Mink was Time’s Woman of the Year for 1972 and the first Asian American to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. In 2014, President Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2024, she was featured in the U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters Program. /end

Mink introduced the Early Childhood Education Act, which led to the Head Start program. In 1972, she co-authored Title IX, the law banning sex discrimination in U.S. education programs. She championed the Women’s Educational Equity Act of 1974, which helped promote gender equity in schools. /5

Mink was a reform-minded Democrat who served in the Hawaii territorial and state legislatures from 1956 to 1964, when she won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She served two separate tenures in Congress, from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 until her death in 2002. /4

Mink graduated from University of Chicago Law School in 1951, but no law firms would hire a married woman with a child, so she opened her own private practice. She launched her political career in 1956 as Hawaii debated statehood, driven in part by her experiences with discrimination. /3

A third-generation descendant of Japanese immigrants, Mink faced significant racial and gender discrimination throughout her life. After graduating at the top of her high school class, she was rejected from numerous medical schools because she was a woman. This led her to study law instead. /2

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