[5] Thompson was a jazz singer and toured with the New Christy Minstrels and London Fog,[6] before retiring from the entertainment industry in 1975 to start a family.

[5] In 1977, Thompson-Glickman became the first black woman elected as a Pasadena city director,[3][7] a few days before she gave birth to her younger son.

The Loretta Glickman Endowment Fund for African-American Youth was established in her memory, by the Pasadena Community Foundation.

[17] Another scholarship fund in her memory was established at the Lubbock campus of Wayland Baptist University, where she worked in her last years.

[18] An oil portrait of Thompson-Glickman, painted in 1987 by Charles Haywood, is displayed in the Pasadena City Hall.