Great Lives24 Feb 2025

Ellen E Jones nominates Florynce Kennedy

One dubbed "the biggest, loudest and indisputably the rudest mouth on the battleground", Florynce Kennedy was a force to be reckoned with.

She was a lawyer, a vocal figure in the American civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and '70s, and a champion of numerous other causes besides; from legalising abortion to campaigning for sex-worker rights - proving that it was possible to care about and campaign for causes even if they didn't affect her directly.

Flo was famous in her own time, not only for her passionate commitment to fighting injustice and her incredible talent as a phrase-maker - delivering punchy comments peppered with colourful language - but also for her flamboyant style, notably her trademark Australian hat. And yet today Flo's reputation has dwindled; she's arguably far less well-known than she should be according to her nominator Ellen E Jones, a journalist and broadcaster focusing on film and television who co-hosts the Radio 4 programme 'Screenshot'.

Joining the discussion remotely from the United States, is Sheri Randolph, author of the biography ‘Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical’; also an associate professor of history at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and founder of the Black Feminist Think Tank.

Matthew and his guests also hear from Flo's friend and fellow activist Gloria Steinem, who says: "Wherever we went, somehow she created a community of our own by her presence. She was effervescent and smart and outgoing and irresistable... Flo, in her jodhurs and her Aussie hat, was just a symbol of all the movements together."

Presented by Matthew Parris and produced for BBC Studios Audio by Lucy Taylor.

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