4 Pioneers of Change
When you think of activists for the inclusion efforts of diverse groups, who do you think of? Many of us likely think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life is celebrated annually each January. Alongside Dr. King, we are highlighting three additional pioneers of change for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the areas of civil rights, disability rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. These DEI pioneers paved the way for a more inclusive culture in our country, particularly as it relates to a welcoming and diverse workforce for minority groups.
Importance of DEI in the Workplace
The first step to acknowledging the importance of DEI efforts in the workplace is defining diversity and discrimination. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of one or more members of a specified group as compared with others. It is illegal to discriminate against applicants, employees and former employees based on protected characteristics including: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history).
Comprehensive diversity initiatives can be a great asset to an inclusive workplace. In fact, studies show diverse organizations are better able to respond to customer needs, reported as better places to work, and 19% more profitable. Prioritizing workplace equity and diversity in our culture, even when it is difficult, is always worth it, as these pioneers of change have shown us.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: Civil Rights Activist
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is known as the leader of the modern American Civil Rights Movement and a pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence. According to The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, more genuine progress for racial equality for African Americans was achieved in the 13 years of Dr. King’s leadership than had been produced in the previous 350 years. Photo: Pixabay
Dr. King is likely most well-known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, one of the most iconic speeches in American history, which he delivered during the March on Washington in 1963. What many may not realize is that the full name of this demonstration was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and that Dr. King was speaking on behalf of not just civil freedoms but economic rights for people of color as well.
His inclusion efforts and acts of nonviolent resistance also extended to workplace equity. For example, his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott helped lead to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in transportation was unconstitutional in 1964. In 1965, Congress essentially eliminated legalized racial segregation with the Civil Rights Act, which was due in part to the March on Washington. Dr. King was also the youngest man ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and though he lost his life in a tragic assassination on April 4, 1968, we still celebrate him and his diversity efforts annually on the third Monday of each January.
Ed Roberts: Father of the Independent Living Movement for Disability Rights
Ed Roberts was a disability rights activist known as the “Father of the Independent Living Movement,” whose advocacy had a major impact on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Roberts contracted polio at 14, which led to his paralysis from the neck down and the use of an iron lung or a respirator to breathe. He became an advocate for himself early on when his high school initially refused to allow him to graduate because he had not completed his physical education or driver’s education courses. Not long after, the University of California, Berkeley attempted to bar him from attending, stating that his iron lung would not fit in a dorm room, which Roberts also fought and won. Photo: Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities
While at Berkeley, he helped form the Physically Disabled Students Program, run by and for disabled students, which provided services to better include them in the larger campus community. This later led to the founding of the Center for Independent Living, a disability advocacy group that eventually led to more than 400 other independent living centers across the nation. Not long after, Roberts became California’s Director of Rehabilitation, the same agency that had once refused to help him attend college because they deemed him “too disabled” to hold employment.
The nationwide sit-ins that Roberts and his peers used to demand action on Section 504, the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities, led to a wave of cross-disability and cross-movement activism with civil rights leaders. The next major legislation for disability rights was decades in the making, culminating in a 1990 March on Washington where multiple protestors crawled and pulled themselves up the steps of the Capitol building without assistance, showcasing the lack of access in the country. Later that year, the ADA was finally passed, including a mandate that employers provide “reasonable accommodations” to people with disabilities. In 1995, Roberts passed away, having witnessed incredible progress in the rights of those with disabilities.
Betty Friedan: Women's Rights Activist and Writer
Betty Friedan was a women's rights activist best-known for writing “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963, which many attribute to the second wave of feminism. After losing her job when she became pregnant with her second child, Friedan surveyed fellow alumnae of Smith College about their desires to be more than a homemaker or stay-at-home caretaker, research which became the basis for her first bestseller. Photo: Jewish Women's Archive
In “The Feminine Mystique” she described “the problem that has no name,” and asserted, against the word of many psychologists and educators, that women are just as capable as men for any career path they may choose. Just a few years later, Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and became its first president. NOW advocated for enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits employment discrimination based on characteristics including sex) and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. They also lobbied for the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment that would guarantee legal gender equality for women and men, which was passed by Congress but unfortunately expired for individual state ratification in 1979, and remains unratified to this day.
Friedan led the Women's Strike for Equality in 1970, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and primarily promoted equal opportunities for women in jobs and education. Friedan also helped organize the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971 and co-founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America), which continues to advocate for pro-choice rights of women across the country. She wrote a total of six books and in numerous publications, speaking for decades across the country in favor of women’s rights. Friedan died in 2006, with multiple awards and honors to her name, including induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Marsha P. Johnson: Transgender Activist for LGBTQ+ Rights
Marsha P. Johnson was a Black, transgender activist for LGBTQ+ rights, although the word transgender was not widely used during her lifetime. Johnson used she/her pronouns, and usually described herself as “a gay person, a transvestite, and a drag queen.” Johnson moved to New York City in the early 60s at just 17 years old, where she found herself “hustling” as a sex worker and sleeping in hotels, friend’s homes, theatres, and restaurants. Even when she began getting paid as a drag performer and later as a model for Andy Warhol, she continued hustling and moving from place to place. Photo: National Museum of African American History and Culture
Johnson’s first major foray into activism was in June of 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn gay bar and its patrons fought back. Many mark the Stonewall Uprising Riots as the beginning of the modern LGBTQ+ Rights movement, and Johnson was soon attending Gay Liberation Front meetings and rallies. However, she often found herself and fellow trans people on the fringes of the movement, leading her to create the Street Transvestite Activist Revolutionaries (STAR) group alongside trans activist Sylvia Rivera. STAR provided a place to sleep for unhoused, trans youth for a time and offered a better sense of community.
Even as the Gay Liberation Front became increasingly hostile to STAR, Johnson and her fellow trans community continued to show up and remind others that they deserved a place in the movement as well. Johnson is now known as an icon for the LGTBQ+ community, advocating to keep people, especially trans women and women of color, off the streets. When she contracted AIDS, she spoke up for the rights of those living with the stigmatized disease too. Johnson’s death in 1992 was ruled a suicide at the time, but was much later re-opened as a possible murder that has yet to be solved. Her legacy lives on at the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, where staff and volunteers continue to protect and defend the rights of Black transgender people.
Diversity Workplace Training from EasyLlama
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