Vicki Gabriner

Vicki Gabriner (1942–2018) was an American civil rights activist, feminist and LGBT rights activist who became an activist when she was just a student. She was briefly a member of Weathermen, which was the radical student activist group in the late 1960s. In 2002, Gabriner was honored at the Women Who Dared event in Boston.

Early life Gabriner was born in Homecrest, Brooklyn, New York, and raised in politically active family. Her mother and she had a lot of conversations about the importance of fighting for social justice. Her mother, Edna Levins, was president of the PTA, which organized against McCarthy-era legislation and put on concerts, mainly of socially conscious performers. Gabriner went to Cornell University, where she got involved in civil rights organizing and graduated in 1963. She taught at freedom schools, worked on local elections, voter registration, and integration of public facilities. She earned a master's degree in education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Gabriner, who moved to New York in 1968, taught in a decentralized school. In the meanwhile, she joined the radical student activist group, "The Weathermen" (also known as the Weather Organization). She had ambivalent feelings about this group. Then, she went to Cuba with the Venceromos Brigade. After she became a feminist, she moved to Atlanta in 1970 and she came out as a lesbian. Gabriner helped to found the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) in 1972, which became one of the earliest and longest running lesbian feminist organizations. The Robert and Vicki Gabriner Papers on Fayette County organizing are at The Wisconsin State Historical Society.

Women Who Dared Gabriner was honored in 2002 by Women Who Dared in Boston.