Donaldson, Louise Sackett (1897-1982)
Michigan Advocate For Human Rights
Louise Donaldson is remembered for her involvement in human rights issues. In Dearborn, Michigan, she founded a local Council on Human Rights, and was instrumental in the desegregation of every restaurant in her community. She worked with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to register black voters in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama. Louise attended Dow Chemical stockholders’ meetings to protest the production of napalm, visited missions in India, Korea, Japan, and Mexico at her own expense, supported the education of two Korean girls, and was involved in numerous prisoner-assistance programs in the United States and other countries. She helped consolidate the Ladies’ Aid, Woman’s Home Missionary Society, and Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society into the Woman’s Society of Christian Service of the Detroit Conference, held numerous conference offices; was president of Michigan United Church Women (later, CWU); served on CWU’s National Board of Managers; and was a member of the Michigan State’s Commission on Human Rights and Fair Employment Commission. When Louise Donaldson could no longer take part in such organizations herself, she urged others to carry on.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
