Norton, Eleanor Holmes

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Norton, Eleanor Holmes

June 13, 1937

Born in Washington, D.C., civil rights leader Eleanor Holmes graduated from Antioch College in 1960, received an M.A. in American history from Yale University in 1963, and received a law degree from Yale in 1965. Norton was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a participant in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1965 she joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she served as a civil rights lawyer for five years. In 1967 she married Edward Norton,

also a lawyer. The couple, who were separated in 1992, had two children. In 1968 Eleanor Holmes Norton gained attention for her active defense of freedom of speech when she represented segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace in his struggle to obtain permission from the city of New York for a rally at Shea Stadium. Keenly interested in fighting both race and gender discrimination, Norton published an article on black women in the well-known anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful (1970). "If women were suddenly to achieve equality with men tomorrow," she wrote, "black women would continue to carry the entire array of utterly oppressive handicaps associated with race…. Yet black women cannot—must not—avoid the truth about their special subservience. They are women with all that that implies."

In 1970 Norton was appointed chair of the New York City Commission on Human Rights by Mayor John Lindsay. Her achievement in detailing and correcting discriminatory practices led to a position as cohost of a weekly local television program on civil rights. In 1973 Norton helped organize the National Conference of Black Feminists, and in 1975 she cowrote Sex Discrimination and the Law: Cases and Remedies, a law textbook dealing with legal remedies to gender inequality.

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Norton as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a post she held until 1981. Charged with investigating complaints of discrimination, Norton was a visible and respected force within the administration. In 1982 she accepted a post as professor of labor law at Georgetown University. Throughout the 1980s she was also a regular media commentator on civil rights and affirmative action issues.

In 1990 Norton announced her candidacy for the position of District of Columbia delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite the revelation during the campaign that she owed back taxes, she was elected to Congress, beginning the first of eight consecutive terms of service through 2005. Norton soon won praise even from her opponents for her involvement in community affairs as well as for her work in assuring Washington's fiscal viability and cutting the District's budget. She also lobbied in Congress for District statehood. In 1992, Norton won attention for her offer to escort women seeking abortion information at clinics past anti-abortion picketers, and later for her denunciation of the verdict in the Rodney King trial, which she contended was as shameful as the actual beating of King. The House vote in 1993 to give delegates limited voting privileges on the floor allowed Norton to become the first District representative to vote in Congress. In recognition of her prestige, President Bill Clinton agreed that as chair of the District of Columbia Subcommittee on Judiciary and Education, Norton would be responsible for the nomination of candidates for local U.S. attorney and federal judgeships, the first elected District of Columbia official to be privileged.

Yale Law School awarded Norton its Citation of Merit as an Outstanding Alumna of Yale Law School, and Yale Graduate School has awarded her the Yale Wilbur Cross Medal as an Outstanding Alumna of the Graduate School, the highest awards conferred by each on alumnae. Norton has also received more than 50 honorary degrees.