Roxcy Bolton was born in the small town of Duck Hill, Missisippi in 1926. When she was just 10 years old, she was forced to witness the lynching of two Black men, an event attended by her entire town.
Bolton graduated from high school and moved to Miami, where she worked an office job and joined the Young Democrats. She became civically active in the 1950s and was greatly influenced by Eleanor Roosevelt after hearing her address to the Democratic National Convention of 1956.
Bolton dedicated her life to activism. While she preferred civil conversation, when it failed she was not afraid to be confrontational. As a feminist activist, she fought for a variety of issues such as anti-rape, renaming hurricanes, equal pay, public breastfeeding, access to military academies for women, ending sexist advertising, maternity leave, ending segregation, and better refugee treatment.
In 1966, Bolton helped form Florida’s National Organization for Women, serving as charter president of the Miami Chapter and National Vice President in 1969. She successfully challenged the practice that many store restaurants had of keeping a separate “men only” section. 1971, Bolton lead the nation’s first “march against rape.” She gathered 100 businesswomen, political leaders, activists, housewives and a few men and led them through downtown Miami to the courthouse.
In 1972, she founded Women in Distress, a shelter for battered and homeless women. In the same year, she led six women to take over the office of the University of Miami president to demand promotion of more women to department-head positions, pay equality, and more.
In 1974, she founded the nation’s first Rape Treatment Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. The center served as the prototype for many centers that followed its establishment. That same year, she organized Florida’s first Crime Watch meeting to help prevent crimes against women.
She was also instrumental in bringing several rape cases to the attention of the public, despite police concerns – elevating the prevention and treatment of rape into priorities for law enforcement and health professionals.
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