Flo

kennedy

1916 - 2000

St. Louis, Missouri

Activist, lawyer, lecturer

Flo Kennedy, an activist, and lawyer during the '60s, is most known for her blunt and shocking commentary and her equally loud cowboy hat to match.

Kennedy moved to New York in the '40s and applied to Columbia Law School in 1948. As expected, she was denied admission. So, she threatened to sue. Kennedy is the second Black woman to graduate from Columbia Law School (Judge Elreta Melton Alexander being the first).

After graduation, she opened a law firm, where, at the time, she was one of nineteen Black female lawyers in New York. In 1966 she founded Media Workshop, with clients like the Black Panther Party, to battle racism in advertising. In addition to civil rights work, she pushed for women's rights, specifically abortion.

Work cited:

“A Fighter for All Causes: Flo Kennedy '51.” Columbia Law School, https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/fighter-all-causes-flo-kennedy-51.

“Florynce Kennedy.” Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/florynce-kennedy.