When her husband was murdered during Freedom Summer in 1964 in Mississippi, Rita Levant Schwerner Bender used the ensuing media attention to focus the public’s awareness on the importance of civil rights.
By helping victims of “revenge porn” get justice in court, and working to prevent such cases from occurring in the first place, Carrie Goldberg is creating important safeguards for an era in which people live more and more of their personal and professional lives online.
Gloria Rachel Allred has devoted her legal career to fighting for women’s equality, handling high-profile cases of sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, and hate crimes.
Hilda R. Gage capped a career of firsts with her appointment as the first female Chief Judge of Michigan’s Oakland County Circuit Court, one of the busiest circuit courts in the nation.
The first woman to argue a case before the Michigan Supreme Court, Henrietta Elizabeth Rosenthal later found her niche as a brilliant researcher, able to quickly lay hands on obscure law precedents.
A dedicated lawyer who fought sexism and anti-Semitism, Regine Freund Cohane also had the unique distinction of being half of the first married couple to try a case before the US Supreme Court.
As a police officer and a lawyer, Ida Lippman influenced criminal justice both in America and in Korea, where she helped organize the women’s division of the Seoul police force.
When she was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 2008, Randi Weingarten became the first openly gay leader of an American national labor union.
Rebuilding her life time and again after great upheaval gave Lis Kahn unique insight as she helped the Jewish community of New Orleans heal after Hurricane Katrina.
The only woman in the Yale Law School class of 1941, Shirley Adelson Siegel became a trailblazer as head of the New York State Attorney’s first Civil Rights Bureau in 1959.
Sada Jacobson won the bronze medal for sabre fencing at the 2004 Olympics (the first Olympics where women were allowed to compete in sabre), then did one better in 2008, bringing home both a silver and another bronze medal.
CEO Martine Rothblatt’s fascination with interconnectivity led her to found both GeoStar and Sirius Radio, but it was her drive to save her daughter’s life that led her to create biotech company United Therapeutics Corporation.
Harriet Lowenstein gave the Joint Distribution Committee its name and led many of the organization’s efforts to aid those trapped in Europe during both World Wars.
Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.
Sonia Pressman Fuentes, the first female attorney in the office of the general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, helped extend the Civil Rights Act’s protections of equal opportunity to all people regardless of gender.
Judy Somberg’s work with the Sister Cities Project in El Salvador helped locals return to their villages after the military takeover in 1987 and freed eleven people who had been “disappeared.”