Kay Nesbit is a victim's rights advocate and public speaker in Australia. Nesbit suffered a shotgun wound that eventually led to 57 operations to reconstruct her face. She later became a victim's rights advocate, public speaker and ran for office in Victoria.
Nesbit grew up on a farm in New Zealand near Christchurch. [1] In 1977, she moved to Melbourne. [1]
Nesbit's flatmate had been trying to avoid her boyfriend. [1] Nesbit was shot on 11 September 1985 after she told Paul Terrance Mallinder via note that her flatmate didn't want to see him anymore. [2] [3] [4] Nesbit survived the gunshot, but lost her jaw, part of her nose and her right eye. [5] To help her out, more than $205,000 was raised on her behalf in 1986. [6] The medical team at Alfred Hospital who reconstructed her face used other parts of her body to repair her damaged face. [7] [3] [8] By 1993, she had completed 31 surgeries at Alfred Hospital. [9] Eventually, she would have a total of 57 operations. [10]
She has become an advocate for victims' rights. [11] Nesbit began to start public speaking and telling her story in 1999. [12] She stood in the 2002 Victorian state election as an independent but was not elected. [4]
Nesbit's attacker, Mallinder, was found not guilty of "wounding with intent to cause murder" but guilty of "wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm" [13] and sentenced to the maximum permissible 15 years in prison, which was reduced on appeal to 13 years with an 11-year non-parole period. [14] He was released from prison after serving seven years. [4]
Maria Ellen Cantwell is an American politician and former businesswoman serving as the junior United States senator from Washington since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the Washington House of Representatives from 1987 to 1993, and the United States House of Representatives from Washington's 1st congressional district from 1993 to 1995.
Kay Bailey Hutchison is an American attorney, television correspondent, politician, diplomat, and was the 22nd United States Permanent Representative to NATO from 2017 until 2021. A member of the Republican Party, she was a United States Senator from Texas from 1993 to 2013.
Thelma Loyace Stovall was a pioneering American politician in the state of Kentucky. In 1949 she won election as state representative for Louisville, and served three consecutive terms. Over the next two decades, Stovall was elected Kentucky State Treasurer twice and Secretary of State of Kentucky three times. She capped her career as the 47th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky (1975–1979) in the administration of her fellow Democrat, Governor Julian Carroll. She was the first woman to hold the office.
Cynthia Marie Lummis Wiederspahn is an American attorney and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Wyoming since 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Lummis served as the U.S representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 2009 to 2017. She served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983 and from 1985 to 1993, in the Wyoming Senate from 1993 to 1995, and as the Wyoming State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007.
Charles Troy Coleman was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was executed in 1990 by the state of Oklahoma. He was convicted in 1979 of the murder of John Seward, who, along with his wife, was killed by a shotgun blast in rural Muskogee County, when they interrupted a robbery at a relative's house. He also murdered Russell E. Lewis in a fatal carjacking in 1979 and is suspected of murdering the father of his former girlfriend in 1975. Despite killing at least three people, he was never convicted of the murder of Seward's wife and his sentence for Lewis's murder was overturned.
Katherine Lahusen was an American photographer, writer and gay rights activist. She was the first openly lesbian American photojournalist. Under Lahusen's art direction, photographs of lesbians appeared on the cover of The Ladder for the first time. It was one of many projects she undertook with partner Barbara Gittings, who was then The Ladder's editor. As an activist, Lahusen was involved with the founding of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970 and the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). She contributed writing and photographs to a New York–based Gay Newsweekly, and co-authored two books: The Gay Crusaders in 1972 with Randy Wicker and Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, collecting their photographs with Diana Davies in 2019.
Marcella Nicholas Leach was an American victims' rights advocate based in Southern California and the mother of businessman Henry Nicholas. After the murder of her daughter, Marsalee (Marsy) Nicholas in 1983, she helped build Justice for Homicide Victims, one of California's early victims' rights organizations. Her late daughter is the namesake for Marsy's Law, the California Constitutional Amendment and Victims' Bill of Rights, which appeared on the November, 2008, ballot as Proposition 9.
Joe Pullen or Joe Pullum was an African-American tenant farmer who was murdered by a lynch mob of local white citizens near Drew, Mississippi on December 15, 1923. While the circumstances that precipitated the violence were typical for that place and time, Pullen's case is unusual in that he managed to kill at least three members of the lynch mob and wound several others before ultimately perishing himself. Because of his courage, Pullen became a folk hero and his bravery was championed by the Universal Negro Improvement Association. While the incident received only brief national news coverage, the local repercussions were far more profound. As civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer recalled in an autobiographical essay on growing up in a nearby Mississippi town: "it was a while in Mississippi before the whites tried something like that again."
Wayne Nathan Nance, also known as The Missoula Mauler, was an American serial killer in the state of Montana. Nance was shot and killed while committing a home invasion of a co-worker's residence; thus, Nance was never formally charged, tried, or convicted of any murder. Authorities reported that physical evidence linked Nance to several unsolved murders and crimes.
Lois Galgay Reckitt is an American feminist, human rights activist, LGBT rights activist, and domestic violence advocate. Called "one of the most prominent advocates in Maine for abused women", she served as executive director of Family Crisis Services in Portland, Maine for more than three decades. From 1984 to 1987 she served as executive vice president of the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C. She is a co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the Maine Coalition for Human Rights, the Maine Women's Lobby, and the first Maine chapter of the National Organization for Women. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1998.
Mercédes Benegbi is a Canadian disabilities activist who has been recognized for her advocacy for the rights of disabled people. In 2000, she was honored by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and in 2014, she drove a successful initiative to gain support for the survivors of thalidomide. Her efforts resulted in life-time compensation for Canadian "thalidomiders", as well as a special fund for specific medical treatments or modifications to homes and vehicles to accommodate their disabilities.
Susan Catania is an American former politician who served as a Republican member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1973 to 1983. She was involved in women's rights issues, and led the unsuccessful effort to get the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratified by the Illinois General Assembly. Catania also served as chairperson of the Illinois Commission on the Status of Women. A representative from Chicago, she was described as a liberal, feminist, and maverick member of the Republican legislative caucus.
Sheila Babs Michaels, also known as Sheila Shiki-y-Michaels, was an American feminist and civil rights activist credited with popularizing Ms. as a default form of address for women regardless of their marital status.
Events from the year 1941 in Michigan.
Harriet Bell was an American advocate for disability rights. She was a co-founder and director of the Polio Information Center and a member of the New York State Board for Nursing. Residing in the Goldwater Memorial Hospital after contracting polio, she was president of the hospital board for four terms, participating in drafting the Patients' Bill of Rights. In 1982, she was the recipient of the Wonder Woman Foundation Award of Warner Communications Inc. as an agent of change.
Evelyne Jobe Villines was an American disability rights advocate and political activist who had Poliomyelitis. Villines worked for both the state of Iowa and the federal government as an advocate. The Des Moines Register called her a "nationally known spokeswoman for the disabled" in 1992.
Vernita Gray was an African-American lesbian and women's liberation activist from the beginning of those movements in Chicago. She began her writing career publishing in the newsletter Lavender Woman. After owning and operating her own restaurant for almost a decade, Gray became the LGBT liaison for the Cook County State's Attorney's office. In 2013, she and her partner became the first same-sex partners to wed in Illinois.
Alice Harrell Strickland was an American politician and activist from Duluth, Georgia. Strickland was the first woman to be elected mayor in the U.S. state of Georgia. She was also known for philanthropic work including establishing the first community forest in Georgia. In 2002 she was posthumously named a Georgia Woman of Achievement.
Rosa Lyons McKay was an American politician. She was one of the first women elected to the Arizona state legislature, serving in the 1917–1918, 1919–1920, and 1923–1924 sessions. She was inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame in 2019.
The Rock Road massacre, also known as the Farwell murders or Clare County murders, was a 1982 mass murder in which seven members of the George W. Post family, four adults and three children, were killed with a shotgun, a rifle, and a handgun at a farmhouse on Rock Road in Garfield Township just west of Farwell, Michigan.