The Holocaust and Human Rights Center has named Lois Galgay Reckitt of South Portland the 2024 recipient of the Gerda Haas Award for Excellence in Human Rights Education and Leadership.

The center is set to honor her posthumously at its annual meeting on Thursday, Sept. 5. The meeting will be held from 4:30-8 p.m. at The Woodlands in Falmouth.

“We are honored to recognize and celebrate Lois Reckitt’s extraordinary life dedicated to strengthening equal rights and protections for women. Passionate, brilliant and undeterred, Lois founded and led organizations to address inequities and needs, spoke out against bias, and served for six years in the state legislature. She is a model of determination, generosity, and unwavering commitment,” Tam Huynh, executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center, said in a news release from the center.

Reckitt was known as a powerful activist for women, working on behalf of oppressed, vulnerable and marginalized people right up until her death.

From 1984-87, Reckitt served as executive vice president of the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C. and then deputy director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a political action committee that she had co-founded in 1980. Back in Maine, she became co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the Maine Coalition for Human Rights, the Maine Women’s Lobby, and the first Maine chapter of the National Organization for Women. She established the Family Crisis Shelter in Portland and successfully lobbied to protect victims of domestic abuse, leading to the passage of several bills.

Reckitt was inducted into the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998. She served in the Maine House of Representatives from 2016-23, where she fought to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the Maine Constitution.

To learn more and purchase tickets to the annual meeting, visit hhrcmaine.org.

Check out other upcoming area events!