2 years ago
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NEW YORK (AP) — Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, kid payment advocator and assemblage activistic who co-founded Ms. Magazine with Gloria Steinem and appeared with her successful 1 of the astir iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died. She was 84.
Hughes died Dec. 1 successful Tampa, Florida, astatine the location of her girl and son-in-law, said Maurice Sconiers of the Sconiers Funeral Home successful Columbus, Georgia. Her daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, said the origin was aged age.
Hughes and Steinem forged a almighty speaking concern successful the aboriginal 1970s, touring the state astatine a clip erstwhile feminism was seen arsenic predominantly achromatic and mediate class, a disagreement dating backmost to the origins of the American women’s movement. Steinem credited Hughes with helping her go comfy speaking successful public.
In 1 of the astir celebrated images of the era, taken successful October 1971, the 2 raised their close arms successful the Black Power salute. The photograph is present successful the National Portrait Gallery.
Hughes, her enactment ever rooted successful assemblage activism, organized the archetypal structure for battered women successful New York City and co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development to broaden childcare services successful the city.
Malmsten told The Associated Press that her mother’s biggest publication was helping full families done the assemblage halfway she established connected Manhattan’s West Side, offering time care, occupation grooming and more: “She took families disconnected the thoroughfare and gave them jobs.”
Laura L. Lovett, whose biography of Hughes, “With Her Fist Raised,” came retired past year, said successful Ms. Magazine that Hughes “defined herself arsenic a feminist, but rooted her feminism successful her acquisition and successful much cardinal needs for safety, food, structure and kid care.”
Born Dorothy Jean Ridley connected Oct. 2, 1938, successful Lumpkin, Georgia, Hughes committed herself to activism astatine an aboriginal age, according to an obituary written by her family.
When she was 10, it said, her begetter was astir beaten to decease and near connected the family’s doorstep. The household believed helium was attacked by the Ku Klux Klan, and Hughes decided to dedicate herself to helping others.
She moved to New York City successful the precocious 1950s erstwhile she was astir 20 and worked arsenic a salesperson, nightclub vocalist and location cleaner. By the 1960s she had go progressive successful the civilian rights question and different causes, moving with Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and others.
In the precocious 1960s, she acceptable up the West 80th St. Community Childcare Center, wherever successful 1968 she met Steinem, who was past a writer penning a communicative for New York Magazine. They became friends, and, from 1969 to 1973, they spoke crossed the state astatine assemblage campuses, assemblage centers and different venues connected sex and contention issues. They co-founded Ms. successful 1972, with the archetypal contented featuring Wonder Woman connected its cover.
“Dorothy’s benignant was to telephone retired the racism she saw successful the achromatic women’s movement,” Lovett said successful Ms. “She often took to the signifier to articulate the mode successful which achromatic women’s privilege oppressed Black women but besides offered her relationship with Gloria arsenic impervious this obstacle could beryllium overcome.”
By the 1980s, Hughes was becoming an entrepreneur. She had moved to Harlem and opened an bureau proviso business, Harlem Office Supply, the uncommon stationery store astatine the clip that was tally by a Black woman.
But she was forced to merchantability the store erstwhile a Staples opened nearby, portion of President Bill Clinton’s Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone program.
She would retrieve immoderate of her experiences successful the 2000 publication “Wake Up and Smell the Dollars! Whose Inner-City Is This Anyway!: One Woman’s Struggle Against Sexism, Classism, Racism, Gentrification, and the Empowerment Zone.”
Hughes was portrayed successful “The Glorias,” the 2020 movie astir Steinem, by histrion Janelle Monaé.
She is survived by 3 daughters: Malmsten, Patrice Quinn and Angela Hughes.
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
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