Consuelo Hermosillo
Defendant in the Madrigal v. Quilligan civil rights class action lawsuit against the forced sterilization of Latina women
Category Archives: Law
Continue reading
Frankie Muse Freeman
Lesser known than some of the national civil rights leaders, she took her own protests to the American courtrooms, arguing against racial discrimination and “Jim Crow” laws and became the first woman on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Luz Maria Cardoza-Fonseca
Nicaraguan immigrant who fought for – and won – asylum rights
Marian Wright Edelman
Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund and an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life.
“A, D, and G”
Between 1996 and 1997, three transgender women – known in in court records as A, D and G to protect their identities – were denied gender reassignment surgery by the North West Lancashire Health Authority in England. In 1999, the women brought a legal suit against the Health Authority.
Esther Hobart Morris
Esther Hobart Morris was the first woman to serve as Justice of the Peace in the United States. She was appointed justice of South Pass City, Wyoming after the previous justice resigned in protest after Wyoming Territory passed a woman suffrage amendment in December 1869.
Crystal Eastman
Crystal Eastman was one of the most visible Progressive reformers of the early twentieth century United States.
Virginia Minor
American women’s suffrageist and plaintiff in Minor v. Happersett, an 1875 United States Supreme Court case in which Minor unsuccessfully argued that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was one of the most outspoken and articulate abolitionists of the 19th century.
Shirley Smith
New Zealand human-rights campaigner and trail-blazing lawyer. As a community activist from the early 1950s she fought for social and political reform, while as a lawyer she spoke for those who had no voice and pursued equal rights for all.