Pioneering Black feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies at 84

Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, child welfare advocate and community activist who co-founded Ms. Magazine with Gloria Steinem and appeared with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died. She was 84. Hughes died Dec. 1 in Tampa, Florida, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, said Maurice Sconiers of the Sconiers Funeral Home in Columbus, Georgia. Her daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, said the cause was old age. Hughes and Steinem forged a powerful speaking partnership in the early 1970s, touring the country at a time when feminism was seen as predominantly white and middle class, a divide dating back to the origins of the American women’s movement. Steinem credited Hughes with helping her become comfortable speaking in public. In one of the most famous images of the era, taken in October 1971, the two raised their right arms in the Black Power salute. The photo is now in the National Portrait Gallery. Hughes, her work always rooted in
community activism, organized the first shelter for battered women in New York City and co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development to broaden childcare services in the city. Malmsten told The Associated Press that her mother’s biggest contribution was helping entire families through the community center she established on Manhattan’s West Side, offering day care, job training and more: “She took families off the street and gave them jobs.” Laura L. Lovett, whose biography of Hughes, <a href=”https://bookshop.org/p/books/with-her-fist-raised-dorothy-pitman-hughes-and-the-transformative-power-of-black-community-activism-laura-l-lovett/14629160?ean=9780807008898″>”With Her Fist Raised,”</a> came out last year, said in Ms. Magazine that Hughes “defined herself as a feminist, but rooted her feminism in her experience and in more fundamental needs for safety, food, shelter and child care.” Born Dorothy Jean Ridley on Oct. 2, 1938, in Lumpkin,
Georgia, Hughes committed herself to activism at an early age, according to an obituary written by her family.