Ida Howell Friday was a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and social justice — and the wife of former UNC-system President Bill Friday.
She always had a focus on people, said UNC Chancellor Carol Folt in an emailed statement.
“She was a tireless advocate for social issues, particularly those that helped women and the less fortunate in our society,” she said in the statement.
Ida Friday, who died Feb. 6 at the age of 97, was a founding member of the Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist in 1953. Frankie Price Stern, a member of Community Church, met Ida Friday after she helped found the church.
“She was very much in favor of the work that was being done by the Community Church that had to do with the civil rights movement," she said.
Stern said Ida Friday was always dedicated to children specifically, among her many other causes of interest.
“And it was all about the children, and the generations and the church," Stern said. "And they were always there at that particular service."
Cordelia Heaney, executive director of the Compass Center for Women and Families, a Chapel Hill-based organization focused on domestic violence prevention, did not know Ida Friday personally but said she was crucial to the founding of the center.
“She played a key role in the early days of the Women's Center, which later became Compass Center for Women and Families, and was an advocate for women's issues in our community,” Heaney said in an email.
