A00069 - Willie Barrow, Civil Rights Activist and PUSH Executive Director

Willie T. Barrow (Willie Beatrice Taplin) (b. December 7, 1924, Burton, Texas - d. March 12, 2015, Chicago, Illinois) was a civil rights activist who devoted her life to championing the rights of African Americans and working to improve their circumstances, both on the front lines of public demonstrations and as a mentor to generations of young activists.  Barrow engaged in her first act of protest as a child, when she sought to change the rule that required African American children to walk to school while European American children rode on school buses.  When she was 16 years old, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she worked as a shipyard welder and attended Pacific Bible College (since 1959 Warner Pacific College).  She also organized and led an African American Church of God congregation.  Barrow relocated (in 1945) to Chicago and attended Moody Bible Institute.  By the 1950s, she had become a civil rights filed organizer for such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  She participated in such campaigns as the March on Washington (1963) and the Selma March (1965).  In the mid-1960s, she helped found the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, which focused on increasing the hiring and promotion of African Americans.  Barrow worked with civil rights leader Jesse Jackson when he founded Operation PUSH (which also had the goal of economic empowerment in black communities), and she later served as the organization's executive director.  After the 1996 merger that created the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, she headed that group's governing board for 10 years.  In addition, Barrow was a vocal feminist and a supporter of gay rights.