Lucy was an American suffragist, women's rights activist and co-leader of the more militant wing of the American suffrage movement. With Alice Paul, she co-founded the National Woman's Party.

She was educated at Yale, Vassar, Columbia and Oxford. While in England to study, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union to win the right for British women to vote. She learned from Emmeline Pankhurst the tenants of non-violent protest. She was arrested six times and imprisoned. She fought for political prisoner status. She instigated hunger strikes, and later was placed into solitary confinement.

It was in a London jail that she met Alice Paul and found they shared similar beliefs. Lucy worked for the Union as an organizer from 1909 until 1912, when she returned America to work for women's suffrage on the home front. 

Of Lucy Burns' and Alice Paul's working relationship, Eleanor Clift, in her 2003 book, Founding Sisters and the 19th Amendment, wrote, “they were opposite in appearance and temperament...whereas Paul appeared fragile, Burns was tall and curvaceous, the picture of vigorous health...unlike Paul, who was uncompromising and hard to get along with, Burns was pliable and willing to negotiate. Paul was the militant, Burns, the diplomat.” (page 93)

Lucy is remembered today for her activism, for protesting that led to being jailed and fighting against current thought. She and Alice Paul were co-leaders of the strategically important, non-violent wing of the 20th century's women’s suffrage movement in America.

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