Legendary civil rights activist Donna Red Wing has died

After an eight-month battle against cancer, legendary LGBT rights activist Donna Red Wing died yesterday (Monday, April 16) at her home in Des Moines. She was 67.
Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, issued a statement Tuesday saying that the LGBT movement has “lost a justice warrior, a dynamic leader, and a friend to many.
“Having worked with her in D.C., in states on ballot measures, on marches, I can say they broke the mold,” Carey continued. “Donna was seemingly everywhere — an activist’s activist. Thank you, Donna, for all you gave to others, to the movement, and to the community of people working for progressive change in this country.”
In a lengthy article announcing her death and recounting her career in activism, the Des Moines Register noted that Red Wing had spent more than three years as an activist, and that she was once called “the most dangerous woman in America” by the Christian Coalition, one of the more vociferous enemies of equality.
Red Wing was executive director of the LGBT rights organization One Iowa from 2012 to 2016, leaqding the organization through the battle for marriage equality and then into other civil rights arenas. One Iowa’s current executive director, Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel, said Red Wing was “a force to be reckoned with,” anad that she will be “greatly missed by individuals across the country.”
“Donna inspired so many, including myself,” he added.
For the last two years, Red Wing served as director of the Eychaner Foundation, an organization in Des Moines that promotes tolerance and non-discrimination, according to its website.
The Advocate noted that in the early 1990s, Red Wing was head of Oregon’s Lesbian Community Project and led the successful efforts to defeat that state’s rabidly homophobic Measure 9, which would have, among other things, required Oregon schools to set “a standard for Oregon’s youth that recognizes homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism and masochism as abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and that these behaviors are to be discouraged and avoided.”
In recognition of her efforts, The Advocate named Red Wing its Woman of the Year in 1992.
Red Wing had been executive director of Grassroots Leadership and chief of staff at Interfaith Alliance in Washington D.C. She also held leadership roles at the Gill Foundation, Human Rights Campaign and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. She was the first recipient of the Walter Cronkite Award for Faith and Freedom and co-chaired the Obama for America 2008 LGBT Leadership Council. The Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Commission recently honored her by naming its annual Lifetime Achievement award after her.
Red Wing, a native of Massachussets, is survived by her wife and partner for more than 30 years, Sumitra Red Wing, son Julian, grandson Jasper and twin brother David. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date.