Edna Griffin

Sometimes referred to as “Iowa’s Rosa Parks,” Edna Griffin was a freedom fighter long before the televised Civil Rights protests that marked the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1948, Edna Griffin filed a suit against Katz Drug Store in Des Moines after being denied service due to her race. She was joined by two Black men, John Bibbs and Leonard Hudson, as well as a white man named Kenneth Walker who was also denied service at Katz because he was with a Black person. State of Iowa v. Katz was a landmark case which applied some much needed pressure on the state to actually enforce the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1884 which outlawed discrimination at  “inns, restaurants, chophouses, eating houses, lunch counters, and all other places where refreshments are served, public conveyances, barber shops, bathhouses, theaters, and all other places of amusement.”

Ms. Griffin was a frequent contributor in the Des Moines Register’s letters to the editor. Edna Griffin spoke out for progressive causes, including fair housing, voicing support for early version of Polk County’s pre-trial release program, as well as commending four members of Iowa’s 1964 Congressional Delegation who voted in favor of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights Act.

She was an active member of Iowa’s Progressive Party, and was elected chair in 1952. Ms. Griffin was also a member of the Pre-Trial Board of Directors in Polk County in the 1960s.

Young Edna Griffin