Edna Griffin was a longtime activist who grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods in New Hampshire and Massachusetts before attending Fisk University, where she studied sociology. In the 1940s, she moved to Des Moines and served in the Women’s Army Corps at Fort Des Moines during World War II. She helped end racial discrimination at Katz Drug Store in Des Moines — a local business known for not serving African Americans that refused to serve Edna and two other African Americans ice cream in 1948. The store claimed they were “not equipped to serve colored people,” according to the Iowa History Journal.

The group took this case of discrimination to court and won. Their victory set precedent several years before the Montgomery Bus Boycott and spurred the enforcement of Iowa’s 1884 Civil Rights Act — though the actual practices of Katz Drug Store did not change until the business felt the economic effects of pickets, boycotts, and sit-ins that Edna helped to coordinate. For decades after the Katz case, Edna was deeply involved in fighting against continued discrimination in business services and housing, racial profiling by the police of African American men, and racist hiring practices.

Learn more: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/edna-griffin-denied-service

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