Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.
Debra Schultz served as an advisor to the Jewish Women’s Archive in creating the Living the Legacy curriculum based on research she had done on the history of Jewish women in the civil rights movement.
Vivian Leburg Rothstein’s early experiences fighting for civil rights led her to a long career advocating for peace, women’s rights, and the labor movement.
Shaped by her experiences in post-Holocaust Europe and older than most civil rights volunteers, Trudy Orris brought her children with her to participate in demonstrations down South.
Faith Holsaert was one of the first white women field workers for the civil rights movement in the south, volunteering for voter registration in one of the worst counties in Georgia.
One of the first white women to do field work for the civil rights movement in the South, Miriam Cohen Glickman was assumed to be black by the locals, who called her “bright,” a word for light-skinned African Americans.
Roberta Galler’s work for the Congressional Challenge marked a landmark civil rights effort, using six hundred depositions that blacks had been prevented from voting in the 1964 congressional election as evidence that the election was unconstitutional.
June Finer took part in civil rights protests during Freedom Summer through the Medical Committee for Human Rights, beginning a long career at the intersection of medicine and activism.
Elaine DeLott Baker’s experiences with civil rights activism led to a career helping workers learn reading and computer skills to qualify for better jobs.
One of four nurses to wade ashore at Normandy Beach on D-Day, Frances Slanger was the only nurse to die as a result of enemy action in the European Theater.
Marita Silverman used the compassion and strength she learned working as a nurse in a field hospital in Vietnam to fuel her work in civilian life as a pediatric nurse.
A pioneer of air evacuation medicine, Yetta Moskowitz received an air medal for flying over 100 hours through combat zones in New Guinea and the Philippines to evacuate wounded soldiers in World War II.
Miriam “Mimi” Miller resisted her family’s notions of the proper life for a nice Jewish girl, not only training as a nurse but serving in a combat zone in the Philippines through some of the worst devastation of World War II.
Wanting to somehow contribute to the defeat of the Nazis persecuting her fellow Jews, Bebe Koch enlisted at age nineteen and rose through the ranks to become a platoon commander.
Ethel Gladstone only joined the US Army Nurse Corps at the tail end of World War I, but her service record shows how long a war’s impact can be felt after its official end.
