1980's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Kuhn, Maggie 1905-1995

ACTIVIST

Founder of the Gray Panthers.

In 1970, when Maggie Kuhn turned sixty-five, her employer forced her to retire from a job she loved. Kuhn could have gotten mad. Instead, she got busy, organizing what became known as the Gray Panthers to protest not only mandatory retirement policies but also American involvement in the Vietnam War. One of the few protest organizations of the Vietnam era to survive into the 1980s, the Gray Panthers, with Kuhn at the helm, served as a model of grassroots organization for such causes as national health care, job training, and housing for the homeless. The organization was also a model of inclusiveness: though many elderly people belong to the Gray Panthers, and though it lobbies on issues important to the elderly, its members range from college students to people like Kuhn, who remained active in the Gray Panthers until her death at eighty-nine.

The Making of an...