Independent Staff Report
WEST HOLLYWOOD — The city hosted a virtual tribute Aug. 18 to the life and legacy of feminist and LGBT activist and icon Ivy Bottini, who died earlier this year.
A long-time resident of West Hollywood, Bottini devoted more than 50 years to the feminist and LGBT struggles for civil and human rights.
Bottini died Feb. 25 at the age 94. An artist and mother, her activism began when she joined a New York gathering of luminaries of the women’s movement that included Betty Friedan, Muriel Fox, Ti-Grace Atkinson and Flo Kennedy.
In 1966, she co-founded the first chapter of the National Organization for Women and designed the organization’s logo, which is still in use today. In 1970, she led a group of women to the Statue of Liberty where they hung a banner that read, “Women of the World Unite,” and in 1978, she fought the Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in California public schools.
She continued her activism through the AIDS epidemic and became chair of the campaign against the No on 64 Initiative, which would have amounted to firing and quarantining of people with HIV or AIDS. She co-chaired the End Rape Statue of Limitations Campaign, a grassroots campaign that successfully ended statutes of limitations for rape and sexual assault crimes in California in 2016.
Bottini was a West Hollywood resident for 22 years and served as a co-chair of the city’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board.
Bottini has been recognized many times by the city for her leadership and activism. She was the recipient of the City of West Hollywood’s Lifetime Rainbow Key Award; the Melissa Etheridge Award; the Martin Luther King Jr. “Keeper of the Dream” Award; the West Hollywood Women in Leadership Award; and was honored with a National Women’s History Month street-pole banner that is displayed annually.
In 2002, the city dedicated a tree and plaque in her honor in the Matthew Shepard Triangle located at the intersection of Santa Monica and Crescent Heights boulevards.
For additional information about Ivy Bottini Day, visit https://ivybottiniday.eventbrite.com.
