Pursuing justice: One Woman’s Life of Rebellion, Resistance, Resilience

This extraordinary memoir recounts the life of a woman born in Brooklyn to parents imbued with social justice values. The story begins when she is forced to flee New York with an infant and three-year old to escape an abusive spouse. Going underground, she flies to Seattle where she knows no one. Overcoming fear and showing staunch resilience, she gets a job of community organizing in a predominately Black community while pursuing a Masters degree and raising her children alone. She becomes involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, then moves to Boston to get her PhD.

Burdened with poverty, the rigors of academic demands and maintaining her growing family test her internal strength. She connects with a feminist community where members collaborate on researching single-parent families. She fights against sexism in higher education while motivating students to apply social justice values in their professional lives. She struggles to balance parenting with her professional life and relationships with men.

After finding who she believes to be her life partner, he succumbed to AIDS. Moving on with her life, she struggles as a dean of a social welfare school with tenured male faculty who try to undermine her. Again, she is resilient and becomes a national and international leader in feminist social welfare. The book concludes with her retirement, where she continues legislative advocacy for social change and justice.