{"id":211592,"date":"2026-03-09T13:44:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/211592\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T13:44:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:44:38","slug":"9-berkeley-women-who-changed-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/211592\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Berkeley women who changed history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many of her so-called Zillennial generation, Rae Alexandra took the achievements of previous feminists for granted. A punk rocker inspired by the empowering riot grrrl<\/a> movement, she remembered thinking, \u201cStop making a fuss!\u201d about feminism \u2014 until she and her friends got groped at concerts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, a gender studies class during her first year at college, \u201ccompletely changed my life.\u201d Discovering \u201cthe scope of women\u2019s subjugation in every aspect of life \u2014 at home, in the workplace, in public spaces, in the media \u2014 was a gamechanger,\u201d Alexandra said.<\/p>\n

Fast forward more than 20 years and the fervent feminist is working as a staff writer at KQED in San Francisco. Despite the region\u2019s progressive reputation, Alexandra notices \u201cthat almost everything in San Francisco is named after men.\u201d She begins researching the lives of influential women who were relatively unknown or overlooked by history and KQED\u2019s \u201cRebel Girls\u201d series is born in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, City Lights Publishers has turned Alexandra\u2019s research into a book; its March publication coincides with Women\u2019s History Month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area<\/a>\u201d brings together profiles Alexandra has written on each of the women with illustrations by Adrienne Sims. Nine of the 35 were active in Berkeley, either as residents or change makers whose work had an impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a brief look at the nine Berkeley women and their myriad accomplishments. Illustrations are by Adrienne Simms. <\/p>\n

9 Berkeley Women OF HISTORY<\/p>\n

Delilah L. Beasley: Author of a trailblazing book on Black Californians and the first Black woman to have a column in a major California newspaper
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Beasley (1867-1934) took history classes at UC Berkeley that inspired her 1919 book \u201cThe Negro Trail-Blazers of California,\u201d which took her eight years to write. During her years in Berkeley, Beasley worked as a physical therapist, and ended up breaking racial barriers when she began writing an Oakland Tribune column, \u201cActivities Among Negroes,\u201d from 1923 to 1934.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks to her Tribune column, Beasley began travelling around the country to persuade the editors of major newspapers to stop using racist language. She spoke at major rallies and protests and joined every civic club, including the NAACP and the Alameda County League of Colored Women Voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery life casts its shadow,\u201d she once wrote. \u201cI, therefore, pledge my life to the living world of brotherhood and mutual understanding between the races.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1933 she urged the California Legislature to introduce an anti-lynching bill following the lynching of two men in San Jose. The bill became law that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the second woman I wrote about,\u201d Alexandra said. \u201cWhen researching women, I would look to see who had written the article and it would so often be Delilah Beasley. This whole series kind of followed in her footsteps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bertha Wright: Creator of the first subsidized child care nursery in California
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Wright (1876-1971) was a nurse who was \u201cincredibly driven by the welfare of children,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cShe would literally travel around in a horse and buggy, trying to help people who would otherwise not have health care for their kids.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The co-founder of Oakland\u2019s first children\u2019s hospital, now UCSF Benioff Children\u2019s Hospital, Wright was a champion of public health and medical education who was directly credited with lowering the infant death rate across the Bay Area between 1914 and 1916.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Berkeley, she founded the Berkeley Day Nursery in 1908, the first organization of its kind in California to offer subsidized child care. Before that \u201cworking people would have to drop their kids off at an \u2018asylum\u2019 that was essentially an orphanage because there was no place else to put them,\u201d Alexandra said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vivian Osborne Marsh: The first Black woman to major in anthropology at UC Berkeley and among the very first to earn a master\u2019s degree from Cal
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Marsh (1897-1986 ) \u201cdid an astonishing amount of things,\u201d Alexandra said. A stellar student at Berkeley High, Marsh became the first Black woman to major in anthropology at UC Berkeley and one of the first two women to earn a master\u2019s degree there. She also founded the school\u2019s first Black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, and served as its first president.<\/p>\n

After graduating in 1922 and marrying, she embraced a life of activism, public service and leadership. Her home on Grant Street became a hub for community organizing and political groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, she lobbied to get an anti-lynching bill passed by the U.S. Senate, which was defeated by senators from Texas, Georgia and Florida. During World War II, she became an ambulance driver, nurse and radio operator.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe kept on going to political conventions right until the end of her life,\u201d Alexandra said. Marsh died of a stroke at a convention in 1986.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Frances Albrier: The first Black person to run for Berkeley City Council and the first Black woman welder in Richmond\u2019s shipyards\u00a0
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Albrier (1898-1987) ran for city council in 1939, knowing that she wouldn\u2019t win. But she wanted to meet those in power to force them to pay attention to the Black community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to tell them that we had 5,000 Black taxpayers without any representation in the city government or the schools of Berkeley,\u201d she said in 1977.<\/p>\n

A graduate of Howard University, Albrier moved to Berkeley in 1920. In World War II, she became the first Black female welder at the Richmond shipyards and was also a Red Cross nurse, a fundraiser for veterans and a campaigner for the welfare of Black soldiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLike Marsh, she was an overachiever and overcampaigner who did so much,\u201d Alexandra said.<\/p>\n

In 1965, the City of Berkeley appointed her to its Committee of Aging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Louise Lawrence: Early trans organizer who launched a magazine and taught doctors\u00a0
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Louise Lawrence (1912-1976) was a transgender community organizer who launched a magazine for gender nonconforming people, educated UCSF doctors about transgender individuals and convinced Dr. Alfred Kinsey to include them in his landmark work on human sexual behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was incredibly ahead of her time,\u201d Alexandra said, \u201cShe was living very openly as a transgender person in the 1940s and was very loud and proud at a time that would be absolutely terrifying to be either of those.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After living in Berkeley, Lawrence moved to San Francisco in the 1930s. When she read in the newspaper about gender nonconforming people being arrested, she would reach out to them, creating a network. By the late 1940s, that network included almost 200 trans people, some of whom would share their stories with Kinsey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Esther Gulick, Kay Kerr and Sylvia McLaughlin: They saved the bay \u2014 and thousands of bayfront acreage
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Gulick (1911-1995), Kerr (1911-2010) and McLaughlin (1916-2016) were retired homemakers, some of whom could see the Bay from their homes, when they learned about the Army Corps of Engineers\u2019 plan to fill in much of the Bay Area waterfront for commerce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that time, much of the Bay Area waterfront was already polluted and included Berkeley\u2019s own municipal dump, now Cesar Chavez Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese retired homemakers were underestimated,\u201d Alexandra said. \u201cThey were savvy and did their research and knew how to talk to the press.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1961, the women founded the nonprofit Save the Bay<\/a>, which continues their environmental work today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, an 8.5-mile shoreline park, was renamed in honor of McLaughlin in 2012. The park includes 1,833 acres of uplands and tidelands along the waterfronts of Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, Albany and Richmond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were not for those three women, our entire region would look completely different,\u201d Alexandra said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judy Heumann: Groundbreaking disability rights activist
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Heumann (1947-2023) was nicknamed \u201cThe Mother of the Disability Rights Movement\u201d for transforming the lives, conditions and public access for disabled people in the Bay Area \u2014 and the rest of the U.S. Born in New York, Heumann moved to Berkeley to pursue a master\u2019s degree in public health and remained for many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Berkeley she found so many fellow activists,\u201d Alexandra said, most notably Ed Roberts, who founded Berkeley\u2019s Center for Independent Living. Heumann joined CIL\u2019s board in 1973.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heumann was instrumental in getting Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation act signed and enacted, which prohibited discrimination by any organization that received federal funds. The signing followed a daring 24-day sit-in at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in San Francisco\u2019s Federal Building.<\/p>\n

The act became the precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990, which followed another major protest Heumann joined in Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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