Gene Boyer
Gene Boyer served as NOW’s national treasurer from 1968 to 1974, and was instrumental in forming the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Legal Momentum) in 1970.
Kay Clarenbach
Kay Clarenbach, a political science at the University of Wisconsin, is one of NOW founders who has worked hard to recruit new members. She was on the steering committee that made preparations for NOW’s founding conference in October 1966.
Inez Casiano
Inez Casiano was a member of the first National Board of NOW and is engaged in feminist organizing as well as involved in the planning of the White House Conference on Children and Youth.
Mary Eastwood
Mary Eastwood, another founding member of NOW, and Dr Pauli Murray co-authored the article “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” which reviewed the legal discriminations against women and declared that women feel the effects of sex discrimination now more than ever.
Catherine East
Catherine East, a founding member of NOW, has been called “the midwife to the contemporary women’s movement” due to her involvement in Commission on the Status of Women encouraging the creation of state-level commissions on women in order to generate local activism.
Elizabeth Farians
A NOW founder, Ms Farian chaired the first NOW Task Force on Women and Religion. She rallies to get religious groups to support the Equal Rights Amendment. She is also a co-founder of “Catholics for the ERA” and “Catholics for Choice”
Muriel Fox
Ms Fox is chair of NOW’s first Public Relations Task Force
Betty Friedan
Ms Friedan is one of the founders of NOW and she urges national, state and religious leaders to accept the equality of women. She believes that Congress needs to do more than guaranteeing women the protection of absolutely assured equal opportunity that is granted to minority groups. Ms Friedan is also one of the founding members for the National Abortion Rights Action League. Last year, at to our National Conference for Women in Houston, TX, she called for an end to the divisions in our movement and the creation of a new alliance of women. Ms Friedan is also the author of Feminine Mystique, which attacks the idea that ‘biology is destiny.’ Ms Friedan calls on all women to do whatever it takes to have a meaningful life. Click here to buy your own copy of Feminine Mystique!
Sonia Pressman Fuentes
In addition to her founding role at NOW, Fuentes was a founder of the Women’s Equity Action League and Federally Employed Women.
Richard Graham
Mr Graham works closely with Martha Griffiths and was elected as NOW Vice-President in October of 1966. In 1975, Graham was named President of Goddard College, where he helped found the Goddard-Cambridge Center for Social Change, one of the first centers for women’s studies.
Anna Arnold Hedgeman
Anna Arnold Hedgeman was one of the founding members of NOW, served as temporary Executive Vice President of NOW until March 1967
Aileen Hernandez
Ms Hernandez served as NOW president in 1967.
Phineas Indritz
Mr Indritz, a lawyer, passionate civil rights leader, and feminist, authored the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978.
Pauli Murray
Ms Murray is a historian, lawyer, teacher, activist, and the first African-American Episcopal priest. She also co-founded NOW with Betty Friedan.
Marguerite Rawalt
Dr. Marguerite Rawalt was one of four members of NOW’s Legal Committee in 1966, along with Phineas Indritz, Mary Eastwood, and Caruthers Berger.
Sister Mary Joel Read
Sr. Read was a founding member of NOW and served on the first NOW national board.
Alice Rossi
Ms Rossi first stirred the academic feminist community in 1963 when she presented a paper at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences conference entitled, “Equality Between the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal.” She is a founding member and chaired the first NOW Task Force on the Family in 1967.