DOLORES ALEXANDER , born on this date, (d: 2008) was a lesbian feminist, writer, and reporter. Alexander was the only executive director of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to have resigned because of the homophobic beliefs in the early inception of NOW. She co-opened the feminist restaurant “Mother Courage” with Jill Ward. Until her death, in 2008, she continued to believe in the need for the women’s rights movement in contemporary times, stating that “It’s bigotry, and I don’t know if you can eliminate it”.

Alexander had many careers throughout her life. She worked for The New York Times, Newsday andTime Magazine. She was executive director of the National Organizatin for Women (NOW), working alongside its president and co-founder, Betty Friedan. And she was the founder of Women Against Pornography.

She was perhaps best known for opening one of the first feminist restaurants in the United States, Mother Courage, at 342 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, with Jill Ward, her girlfriend at the time. The restaurant, in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, became a hub in the 1970s for women’s liberation groups who would gather in its dining room after feminist protest marches and legislative victories — or even, on an average day, just to have a meal.

Patrons included the authors Audre Lorde and Kate Millett, the cultural critic Jill Johnston, the singer-songwriter Maxine Feldman, the psychotherapist Phyllis Chesler and the author and activist Susan Brownmiller. The NBC News anchor Linda Ellerbee would also stop by, simply to dine after work, knowing it was a safe place where she wouldn’t get hassled, Ward said.

In 1966, Alexander came across a news release announcing the establishment of NOW. She called Friedan, author of the landmark feminist book “The Feminine Mystique,” and joined the small, mostly volunteer team, leaving Newsday in 1969 to become the group’s first executive director.

Tensions between her and Friedan were often high because, by Alexander’s account, Friedan was domineering and homophobic. One subject about which they disagreed was the visibility of lesbians; feminist organizations were often dismissed based on a stigmatization of lesbianism — “People would say, ‘You’re a dyke. You’re a lesbian. They’re all lesbians,’” Ward said — and Friedan and others tried to distance NOW from that image.

Mother Courage was an unqualified success. But after five years, Alexander started to “ease her way of the restaurant” by taking a job at Time magazine, Ward said, adding that she too “was getting burned out,” and that “we both started thinking, ‘how many years can we do this?’”