National Women’s History Month: Lillie Mae Brown, champion for women’s and minority rights at DSCR
Lillie Mae Brown, a systems analyst at what was then named Defense General Supply Center in Richmond, Virginia, helped break down gender and racial barriers in May 1974 when she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office alleging the installation discriminated against her on the basis of gender, age and race. A year later, a class action lawsuit was put into motion. Two years later, on Sept. 19, 1977, a court issued a decree paving the way for great advancements in equality for Defense Supply Center Richmond employees. Brown died in 2006. She was posthumously inducted into the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation Hall of Fame in 2011 and the DLA Hall of Fame in 2018.