Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, has died at age 84. Hughes, who is also remembered as a tireless child welfare advocate and lifelong community activist, died on Dec. 1 in Tampa, Florida, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, the Associated Press reports.
According to Hughes’ daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, the beloved activist died due to old age.
Hughes “passed away peacefully … at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Delethia and Jonas Malmsten,” the Sconiers Funeral Home in Columbus, Georgia stated in an obituary.
Hughes was born in Lumpkin, Georgia, in 1938. She moved to New York at the age of 19 and began working several jobs, including house cleaner and nightclub singer. In the late 1960s, Hughes “organized a multiracial cooperative daycare center,” according to her obituary.
Hughes’ longtime friend, Gloria Steinem, became inspired by the daycare center and wrote a profile of the business in New York Magazine, CNN reports. Steinem and Hughes are known for taking a photo together with raised fists.
“My friend Dorothy Pitman Hughes ran a pioneering neighborhood childcare center on the west side of Manhattan,” Steinem told the Associated Press. “We met in the seventies when I wrote about that childcare center, and we became speaking partners and lifetime friends. She will be missed, but if we keep telling her story, she will keep inspiring us all.”
Steinem and Hughes continued to work together through the years, visiting college campuses, community centers and other venues to speak on gender and race issues.
The pair also formed the Women’s Action Alliance, a network of feminist activists pushing for equality on a national level.
In the 1980s, Hughes moved to Harlem and opened Harlem Office Supply, an office supply business. At the time, that was a rare stationery store run by a Black woman. Hughes was forced to sell the store when a Staples opened nearby.
The 84-year-old is survived by her daughters Malmsten, Patrice Quinn and Angela Hughes.
