THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Helen Lois Alexander Cassidy
November 22, 1940 – June 11, 2005
Texas Activist, Advocate and Attorney. She marched for civil rights in the ’60s, women’s rights in the ’70s, and gay rights in the ’80s. The first chair of the Texas Women’s Political Caucus. National Organization for Women; Houston NOW, National board member, Co-regional director for NOW. Co-chair of the IWY, 1977. Harris County Democrats. Democratic Nominee for Justice of the First Court of Appeals in 1994. Chair of both the Appellate Practice Section and the Criminal Law Section of the Houston Bar Association. Chair of the Appellate Section of the State Bar of Texas. Staff Counsel for Inmates at the Texas Department of Corrections. Hearings Examiner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chief Staff Attorney for the Fourteenth Court of Appeals.
Photo 1. Poppy Northcutt and Helen Cassidy reminisce at a local coffee bar, 1986, photo – Houston Chronicle. Photo 2. Poppy Northcutt and Helen Cassidy, 1991.
- Helen Cassidy’s obituary
- The Helen Cassidy Award, State Bar of Texas, Appellate Section
- Panel discussion led by Barbara Karkabi, in which Houston area feminist leaders from the 1970s (Helen Cassidy, Nikki Van Hightower, Barbara Farrar Karkabi, Poppy Northcutt and Celia Teresa) discuss how they became involved with the feminist movement. Other topics include: the early years of NOW in Houston and the complex history, struggles and changes that have characterized women’s lives during the intervening years. University of Houston Libraries Special Collections, 1995
- The History of the Women’s Movement in Houston – 1991. Interviews with Marguerite Johnston, Sissy Farenthold, Helen Cassidy, Poppy Northcut and JoAnn Evansgardner. Including footage from the League of Women Voters and the International Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977. Video produced by Yolanda Alvarado and hosted by Ramona Floyd.
- A Miracle Occurred: The Houston Committee of International Women’s Year, Houston, 1977 by Ellen Pratt Fout