Right On Pin

Based on a 2-inch button from Dorothy Mae Taylor's successful 1971 legislative campaign, this pin was created in collaboration with Constance. Civil rights activist Dorothy Mae Taylor was the first African American woman elected to Louisiana Legislature. She fought for criminal justice reform, public school desegregation, and the desegregation of Mardi Gras Carnival Krewes—which finally passed in 1992! Taylor was the first Black woman elected to the Louisiana State Legislature in 1971; the first woman to receive the Legislator of the Year award in 1972; the first Black woman to head a state department in 1984; one of the first two women and the first Black woman to serve on the New Orleans City Council in 1986. In 1991, Taylor introduced a city ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on race, religion and gender in Carnival krewes.