This week’s answer is: Dorothy Pitman Hughes
In 1966, Hughes founded a daycare center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that later offered legal services, job training, and community organizing. Steinem profiled Hughes for a magazine article, and the two became friends. She joined Steinem on multiple campus tours across the country, where Hughes offered a frank reality check to those in attendance.
As her biographer Laura L. Lovett told Ms. magazine, “[Hughes’] style was to call out the racism she saw in the white women’s movement. She frequently took to the stage to articulate the way in which white women’s privilege oppressed Black women but also offered her friendship with Gloria as proof this obstacle could be overcome.”
Hughes is also credited with organizing New York City’s first shelter for battered women. She co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development, and served as a co-founder of the National Black Feminist Organization. Hughes died in 2022 at age 84.
The Aug. 22 answer: Machel Montano
The “King of Soca,” Machel Montano, will be showcased in Journey of a Soca King: The Exhibition at the library from Aug. 22 – Sept. 12. Those dates overlap with The New York City West Indian American Day Parade on Labor Day, which ends its route just outside of the library. Could the “Queen of Bacchanal,” Destra Garcia, get a similar treatment down the line?