
Roxcy O'Neal Bolton
1926—
Inducted 1984
Born in Mississippi, of a pioneer settler family, Roxcy O'Neal Bolton is
known as Florida's Pioneer Feminist and the Founding Mother of Florida NOW. In
1957, she was an organizing member of the Democratic Women's Clubs in Florida,
and the charter president of the Dade County chapter of NOW. In 1969, she was
elected a national vice president of NOW.
In 1974, she founded the first Rape Treatment Center in the country at Jackson
Memorial Hospital in Miami. The center was dedicated in her name in 1993. Bolton
also founded Women in Distress, the first women's rescue shelter in Florida, in
1972.
Roxcy Bolton is the organizing founder of Crime Watch and received the Miami
Herald's Spirit of Excellence Award in 1988. She also founded the Women's Park
in Miami and continues to be a champion for womankind.