Willie Barrow

Willie Beatrice Barrow (née Taplin; December 7, 1924 – March 12, 2015) was an American civil rights activist and minister.

In 1984, Barrow became the first woman executive director of a civil rights organization, serving as Push's CEO.

[8] She started working as a welder during World War II at the Swan Island Shipyard, where she met Clyde Barrow, whom she married in 1945 in Washington.

[9] The couple moved to Chicago in the early 1940s, and Barrow attended the Moody Bible Institute to further her call to service.

They lived on the South Side, and Barrow ran the youth choir at Langley Avenue Church of God.

[10] In the 1950s she worked with Martin Luther King and other Chicago ministers and activists as a field organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

She also advocated for fair labor practices, took an anti-Vietnam war stance, and was vocal about women's rights.

She helped raise money for assisted living development in the south and to fund after school programs.