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Who was Hazel Wolf?
Hazel Wolf was an environmental and social activist whose causes ranged from the rights of workers, women, and minorities to the protection of wilderness, wetlands, and wildlife. She was still a young girl, growing up in Canada, when she ventured into political action for the first time, challenging the elementary school principal who told her girls couldn’t play basketball. She ended up organizing a girls' basketball program at her school and, later, a citywide women’s basketball league. She became involved in labor issues after moving to Seattle in 1923, a single mother, struggling to support herself and her young child with a series of low-paying jobs. She joined the Communist Party in the 1930s, drifted away from it in the 1940s, and then fought off a 14-year effort by the federal government to deport her as a threat to national security. She eventually became one of the most venerated figures in the Northwest environmental community. A film festival, a wetlands preserve, a bird sanctuary, a high school, and a Seattle Audubon Society endowment all carry her name, in tribute to a woman who proudly described herself as a lifelong "rabble rouser."
-- Excerpted from an essay by Cassandra Tate on HistoryLink.org
-- Excerpted from an essay by Cassandra Tate on HistoryLink.org