Maya Miller, 90, Nevada Activist and Nixon ‘Enemy’
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Maya Miller, a philanthropist who championed women’s rights along with many environmental, liberal and progressive causes for decades, died Wednesday at her ranch near Carson City, Nev. She was 90.
Miller lived simply at her ranch, donating millions of dollars of her inherited wealth to both state- and national-level groups.
Miller’s activism won her a spot on then-President Nixon’s “enemies list” during the Vietnam War era. A board member of the national League of Women Voters, she resigned when the league voted down an anti-war resolution in 1969.
A candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1974, Miller lost in the primary to now-U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. In later years, Kit Miller said Reid would contact her mother to discuss issues and seek her support.
In 1991, in her mid-70s, Miller and several other women involved in the group Madre broke an American embargo and trucked about $100,000 worth of medicine and food to Iraqi women and children. She helped to drive one of the trucks from Jordan into Baghdad.
