Maggie Kuhn, 89, the Founder Of the Gray Panthers, Is Dead - New York Times Page 1 of 2 April 23, 1995 Maggie Kuhn, 89, the Founder Of the Gray Panthers, Is Dead By ROBERT MCG. THOMAS JR. Maggie Kuhn, who called herself a little old woman and celebrated her forced retirement in 1970 by founding the Gray Panthers, died yesterday at the home she shared in Philadelphia with a like-minded coterie. She was 89. &quot;She died peacefully in her sleep,&quot; said her personal assistant, Sue Leary, who could not say which of Miss Kuhn's many ailments, from arthritis to osteoporosis, had caused her death. For all Miss Kuhn's ailments, none had slowed her down. She spent the last 25 years leading people young and old in the fight against age discrimination and other forms of what she saw as social injustice and stereotypical thinking and just two weeks ago she had joined striking transit workers on their picket line. Even so, there was some evidence that Miss Kuhn knew that the end was coming. Although she had made it her goal to live until her 90th birthday, in August, she had allowed her friends and admirers to celebrate it on April 1. And in a recent issue of the Gray Panthers' publication, The Network, she had lectured the organization's 40,000 members in 32 states on the need to prepare for the 21st century. It was hardly the first time Miss Kuhn had been ahead of her time. It was in 1970 that Miss Kuhn, who had worked 25 years for the United <a href="/keyword/presbyterian-church/" >presbyterian church</a> in New York, commuting daily from her home in Philadelphia, reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 and was forced to leave her job. &quot;They gave me a sewing machine,&quot; she once recalled, &quot;but I never opened it. I was too busy.&quot; Within months of her retirement, she joined several friends in founding an organization quickly dubbed the Gray Panthers, a name derived from the radical Black Panthers. Despite the name and the initial emphasis on championing the elderly, as conceived by Miss Kuhn the organization knew no age boundaries. Its credo described it simply as an advocate for &quot;fundamental social change that would eliminate injustice, discrimination and oppression in our present society.&quot; For example, in addition to seeking a ban on mandatory retirement, which was eventually enacted into law, the group called for &quot;publicly owned and democratically controlled&quot; utilities. No one who knew Miss Kuhn was surprised that in last year's health care debate her organization championed what was widely seen as the most radical of the various proposals: health insurance paid totally by the government, a position that had been on the Gray Panthers' official agenda since 1977. A tiny woman who wore her hair in a prim bun that gave her the look of an ideal candidate to be helped across the street by a Boy Scout, Miss Kuhn, who detested the term &quot;senior citizen,&quot; made no apologies for her looks or her age. &quot;I'm an old woman,&quot; she told The New York Times in 1972. &quot;I have gray hair, many wrinkles and arthritis in both hands. And I celebrate my freedom from bureaucratic restraints that once held me.&quot; Miss Kuhn, whose opposition to the war in Vietnam made her a hero to many young protesters, had a disarming argument in recruiting younger people to her cause: &quot;Everyone of us is growing old.&quot; Known as an inspirational speaker, Miss Kuhn was just as persuasive in private conversation, combining honey with the hammer. &quot;Forceful, yet gracious&quot; is the way Miss Leary put it yesterday. Miss Kuhn was a champion of social causes long before the Gray Panthers. As she noted in her 1991 autobiography, &quot;No Stone Unturned,&quot; (Ballantine) she was conceived in Memphis, where her father, a traveling district manage for Dunn &amp; Bradstreet, was working at the time. But her mother, refusing to deliver a child into a racist society, insisted on returning to her home in Buffalo to give birth. http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60616F93C5E0C708EDDAD0894DD494D8112:03:... Maggie Kuhn, 89, the Founder Of the Gray Panthers, Is Dead - New York Times Page 2 of 2 As a student at Flora Stone Mather College of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Miss Kuhn helped organize a college chapter of the League of Women Voters. And in a succession of jobs as a ma...