Wynona Lipman

by Nicolleta Perna

Evelyn Wynona Moore Lipman, a Newark, New Jersey resident, was the first African American woman elected to serve on the New Jersey State Senate. 

Born in 1928, Moore grew up in LaGrange, Georgia during a time where discrimination and hatred was rampant in the south. Despite coming from a mixed family with Scottish descent, Wynona and her cousins were often subjected to various forms of racism; at some point during her childhood Wynona’s family were even victim to a Klu Klux Klan cross burning. 

Lipman’s education consisted of some public schooling and instruction from her mother; with this education she was able to graduate high school at only 16. From there she attended Talladega College in Georgia where she studied French, eventually moving onto Atlanta University in Georgia where she chose to continue studying French for her Master’s Degree. After earning her Master’s, Lipman attended Columbia University where she was able to study abroad in France. 

While in France, Wynona Moore met her husband, Matt Lipman who was also studying abroad at the time. Eventually during their time in Paris the two married, although laws against mixed marriage back in Wynona’s home of Georgia at the time would not allow them to legally live together at the time despite their union. 

After getting her Doctorate, Lipman taught at a myriad of institutions from Morehouse College in Georgia, an all black male school, where she tutored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in French, to Elizabeth Irwan Highschool in Manhattan, New York, where she had taken a job after moving to New York so she and her husband could live together legally and freely. For a time Wynona Lipman even worked at a school for special needs children. 

Lipman began her political career when she lived in Montclair, New Jersey after attending a town meeting in order to protest with members of the PTA against snow piling up at her children’s school. The Montclair Democrats thought she spoke and presented herself well enough to help their efforts. She served as a committee person originally before being appointed as chairman. From there Wynona’s political career continued to grow when she won a seat on the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders in 1968 and then was chosen as president in 1971. 

1971 was a busy year politically for Wynona Lipman as that year she also ran for New Jersey Senate against Republican incumbent Milton Woldor, whom she defeated in a tight race winning by nearly a thousand votes; upon defeating Woldor she became New Jersey’s first African American female senator. Once she became a Senator, Lipman championed many bills and fought for causes that not many people, even in her own party, agreed with such as rights for prisoners and drug addicts, domestic violence, the AIDS epidemic, child abuse and child safety, education, and wellfare rights. Wynona Lipman was even on the Governor’s Council for AIDS, the Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the New Jersey Court Team on Domestic Violence. 

During her time serving as a Senator, Lipman often referred to the New Jersey Senate as “the men’s club”, and for apt reason, as apart from at times being the only African American serving, she was during parts of her career the only woman serving on New Jersey’s Senate. There was not even a women’s restroom at the New Jersey Senate House when she began serving, she would have to use the men’s room with a state trooper standing guard outside of it. While serving in the Senate she had earned the nickname Steel Magnolia. 

Wynona Lipman ran for reelection in 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1993, and 1997;  she never received less than 83 percent of the vote. At the time of her death Wynona Lipman had served on the New Jersey Senate for 27 years making her run the longest in the state’s history. 

Evelyn Wynona Moore Lipman died of cancer on May 9th, 1999 in Newark , New Jersey.

In 2024, a documentary titled Stronger Than Steel: The Senator Wynona Lipman Story was made in honor of Lipman’s legacy. 

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References:

Kukla, Barbara J. Defying the odds: Triumphant Black Women of Newark. West Orange, NJ: Swing City Press, 2005.

“New Jersey Black Women’s History Month Part III: Wynona Moore Lipman, the Original Steel Magnolia: Current Events.” hopealanglaw.com, April 30, 2019. https://hopealanglaw.com/lawyer/2019/04/30/Discrimination/New-Jersey-Black-Womens-History-Month-Part-III-Wynona-Moore-Lipman,-the-Original-Steel-Magnolia_bl37475.htm.  

“Wynona Lipman, 67, Veteran In the New Jersey State Senate.” New York Times, May 12, 1999. 

Suggested Citation:

Perna, Nicolleta. (2024, Nov). Wynona Lipman. New Jersey Women’s History, Rowan University Libraries Digital Scholarship Center. https://njwomenshistory.org/biographies/wynona-lipman/