In Memoriam: Richard Graham

September 24, 2007

The National Organization for Women lost a founder and former national officer, Richard Graham, when he passed away today after a lifetime dedicated to equality.

When Detroit Congresswoman Martha Griffiths wrote to the EEOC protesting the commission's guidelines with regard to sex-segregated employment ads, Dick Graham, then an EEOC Commissioner, agreed. One of the first commissioners appointed after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, along with Aileen Hernandez (NOW founder and president from 1970-1971), Graham fought for enforcement of Title VII, the provision prohibiting sex discrimination, from the start. His dedication to feminism led to his election as NOW Vice-President in October of 1966 during NOW's first organizing conference. He went on to found the District of Columbia Commission on the Status of Women, and to serve as the Executive Director of the Center for Moral Development at Harvard. In 1975, Graham was named President of Goddard College, where he helped found the Goddard-Cambridge Center for Social Change, one of the earliest centers for women's studies.