Robin Morgan dies at 85 after a life in feminism, poetry and protest
Robin Morgan, the writer and activist behind Sisterhood Is Powerful, died in New York after recent health problems.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Robin Morgan dies at 85, ending a career that ran from child television stardom to some of the most visible organizing, writing and institution-building of second-wave feminism. Her son, Blake Morgan, said she died in New York on Sept. 5 after a series of health problems in recent weeks, according to CBS News and the Associated Press.
Morgan was still working on books and poems, her son told the news organizations. Her death came days after the death of her close friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem.
What did Robin Morgan do in the women’s movement?
Morgan was an organizer of the 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant, a defining early event in the women’s liberation movement. Protesters threw bras into a “Freedom Trash Can,” the AP and CBS reported, rather than burning them as later popular shorthand suggested.
Two years later, she edited Sisterhood Is Powerful, an essay anthology that AP and CBS described as an essential text of the modern women’s movement. Morgan also helped found New York Radical Women and W.I.T.C.H., whose name stood for Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.
Steinem once described Morgan as a movement “utility player,” according to the AP report, a reference to her work as an organizer, writer, editor and speaker. Morgan served as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine for several years.
From child performer to writer and activist
Born in Lake Worth, Florida, in 1941 and raised in New York, Morgan began performing as a child. CBS reported that she modeled from age 3, hosted the radio program Little Robin Morgan at 5 and appeared on the television comedy Mama between 1949 and 1957.
She later joined civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War activism before becoming a leading feminist voice. Morgan wrote more than 20 books, including her 2001 memoir Saturday’s Child, the poetry collections Monster and Dark Matter, and the later anthologies Sisterhood Is Global and Sisterhood Is Forever.
Building organizations beyond the page
Morgan was a founder of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute in 1984. Duke University’s archive says the institute emerged in response to Sisterhood Is Global and was created to build international support for women’s-rights issues and educate communities about women’s and human rights.
The institute’s records cover work involving political representation, reproductive rights, violence against women, education and women’s economic circumstances. In 2005, Morgan, Steinem and Jane Fonda launched the Women’s Media Center, whose stated mission was to advance women’s and girls’ visibility, viability and decision-making power in media.
Morgan remained active after a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, CBS reported, including a 2015 TEDWomen talk. Her work placed her at the center of defining moments in second-wave feminism, across protest, publishing and organizations that connected women’s-rights work internationally.
This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.