Gwen Robinson Awsumb

Gwen Robinson Awsumb (25 September 1915 – 16 January 2003) was an American politician and social activist. In 1967, she became the first woman to be elected to the city council in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Her legacy is of challenging “political, social, and racial obstacles with her status as a white, female Republican” in the South. During the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968 she became a prominent local figure.

Early life and education Gwendolyn Van Court Robinson was born on September 25, 1915, in Marshall, Michigan to parents Catherine VanCourt (Pritchartt) Robinson and Carl Arnold Robinson. Her father was a lawyer and served as a Democrat in the Michigan state legislature for 15 years. The family moved to Chicago and then to North Florida during the depths of the Great Depression, before settling in Memphis in 1930 when she was at the age of 15. She graduated from St. Mary's Episcopal School in 1932, but was initially unable to attend college due to the family's financial difficulties. She eventually studied chemistry at Southwestern College (later renamed Rhodes College) and obtained a degree in 1937. Awsumb had the unenviable position as the council's liaison to Mayor Henry Loeb, who she accused of impeding the council's progress on resolving the strike. Awsumb did not support municipal labor unions in concept and opposed the strike. However, she understood that the strike exacerbated economic inequality for black Americans and she sought compromise in resolving it, such as an immediate wage raise, with her views shifting further to the strikers as police brutality escalated throughout the crisis.

The council elected her as chair in 1970—a position she held until 1975. In addition to the sanitation strike, her tumultuous tenure on the council also featured the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., tension over racial integration of the city, and increasing participation of women in politics. Awsumb accepted an appointment as the first director of the city's Housing and Community Development in 1975, and served in the position until 1981.