Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Judith Benninger Brown graduated from Gainesville High School in 1959. Judith participated in efforts to integrate Gainesville businesses, such as the Florida Theater. Her work was regularly monitored by the FBI and resulted in a 450-page file. She was arrested and jailed multiple times during her civil rights work. During her stay in the Leon County Jail in Tallahassee, she wrote “Memoirs of a Sojourn in Jail,” which described the segregated conditions and harsher sentences for African-Americans. Gainesville was one of five cities considered a hotspot of feminist activism, along with Cambridge, MA, New York City, Chicago, and Seattle. That is due in large part to Judith Brown and her fellow activist Beverly Jones. In 1968 they co-authored “Towards a Female Liberation Movement,” which changed the Women’s Movement forever. The same year Judith co-founded Gainesville’s Women Liberation – the first women’s liberation group in the south. In 1974 Judith earned her law degree from the University of Florida and focused her work on child sex abuse and human rights. Amongst her many cases, she successfully sued the Independent Florida Alligator for sex discrimination and defended students who had been arrested during protests. In 1988 she helped found Stop Child Sexual Abuse, a Gainesville organization. She passed away in 1991 after a three-year battle with cancer.