Italy.
Anna Dickie Olesen
The first female nominee of a major party for the US Senate, Anna Dickie Olesen was a celebrated orator and passionate social reformer who became one of the most prominent Democratic women of the early twentieth century.
Bertha Berglin Moller
Bertha Berglin Moller (Delin), jailed twice in Washington, DC, for leading a hunger strike, was one of Minnesota’s most passionate and fiery woman suffragists.
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve was the child of a military family and a crusader for the rights of disadvantaged people in Minnesota and beyond. Born during her parents’ journey to help build the future Fort Snelling, she lived to see a fledgling community grow into an urban center.
Toki Wakayama
The Wakayama case was a wartime test case that challenged the detention of Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast.
Teiko Ishida
Teiko Ishida (1916-98) was the first woman to be appointed to the national board of the Japanese American Citizens League in 1939 and was the first woman appointed to the position of national secretary of the JACL from 1943 to 1945.
Mitsuye Yamada
Acclaimed poet, feminist writer, and human rights activist. Much of Yamada’s work draws on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.