As Women’s History Month winds down it’s worth noting that many women, contrary to the prevailing narrative of the women’s movement, reject the obsession with group identity and victim status, extolling the evenhanded treatment of others without regard to race, sex, national origin, or any other identity marker. This has been true throughout U.S. history—and remains true today.

For Americans who value freedom and social harmony, women such as novelists Rose Wilder Lane and Zora Neale Hurston, sociologist Anne Wortham, and author and commentator Linda Chavez represent an enduring liberal tradition of civil rights that reminds us that individuals, not groups, are the ultimate measure of a free society.

Rose Wilder Lane is best known as the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of “Little House on the Prairie,” but she too was a successful writer. Her 1943 book, “Discovery of Freedom,” earned her the title “mother of libertarianism.” During World War II, she found a receptive audience as a columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of America’s most prominent black newspapers. She wrote, “God does not make races or classes, but individual persons,” and we should “judge others as [we] would be judged.” Furthermore, “the government itself [should] make no distinctions between American citizens”—a view advanced by generations of civil rights activists before and after her.

The views of Zora Neale Hurston aligned with Lane’s despite their different backgrounds. Growing up in the oldest black-incorporated town in the United States, Eatonville, Florida, Hurston became a leading figure during the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s and 1930s, was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in anthropology at Columbia University, and wrote columns for the Saturday Evening Post. Hurston condemned racism, but refused to be what she referred to as a “race woman.”

In her 1942 autobiography “Dust Tracks on the Road,” she wrote, “‘Race pride’ in me had to go. And anyway, why should I be proud to be a Negro? Why should anybody be proud to be white? Or yellow? Or red? After all, the word ‘race’ ... tells nothing about the insides of people.”

Hurston died in 1960, but given her views, one suspects she would have joined actor Morgan Freeman in rejecting Black History Month. Her work, deeply embedded in African American folklore, did not contradict her rejection of race-based ideology—it was a testament to her belief that culture, not skin color, defines a people.

A graduate of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, later earning a Ph.D. from Boston College, Anne Wortham taught sociology at Illinois State University for 27 years, did pioneering work on black racism (culminating in her book, The Other Side of Racism), and served as an adviser to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

When the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in 1978’s Bakke decision, Wortham protested this departure from “color-blindness and meritorious achievement.” Raised in the era of segregation, Wortham was taught to embrace “our culture’s devotion to human individuality” as the fair and just way to succeed; race-conscious programs were unfair and an insult to individuals of all races, she believed.

A Colorblind Contemporary Woman

Another key figure who has pushed forcefully for a color-blind society, Linda Chavez argues that assimilation is the key to immigrant success. A former Democrat and union activist, Chavez broke with Hispanic political leaders over their embrace of bilingual education and racial preferences.

During the Reagan administration, Chavez served as Staff Director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. She later served on the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and advised President George W. Bush on immigration issues. In 2000, the Library of Congress named her a “Living Legend.” She now serves as Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes bilingual education and the use of race in college admissions and advocates for liberal immigration policies.

Chavez’s consistency—opposing affirmative action while advocating for liberal immigration policies—was based on a simple principle: everyone should be treated as an individual, not as a member of a racial or ethnic group.

As the United States grapples with immigration policy and debates the future of DEI programs, the views of Lane, Hurston, Wortham, and Chavez remind us that racial identity is neither a destiny nor a determinant of success.

These four women defied political expectations, rejected victimhood, and championed a vision of America where fairness, personal merit, and equal treatment under the law triumph over race-conscious policies. As Americans seek a path forward, their wisdom is worth revisiting.