Rachel B Noel - Infinite Women

Born: 15 January 1918, United States
Died: 4 February 2008
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Rachel Bassette

American educator, politician and civil rights leader Rachel Bassette Noel is best known for the “Noel Resolution”, a 1968 plan to integrate the Denver, Colorado city school district, and her work to implement it. She presented the resolution to the Board of Education on April 25, 1968, and despite significant public opposition (including threatening phone calls and hate mail to Noel), it passed in February 1970. Noel also became the first African-American woman elected to public office in Colorado when she was elected to the Denver Public Schools Board of Education in 1965.
Noel taught at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, where she established the African-American Studies Department in 1971 and chaired it until 1980. She was also a member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee for the Health Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and University of Colorado at Denver, a Commissioner of the Denver Housing Authority and part of the Advisory Board of the United States Civil Rights Commission.