Two Women, Two Obits

Both these women came from completely different backgrounds. But in their lives-lived-out they each helped the dispossessed and marginalised. Oh, the diversity of humanity! I have a feeling they would have got along fine.

NY Times - Irene Morgan Kirklady - civil rights pioneer who challenged segregation on interstate buslines, pre-Rosa Parks, in 1944.

When the bus grew crowded, the driver told her to give her seat to a white person. Mrs. Morgan refused, and when a sheriff’s deputy tried to take her off the bus in Saluda, Va., she resisted.

“He put his hand on me to arrest me, so I took my foot and kicked him,” she recalled in “You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow!” a 1995 public television documentary. “He was blue and purple and turned all colors. I started to bite him, but he looked dirty, so I couldn’t bite him. So all I could do was claw and tear his clothes.”

Independent - Brooke Astor

As a friend emailed me, "The British appreciate a good doyenne. In the US the coverage has been minimal. I wish someone would print the famous mugging story. 'I don't believe we've been introduced. I'm Mrs. Astor.'"