Marie Corinne Claiborne “Lindy” Boggs by Abbey Herbert

Marie Corinne Claiborne “Lindy” Boggs By Abbey Herbert Presented by: Women’s Resource Center & NOLA4Women Designed by: the Donnelley Center Marie Corrine Claiborne Born in Louisiana on March 13, 1916, Marie Corinne Democratic National Convention where delegates Claiborne “Lindy” Boggs became one of the most chose Jimmy Carter as the presidential nominee. influential political leaders in Louisiana and the Throughout her career, Boggs fought tirelessly United States. She managed political campaigns for for gender and racial equality. Boggs fought for her husband, Hale Boggs, mothered three children the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and who all grew up to lead important lives, and became later The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the first woman in Louisiana to be elected to the Head Start as well as many other programs to United States Congress. In her later career, she empower and uplift women, people of color, and the served as ambassador to the Holy See. Throughout her impoverished. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act eventful and unorthodox life, Boggs vehemently advocated originally prevented creditors from discriminating for women’s rights and minority rights during the backlash against applicants based on race, color, religion, against the Civil Rights Movement and the second wave or national origin. Boggs demonstrated her zeal to of feminism. protect women’s rights by demanding that “sex or On January 3, 1973, Hale Bogg’s seat in Congress as marital status” be incorporated into this law. She House Majority Leader was declared empty after his plane succeeded. Boggs dedicated herself to including women disappeared on a trip to Alaska. Nearly two months later, and other minorities in conversations in which they Lindy Boggs announced that she planned on running had previously been excluded. for congressional office, and more specifically, that she Boggs served as a powerful and inspiring woman planned on running for her late husband’s seat in the who overcame and minimalized sexist hurdles to House of Representatives. The public questioned Boggs fight for women’s equality. Her three children, and often asked if she had any doubts about running given inspired by their mother ‘s zestful persistence, that Louisiana had never elected a woman into a federal became prominent in the political atmosphere: Cokie congressional office before, and that expectations of her Roberts worked as a journalist for National Public soared due to her husband’s prominence in the House. She Radio and ABC TV; Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. became responded,“The only thing that almost stopped me was a Washington lawyer; Barbara Boggs Sigmund became that I didn’t know how I could do it without a wife,” the mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. Boggs inspired referencing the colossal amount of work she did managing women throughout Louisiana by cracking the glass and organizing her late husband ‘s campaigns. ceiling, thus providing hope, the main catalyst for Boggs served in nine consecutive congresses from 1973 change. to 1991-- from the 93rd Congress to the 101st Congress. Besides being reelected eight times, her career marked other feminist milestones when she presided over a national party’s convention, which no woman had done before. She chaired the 1976.

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