1970s

1970

Gloria Steinem

Women’s-liberation leader

By 1970, Gloria Steinem was already becoming a key voice in the women’s movement through her reporting for New York magazine. But that year, her activism left the page in a momentous way. Though she was afraid of public speaking, Steinem did it anyway. That May, she testified at Senate hearings for the Equal Rights Amendment. “I have been refused service in public restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places and turned away from apartment rentals,” she told her almost all-male audience. “All for the clearly stated, sole reason that I am a woman.” At the Women’s Strike for Equality on Aug. 26, the 50th anniversary of U.S. women’s suffrage, Steinem spoke to some 20,000 in New York City. Her increasing dedication sparked her to launch a feminist platform: in 1971, she co-founded Ms. magazine.

With a remarkable ability to communicate the agenda she helped set, Steinem quickly evolved from journalist to the face of the women’s movement—the headline speaker at countless protests; the messenger of a more equal, feminist future; and an indispensable force in reimagining the fate of American women for decades to come.

1971 | RADICAL THINKER

ANGELA DAVIS

BY IBRAM X. KENDI

AN ACTIVIST. AN AUTHOR. A SCHOLAR. AN ABOLITIONIST. A legend, as revered by my generation of millennials as she is her own. She