Remembering Kathy Boudin | May 19, 1943 – May 1, 2022

May 01, 2023

Remembering and honoring our beloved co-founder Kathy Boudin one year after she transitioned. 

Today, marks one year since our beloved co-founder Kathy Boudin transitioned. Kathy was a pillar of wisdom, grace, and determination for us at the Center and her absence has been felt by us all. To many of our staff, Kathy was also a friend, mentor, and sister. It is impossible to capture all of the impact that Kathy had throughout her life, but we hope to always uplift her and her legacy in everything we do. 

Over the last year, we have continued to honor and celebrate her. We created the Kathy Boudin Freedom Fund and are launching the inaugural Kathy Boudin Lecture this coming May 19th with guest speaker Angela Davis (more details on this soon). We brought together over 70 women impacted by the criminal legal system in New Orleans last summer to celebrate their time in the Women Transcending Collective Leadership Institute, and to share in Kathy’s legacy of building movement leadership of formerly incarcerated women. We have continued Kathy’s commitment to support the movement to free our elders, pass parole justice, and advocate for clemency, especially for women. And we held our 13th annual Beyond the Bars Conference, our first without Kathy, where we were joined by her family and friends to plant a tree in her honor. Kathy’s imprint on the Center for Justice is always with us, and her commitment to building community, to good relationships, and to fierce organizing and advocacy remains our northstar.   

Thank you for loving Kathy, for sharing your memories of her with us this year, and for continuing the fight for justice as she would have wanted us to. We miss her so much and send love to Kathy’s immediate family today. And for those of you who knew her or were impacted by her, we hope you spend time today remembering her.

The work continues but as Kathy said, “hope carries us”.  

An illustration of Kathy with her eyes closed and smiling and the words "Hope is what carries us" above her

 

Artwork by Shirien Damra