Genevieve Houghton

CARBONDALE -- Genevieve Hughes Houghton died Tuesday evening, Oct. 2, 2012, in Murphysboro, with friends and family at her side, after an 18-month battle with cancer.

She was born July 14, 1932, in Washington, D.C., to Dorothy Wimsatt Hughes and William J. Hughes, Jr.

Her primary and secondary schooling were at Sacred Heart Academy (now Stone Ridge). Genevieve loved childhood summers at the family's summer home at Rehoboth Beach, Del. She graduated from Cornell University in 1954 with a B.A. in English.

While working as a municipal bonds analyst for Dun and Bradstreet in New York City, Genevieve began volunteering with the Congress for Racial Equality's New York City integration efforts. In 1960, she quit her Wall Street job to become CORE's first female field staff, traveling in the South and Midwest to form new CORE chapters to further their goal of ending racial segregation through nonviolent civil disobedience. In May 1961, CORE organized a Freedom Ride to challenge continued segregation of interstate public transportation in the deep south, despite the 1946 Supreme Court decision ruling it unconstitutional. Genevieve was one of 13 white and black CORE members who boarded Greyhound and Trailways buses in Washington, D.C., for a conference in New Orleans. While their ride ended with brutal violence in Anniston and Montgomery, Ala., they were followed by waves of students, clergy and others committed to civil rights, who descended on the south to continue the Freedom Ride. A fellow freedom rider, current Georgia Congressman John Lewis, described Genevieve as "graceful and gentle as her name, (yet) not at all afraid to speak up when she had strong feelings about something." Houghton and the others were featured in a PBS documentary last year commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. In 2011, she reunited with friends from those days at various Freedom Rider 50th anniversary events.

Later in 1961, CORE assigned Genevieve to Berkeley, Calif., to organize in northern California. She attended graduate school at UC Berkeley, and met her husband, John, in a paddy wagon. They moved to Carbondale in 1971, where both continued graduate studies. They later divorced. Genevieve was one of the founders of The Women's Center and became its first director, serving in that capacity as the center grew.

Genevieve had many community involvements in retirement. She served as an emergency foster parent, a volunteer at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge and Free Again Wildlife Rehabilitation, was a member of the SIU Human Subjects Committee, the Illinois Fair Housing Commission, Save Kinkaid Lake, the Green Party, the League of Women Voters, Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Green Earth and the Carbondale Sustainability Commission. In addition to her passion for social justice and her compassion for people, she had an intense love of the outdoors, hiking many Southern Illinois trails with friends and dogs, participating in Audubon bird counts and traveling near and far to see "good" birds. She was sometimes frustrated with those who admired her civil rights work, and urged them to get busy ending environmental destruction. For the last 10 years, she has stood vigil with others on Carbondale's town square at noon on Saturdays to protest the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was a lifelong, voracious reader.

Genevieve is survived by her brothers, Michael Hughes (Mary) of Naples, Fla., and John Hughes (December) of Rehoboth Beach, Del.; sister-in-law, Anne Hughes of Springfield, Va.; cousin, Fran Zweibel of Portal, Ariz.; her whippet, Harry; and many friends, for whom her home was a relaxed hub of lively conversation and good food.

She always saw you to the door, explaining that's what her mother taught her. Her wry sense of humor, intelligence, eccentricities and quiet kindness will be missed by many.

She was preceded in death by her parents; brother, William; and good friend, Evelyn Griffin.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Good Samaritan Ministries, The Southern Illinois African American Museum or Hospice of Southern Illinois.

Her friends and family would like to thank her in-home care givers these last months, and Drs. Strack, Aks and Kao, and their staffs.

There will be a celebration of Genevieve's life at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, in Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship.