Rotary’s wheel rolled on to accept minorities and women

Rotary has progressed from a “men only” group that was formed in 1905 into an organization that is fully committed in the 21st century to embrace “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Any racial barriers to Rotary membership in the United States began to melt away in the 1920s…and that process continued through 1982.

Tyrone “Doc” Bledsoe is the founder of the Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB), an organization devoted to getting young black men into college, ensuring that they graduate and encouraging them to extend a hand to the young men following them. He is a member and past president of the Rotary Club of Reynolds Corners in Toledo, Ohio. 

He joined Rotary in 2002, he says, after accepting frequent invitations to speak at club meetings. “I saw Rotary as an opportunity to expand my personal mission of giving back through service,” he explains.

The inclusion of women as Rotarians was a different struggle, one that wasn’t resolved totally until 1987.

Rotarian Lyn Kenney (shown above), a marketing consultant in Vero Beach, Fla., has written extensively on the subject. Additional insight is provided by Rotarian Norm Winterbottom (shown below) of Auckland, New Zealand, an academician.

 

Kenney said that some delegates at the very first convention of Rotary clubs in 1910 sought to officially sanction women’s auxiliaries, but “they were overwhelmingly rejected.”

Early on, the most vocal supporters of “finding a Rotary role for women” were found in Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., two communities that maintained “underground” women’s Rotary clubs between 1911-17, according to Winterbottom.

The first discussion held about women becoming Rotarians outside the United States occurred in 1912 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Back in the United States, beginning in the mid-1910s, wives of Rotarians were affectionately referred to as “Rotary Anns,” and the women of that era didn’t seem to take exception to that term, Kenney noted.

The first “Rotary Anns” were Ann Gundaker (left) and Ann Brunnier, who attended the Rotary International conference with their husbands in Houston, Texas, in 1914. Immediately, the “term of endearment” was used for all of the wives in attendance. 

Guy Gundaker of Philadelphia became president of Rotary International in 1923, and Bru Brunnier of San Francisco was elected president in 1952. Thus, each of the two original Rotary Anns became the “first ladies of Rotary International.”

The “movement” to include women in Rotary’s inner circle seemed to lose steam during the World War I years. Perhaps there were more important chores that needed tending.

In 1923, Rotarians in Manchester, England proposed forming a women’s Rotary club. When the Rotary board objected, the Manchester group took the name “Inner Wheel Club,” a spinoff somewhat from the wheel-shaped Rotary logo.

 

(Today, totally separate from Rotary, the Inner Wheel has grown into one of the world’s largest women’s service organizations, with more than 100,000 members in about 100 countries.)

Proposals to admit women to Rotary were advanced again at the international conventions in 1964 and 1972, but they were “soundly rejected” both times, Kenney said.

“The die was finally cast (in 1977) by a Rotary club in a small California town,” Winterbottom said. “The Duarte Rotary Club admitted three women to membership.”

Kenney said the club submitted “paperwork with only their first initials and last names. Within months, Rotary International (RI) discovered the subterfuge and revoked the club’s charter.”

Winterbottom said that Duarte refused to oust its three new female members, re-named itself the “Ex Rotary Club of Duarte” and filed a lawsuit in 1978 against the RI board.” The case was finally heard in 1983.

The Duarte Rotary lost but appealed. The judgment was reversed. RI then appealed to the California Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, Winterbottom said. “RI appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986.”

In 1987, the high court issued a unanimous ruling that essentially declared the Duarte Rotary was in the right when it refused to “discriminate against members because of gender.” This officially opened doors of opportunity for women to join local Rotary clubs.

The RI board immediately took action to begin to sanction the acceptance of women as Rotarians.

 

Dr. Sylvia Witlock was elected president of the reinstated Duarte Rotary Club in 1987-88 to become the first woman to be a president of a local Rotary club.

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According to Barbara Johnson, who serves as Rotary’s Assistant Governor, Area 1, District 7730, representing the six local Carteret County, N.C., Rotary clubs, Carteret County’s first female Rotarian was Diane Warrender, who joined the Rotary Club of Morehead City Noon in 1990. 

Warrender was the director of the county’s Keep America Beautiful program at the time. She continues as an active Rotarian today and was her club’s president in 2021-22.