1961 Tillett
Gladys Avery Tillett was born in Morganton, North Carolina in 1891. She attended the Women's College (modern-day University of Greensboro) where she served as student govenment president and fought for more rights and responsibilities for the women students. In the 1920s, Tillett created the League of Women Voters in Charlotte, which helped women voters register and provide information about the candidates running for office so they could make informed decisions about who would best represent their interests. Her experience organizing voters in Charlotte caught the attention of the North Carolina State Democratic Party, where she served on the Executive Committee and represented the state as a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention where Franklin Roosevelt was nominated as President. In 1940, Gladys Tillett became the head of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee where she served for ten years. In 1956 she became the assistant to the National Chair for Adlai Stevenson's Presidential Campaign. Tillett gave one of her most famous speeches during John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign of 1960 entitled "Religious Freedom and the Ballott Box," becoming one of the first Southern women to speak out on religious freedom. Throughout the sixties and seventies she served in the United Nations in several different capacities, including the U.S. representative to the UN commission on the Status of Women and alternate member of the U.S. delegation to the UN General Assembly. She is remembered for her tireless work for women's rights and political representation.