Anne Pride was a feminist, activist and a philanthropist who dedicated her life to reproductive justice and ending sexual assault and domestic partner violence.
During her lifetime, she served on the National Organization of Women’s board of directors and as the editor of the organization’s KNOW national newspaper. She fought for reproductive justice as the executive director of Women’s Health Services and at BirthPlace, an alternative birth center. She set the precedent for victim confidentiality in her work as the first director of Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR) by refusing to disclose notes from private counseling sessions. She also coined the phrase “take back the night,” which has become a national movement for young women to reclaim their freedom and independence in the face of sexual violence.
After Pride died of ovarian cancer in 1990, her longtime life partner Paulette J. Balogh, with whom she founded Motheroot Writers’ Guild to publish works by female writers, set up the Anne Pride Memorial Fund to continue Pride’s legacy of supporting and empowering women. Balogh herself was a lawyer and served on the Board of Directors for Rainbow Kitchen Community Services and the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh.
Pride and Balogh, two women who strived all their lives to lift up the women around them, continue to impact the Pittsburgh community through this fund, which is set up to support local organizations, like PAAR and the YWCA, that empower women to live full, meaningful, and in-turn, altruistic, lives.
She did all of this with pride. Anne was proud to support women when even speaking about issues of sexual assault, birth control and women’s empowerment was taboo, so much so, that when, at the end of her marriage to Edwin Kurlfink, Pride wanted to change her name back to her maiden name, her father told her not to. The local and national press followed Pride’s activism, and her name showed up rather frequently, always associated with her activist work and her father did not want the family association. Left with a name from her ex-husband that she would not keep and a birth name she could not reclaim, Anne chose to name herself after the thing that nobody could take from her: Pride.
More on Anne Pride’s legacy is available here:
Type of Fund
- Advised