Robin Morgan, poet and feminist whose allies included Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem, dies at 85
NEW YORK (AP) - Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and '50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died.
NEW YORK (AP) – Robin Morgan, a wholesome child star of the 1940s and '50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died.
Article outline
- What happened
- Background
- The bottom line
Key points
- During the 1960s and '70s, Morgan embodied and inspired historic changes in how women lived and thought.
- Her death came just days after that of her close friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem.
- Yet she considered herself primarily a poet and artist, and that work fed into her activism, her son remarked.
Morgan, who was still working on new books and poems, died Saturday in New York after suffering a series of health challenges in recent weeks, stated her son, Blake Morgan. Her death came just days after that of her close friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem.
During the 1960s and '70s, Morgan embodied and inspired historic changes in how women lived and thought. As she was happy to point out, the onetime "Ideal American Girl" and adored "Little Robin Morgan" was a rule breaker and justice seeker with a notable list of achievements, along with a prison record and an FBI file.
Morgan was at the center of some of the defining moments of what came to be called second-wave feminism, expanding upon the achievements of the suffragists a half-century earlier. In 1968, she was among the organizers of the first protest against the Miss America pageant, joining fellow activists in tossing their bras (shortly mythologized as burning) into a "Freedom Trash Can." The 1970 essay anthology she edited, "Sisterhood is Powerful, " is considered one of the essential texts of the modern women's movement.
"She was someone who was able to take very big ideas and distill them succinctly, like a poet, into a few words, " remarked Blake Morgan, pointing to such quotes of hers as "hate generalizes, love specifies."
For now, robin Morgan, poet and feminist whose allies included Jane Fonda and Gloria remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.
