Portfolio of Service: Women’s issues, racial equity, policy and Compensation Committee service.
Roberta Madden
Robbie currently works for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and is founding member and current board member of the Ratify ERA-NC alliance.
She is the past director for Women’s Health & Public Policy, YWCA Greater Baton Rouge.
She is the recipient of the 2015 Anne Mackie Award, celebrating a lifetime contribution to advocacy on behalf of women, and received the “Portrait of Caring” award from 100 Black Men, for her work in advancing unity and diversity.
She is former member and chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Louisiana Advisory Committee and Founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Louisiana.
Robbie also served as the former director of Common Cause in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.
“I am passionate about eliminating racism and empowering women–the mission of the YWCA and my personal mission. Much of my work centers on the Equal Rights Amendment, which has not yet become part of the U.S. Constitution.”
Robbie graduated summa cum laude from Ohio University with a B.A. in political science and a membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
Formerly she was employed at the YWCA of Greater Baton Rouge as Director of Racial and Social Justice, where she served for 18 years before moving to Black Mountain, NC in 2009.
- Co-director of RATIFY ERA-NC, helped organize the new ERA-NC Alliance, served as its co-chair. Robbie played an active role in having the ERA introduced in both houses of the General Assembly in 2015. She lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment in Louisiana in the 1970s, testified for the ERA before legislative committees, and has been an ERA activist for 45 years.
- The NAACP, the Louisiana Center for Women and Government, 100 Black Men, Leadership Greater Baton Rouge Alumni, and the Battered Women’s Center have honored her. In 2007 the national YWCA awarded her its One Imperative Award for her work on racial justice. Last year NC Women United presented her the Anne Mackie Award for lifetime achievement.
- She also serves on the boards of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Corporation of the Swannanoa Valley and the Southern Mutual Help Association, as well as the Asheville YWCA’s Advocacy Committee and the AAUW’s Public Policy Committee. She was recently elected a member of the Women’s Forum of NC and is an at-large member of Business and Professional Women of NC.