Josephine Joel Heyman

(1901 - 1993)

Josephine Heyman was a social activist who fought against intolerance in the early twentieth century, and was especially active in the Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in 1930.

“She was a kind of firebrand social activist who was willing to take positions on things like that that many middle-class Jewish women probably wouldn’t have, or non-Jewish women for that matter,” explained Eric Goldstein, professor of history at Emory University. Heyman also was the president of the DeKalb branch of the League of Women Voters’ and the United Nations Association.

Throughout her social activist career, Heyman witnessed the transformation of Atlanta from a small town to a thriving metropolis. Heyman’s niece said after her death: “She talked about the day her father came home with the news that the family was going to move out of town, that is, out of the area that is now downtown Atlanta. Where did they move? ‘Way out to the sticks,’ she said, ‘a half a day’s buggy ride away’ to Fourteenth Street and Peachtree.”