Liz Byrd, first black woman in Legislature, dies at 88
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Harriett Elizabeth "Liz" Byrd, the first African-American woman to serve in the Wyoming Legislature, has died at age 88.
Her son, Rep. Jim Byrd of Cheyenne, said Liz Byrd died Tuesday night at her Cheyenne home, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
Byrd served as a House Democrat from 1981 to 1988 and in the Senate from 1989 to 1992. She devoted years to working to establish the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Wyoming Equality Day as a state holiday.
She also is remembered for passing the first law requiring child car seats, her son said.
Harriett Elizabeth Rhone was born April 20, 1926. A fourth-generation Wyomingite, she graduated from what was then Cheyenne High School. Rep. Jim Byrd said she wasn't accepted to the University of Wyoming, likely because of her color, so she enrolled at West Virginia State College and studied elementary education.
She returned to Wyoming and taught at Fort F.E. Warren.
"She taught there because she couldn't get a job" in Laramie County public schools, Rep. Byrd said. "This was back when segregation was still in full swing."
Liz Byrd finally got a teaching job in Laramie County in 1959. She is noted as Wyoming's first fully certified, full-time African American teacher in "Black America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia."
She retired from education after 37 years and ran for the Legislature, concerned about a lack of benefits for teachers and inadequate materials in the classroom.
Byrd spent years working to convince her fellow legislators that Wyoming needed to join other states that had a Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The legislation passed with the provision that the holiday also be called Equality State Day.
Liz Byrd died of complications from a long-term illness. She was surrounded by her family, Rep. Byrd said.
Her husband, James W. Byrd, preceded her in death. He was Cheyenne's first black police chief.
In addition to Rep. Byrd, she I survived by two other adult children and six grandchildren.
Arrangements are pending for a funeral Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in Cheyenne on Monday.
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com