Barbara Love Obituary, Death – It is with the deepest, deepest sadness that I must inform you of the passing of our beloved coworker, Barbara Love, who passed away at 8:30 in the morning on Sunday.
Barbara spent many years as a VFA director and later became an incredibly capable and successful member of our Vice President for Development team.
She served as a co-chair for many of our most successful conferences and events, and the majority of the time, I was her happy and energized partner thanks to her positive attitude and boundless enthusiasm. She was a driving force behind the organization of and editor for the monumental book “Feminists Who Changed America,” which was a collection of pioneer biographies from the Second Wave of feminism.
Not only does this book serve as an invaluable global resource for historians and scholars, but it is also an indispensable font of information and reference for our VFA Pioneer Histories Project.
There at the Dawning: Memories of a Lesbian Feminist was the title of her autobiography, which was published the year before, in 2021. Her personal experience of being present at the birth of feminism and at its many inflection points is shared in this autobiography, which was written despite the many medical challenges she faced in her final years.
Barbara Love was a serious activist, a visionary pioneer in the modern women’s movement, and an author who took part in multiple marches, demonstrations, and conferences. She is known as a pioneer in the modern women’s movement. She believed in feminism to the very core of her being.
She was an early advocate for gay rights, and in addition to being a co-founder of Identity House and PFlag (Parents for Lesbians and Gays), she was also a co-author of the ground-breaking book that demonstrated the need for social and self-acceptance of lesbianism, which she co-wrote with Sydney Abbott. In 1971, Barbara was an outspoken advocate in the fight to have NOW acknowledge lesbianism as a feminist issue. She was successful in this endeavor.
Lastly, on a more personal note, Barbara Love was an important person in my life as well as the lives of a great many other people. She was one of my closest friends. She had a lot of fans. We will miss having her around.
Eleanor Pam, VFA President
