Zoe Nicholson

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Read the finding aid for the Zoe Nicholson Collection processed between 2020-2024.

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biography

Zoe Nicholson is a prominent feminist activist, artist, speaker, author, and organizer. She centered much of her activist work on fighting for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Her activist work spans contributions to movements including Peace, Labor, Civil Rights, Pro-Choice, Public Health, Women, LGBTQ, and is rooted in her commitment to nonviolent direct action. 

Nicholson received her BA in Theology from Quincy University in 1969 and her MA in Ethics from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1975. She began her professional life teaching high school for five years. In 1976, she opened a women’s bookstore in Newport Beach, California called the Magic Speller Bookstore. After the store closed, she served as Director of the Orange County Free Clinic for a year. In 1985, she completed the professional computer program at Computer Learning Center and worked in tech, software development, and recruiting for fifteen years. 

In 1982, she joined six women in a public and political fast for 37 days in Springfield, Illinois in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Nicholson wrote a memoir that centered her experience, the Hungry Heart ~ A Woman’s Fast for Justice, which also details her commitment to nonviolent direct action. Nicholson is the author of two additional books including the Engaged Heart, containing speeches and 125 personal photographs, and the Passionate Heart.

Nicholson is the founder of ERA Once and for ALL, a member of the ERA Roundtable, a lifelong member of NOW, president of Pacific Shore NOW, and outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights. She is featured in the films March On and an American Housewife. 

Her political and personal heroes include Gandhi, Alice Paul, and many activists she has met on her path. Her activism is radical and effective, having been a champion of ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and establishing Marriage Equality.

 In 2018, Nicholson premiered her one woman multimedia play, Tea with Alice and Me: The intersecting Lives of Two Militant Visionaries, in West Hollywood, California. 

She has said, “I have identified as straight, gay, and bi on the way to solid lesbian; I have had two abortions and fasted for the ERA. I hang out at the intersection of feminism and equality. For me, there is no place else to be.”