By Don Valentine
Attorney Florynce Kennedy was a soldier in the dual fights of Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. Flo’s fervent activism, signature cowboy hat and charisma was well known in the struggle. Schools teach about trailblazer Gloria Steinem, but don’t discuss Flo’s impact on the struggle. Sheri M. Randolph, author of “Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical.” said, “She was in Black power, she was in independent Black feminist organizations, she was in the media, she was part of the women’s liberation movement. She was everywhere.”
Born in 1916, 51 years after Emancipation, in Kansas City, Missouri, she learned from her father to not suffer fools gladly. In a biography by Cnn.com they wrote, “Kennedy credited her father for instilling in her a willingness to speak out against injustice.” In her autobiography, “Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times,” she recounts how he stood up to members of the Ku Klux Klan who had threatened the family after they bought a home in a predominantly White neighborhood. That lesson in fortitude served her in the valiant fight for Women’s rights.
Flo graduated from Columbia University in 1949, then applied to Columbia Law School and was turned down. Cnn reported, “She was later admitted after threatening to sue the school when she discovered that her admission had been rejected for being a woman.” Her being Black clearly contributed to that decision. Flo was one of eight women and the only Black student in her class. She graduated in 1951, and established a practice taking on cases tied to her increasing involvement in the women’s, civil rights, and reproductive rights movements. Cnn noted, “She was one of four lawyers who in 1969 challenged the constitutionality of New York’s ban on abortion in federal court, a case that made women the subject of abortion litigation instead of doctors for the first time. Some experts say the case helped decriminalize abortion in the state the following year.”
The New York Times summarized her flamboyant career by writing, “Known to everyone as Flo, recognizable everywhere in cowboy hats and pink sunglasses… She fought in the courts and on the streets for abortion rights, established the Media Workshop to fight racism in advertising, represented H. Rap Brown and the Black Panthers, and founded the Feminist Party, which nominated Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm for president in 1972.”
Flo continued her activism for racial and gender equity until her death at age 84 on December 21, 2000. Flo’s most famous quote was,
“Don’t agonize, organize!”
