Pat Taub
JANUARY
Mary Catherine Bateson, 81
Bateson was born to two famous parents, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. She is remembered for her 1989 feminist classic, Composing A Life: eye-opening interviews of five women who describe the challenges of being a modern woman, balancing work and family.
Cicely Tyson, 96
This beloved actress lay the groundwork for complex Black roles, refusing to take a part that was belittling to Blacks, breaking ground with her role in “Sounder.” In her long career Tyson won a Tony, three Emmys and an honorary Oscar.
Cicely Tyson in 1974, “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”
MARCH
Naval el Saadawi, 89
Egyptian-born Saadawi, a physician and writer, spent her life fighting the social and religious bonds placed on women in conservative Arab cultures, spending time in jail under Sadat’s rule. In 1981 she founded the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association (AWSA), combining feminism with pan-Arabism.
Naval el Saadawi with protesters at Tahrir Square, Cairo, 2011
Beverly Cleary, 104
This beloved children’s writer, known for her Henry Huggins books, once said that when she was a child she had “wanted to read funny stories about the sort of children I knew, and decided that someday when I grew up, I would write them.”
APRIL
LaDonna Allard, 64
Allard was a leader in the protests against the Dakota pipelines, protesting the damage the pipelines would do to the local water supply. Allard set up a camp at Standing Rock that mushroomed into a village-like encampment, drawing supporters from all over the country.
LaDonna Allard at the Standing Rock encampment, 2016
MAY
Kay Tobin Lahasen, 91
Lahasen was a photographer and gay rights activist whose photos chronicle gay rights protests from the early days of the 1960’s through the ‘90’s. She co-founded “The Ladder,” the first nationally distributed lesbian journal in the US.
JUNE
Martha White, 99
White preceded Rosa Parks in refusing to sit in the “colored section” of the bus, In 1953 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, White was bone tired after working all day as a maid, so she took the only available seat on the bus, which was in the ‘whites only’ section. White’s action helped to fuel the Civil Rights Movement, spurring other bus boycotts.
Martha White, seated at right, in 2018 when she reunited with civil rights activists and other residents of Baton Rouge, La., on a 1953-era bus.
Elizabeth Martinez, 95
Known for being “The voice of the Chicano Resistance Movement,” Martinez was among the first to explore how issues of race, class, poverty, gender and sexuality could be connected, making her a voice for the concept of intersectionality, long before that term came into vogue.
AUGUST
Miki Grant, 92
The first woman to write her own Broadway musical, “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” produced in 1971. It explored ghetto life and black power, received rave reviews and several Tony awards.
Miki Grant in 2018
SEPTEMBER
Aria Wilcox, 87
Wilcox is known for saving her native language from extinction. For a time, she was the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni. Wilcox spent 20 years producing the first complete dictionary of its vocabulary.
OCTOBER
Sister Megan Rice, 91
As a nun, Rice found nuclear weapons morally wrong, She was arrested 40 times for protesting the US’s nuclear arsenal. In 2012 she served two years in prison for breaking into the Oak Ridge nuclear power site in Tennessee. It was my good fortune to host Rice in 2018 when she visited Portland to receive a peace award
Sister Megan Rice, by my front door, August, 2018
NOVEMBER
Susan Rosenblatt, 70
Rosenblatt is famous for taking on Big Tobacco. She practiced law with her husband, Stanley Rosenblatt. In 1991, their small Mom-and-Pop firm took on Big Tobacco in a Florida case that resulted in a record $144.8 billion jury award in favor of people sickened by cigarettes.
DECEMBER
Lina Wertmuller, 93
In the 1970’s Wertmuller made bold, provocative films that reflected her allegiance to feminism and Marxist politics. She received an Academy Award nomination for “Seven Beauties.”
Lina Wertmuller, 1992
bell hooks, 69
Over her lifetime hooks wrote 30 books supporting black feminism. Her 1981 book, “Ain’t I A Women,” put her on the literary-social movement map. In her later works she emphasized the importance of community and healing, calling herself a “Buddhist Christian.” Her unique perspective leaves a big hole.
Joan Didion, 87
Didion’s talents were far-ranging: she wrote novels, brilliant journalistic pieces, and award-winning screenplays, co-authored with her husband, John Dunne. In 2007, Didion won the National Book Award for “The Year of Magical Thinking” which chronicled her deep grief over losing her husband and daughter, both within two years.
“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.” – The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
