THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Hon. Lois Galgay Reckitt

December 31, 1944 – October 30, 2023

“In 1971 I was an activist looking for a movement. On November 13 Wilma Scott Heide, newly elected president of NOW, spoke at the then University of Maine at Portland/Gorham. My life has never been the same. Her inspirational and somewhat foreign words and ideas have stayed with me.”

Longtime director of Family Crisis Services in Portland and was the driving force behind Maine’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment. Served in the Maine House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party, 2016 until her death. Executive vice president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Washington, D.C., 1984-1987. Co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the Maine Coalition for Human Rights, the Maine Women’s Lobby and the first Maine chapter of NOW. BA in Biology, Brandeis University, 1966. MA in Marine Biology and Biological Oceanography, Boston University, 1968.

Photo. Lois Reckitt, Alice Chapman, Judy Goldsmith, Mary Jean Collins, Walter Mondale, Sen Barbara Mikulski, Kathy Webb.