Virginia Whitehill

“My mother was very proud of having participated in suffrage marches around Chicago, and when I was a little girl she would always take me with her to vote. I decided later on that the two emancipators of women were the vote and birth control, the ability to control your fertility.”

Virginia Bulkley Whitehill, a lifelong activist for women, comes by her feminism naturally.  Her mother Myrtle Bulkley worked for women's suffrage, and was a charter member of the League of Women Voters. Whitehill was an active member of Planned Parenthood in Dallas TX, and was present at the oral arguments for Roe v Wade at the Supreme Court.  She has worked for decades for women's rights, and co-founded the Dallas Women’s Coalition, the Dallas Women's Foundation, and The Family Place, the first shelter for battered women in Dallas, among many other projects.  

Her volunteer work has won her many awards, including the Planned Parenthood Champion of Choice award and the Association of Women Journalists Women of Courage Award.  In 2000, Whitehill was honored by the Texas Women’s Chamber of Congress as a Woman of the Century.  She has two children, and graduated from Mount Holyoke College.