Martha Burk
Martha Burk (b October 18, 1941 in Tyler, Texas) is a political psychologist, feminist, and former Chairof the National Council of Women's Organizations who led a protest at the 2003 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia to bring attention to the male-only membership rules of the Augusta National Golf Club, which hosted it. Burk attracted national media attention for a few months, drawing mention in 100 New York Times articles and a cumulative 4,424 stories in major U.S. newspapers and magazines between Sept. 1, 2002, and March 1, 2003. Even so, her actual protest was small, as the town sheriff permitted only 120 people at the protest in a vacant lot far from the country club, compared to about twice as many police officers who'd been brought in to control the anticipated crowd. Jesse Jackson, who had lent support to Burk's efforts and had arranged for bus transportation for protesters, cancelled his appearance at the rally in the days before, but sent Janis Mathis, Vice President of Rainbow/PUSH, to appear. Despite her lack of success in changing the policy or and convincing heads of the Fortune 500 corporations who are members to resign, the move catapulted Burk into the spotlight. Burk currently runs the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations,which started the Women on Wall Street project to investigate sex discrimination at companies associated with Augusta National. She is a syndicated columnist, and serves as Money Editor for Ms. Magazine. In May 2007 women who had sued Morgan Stanley through Burk's Women of Wall Street Project, reached a $46 million dollar settlement in their sex discrimination suit. Other suits against Augusta related companies are pending. Burk is author of Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It, published by Scribner in 2005. She has endorsed New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in the 2008 US Presidential Election.
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