THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Vivian Rothstein
“For Me, the Movement Opened the World.”
Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Activist. Community Organizer. Author. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteer, 1965. Co-founder of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union. Ocean Park Community Center, Santa Monica; Director from 1987-97. Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) from 1996-2016, an advocacy organization working to lift standards for workers in the region’s major low wage industries. Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE).






Photo 1. Vivian part of a peace delegation to North Vietnam, 1967. Photo 2. Vivian circa 1970 [Photo by Jo Freeman]. Photo 3. Vivian and her Mom in Chicago, 1973. Photo 4. Vivian and daughter Leah at an anti-nuclear protest in Nevada, 1987. Photo 5. Reunion in Leake County Mississippi with Freedom Summer host family, 1994. Photo 6. Vivian and family, 2013.

More About Vivian:
- Chicago Women’s History Center oral history interview
- The story of 21 year old Vivian Rothstein’s participation in a 1967 peace delegation to North Vietnam led by Tom Hayden – which met with American POWs being held in Hanoi.
- Vivian Rothstein discusses her participation in a 1967 peace delegation to North Vietnam led by Tom Hayden that met with American POWs being held in Hanoi. Monthly Review Magazine, August 2021
- Interview series with Vivian 2018, Activist Video Archive
- Democratic Socialists of America interview June 1, 2019
- Capital & Main – Stories by Vivian Rothstein
- Vivian Rothstein receives the Giants of Justice Award, CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice) LA 2013
- Vivian Rothstein for the Boston Review
- The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women’s Liberation by Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Ann Barr Snitow published in 1998.
- Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement by Joyce Antler, 2019
- Vivian fighting for Santa Monica Living Wage, 2000
- Dear Dr. Spencer: Abortion in a Small Town – A Film by Danielle Renfrew and Beth Seltzer. Narrated by Lili Taylor. 1998
- Vivian is not in this film, but wanted to honor Dr. Spencer for helping her in 1965 when abortion was illegal in the U.S.
- Dedication Day, Ocean Park Community Center 1996
- Film – She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry – a film by Mary Dore
- Feminist: Stories From Women’s Liberation a film by Jennifer Hall Lee
- Jewish Women’s Archive
- Select Newspaper Clippings
- Seeing the Human Side of the Homeless, L.A. Times November 10, 1991
- UC Berkeley Activists of ’64 Reunite, L.A. Times December 4, 1994
- Santa Monica Service Facility Opens, The Daily Breeze January 28, 1996
- Minimum Wage Measure, L.A. Times November 9, 2000
- Living Wage Win Credited to Activist, L.A. Times June 4, 2001
- Vivian’s Papers Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe
- CWLU Herstory Project
- PBS Interview
- Life Magazine Interview
- Chicago Women’s Liberation Union
- Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteer, 1965. Vivian along with several women in a Jackson, MS city jail. (no audio)
- Peace Delegation to Vietnam 1967
- There is no sound in this clip. In 1967 Vivian Rothstein participated in a 1967 peace delegation to North Vietnam. This video shows the delegation meeting with North Vietnamese victims of U.S. bombing, captured U.S. pilots, and traveling in camouflage jeeps because of the U.S. bombing that was taking place.
- Audio clip from Mrs. Van, executive member of the South Vietnam Women’s Union for Liberation pleading with American women to help end the war, 1967.
- Cited in Barbara Love’s Book – Feminists Who Changed America – page 396