Italian politician, feminist and activist who joined the Radical party and fought a long battle for women’s rights

In 1974 the Italian feminist activist and later politician Emma Bonino, who has died aged 78, became pregnant. A doctor had told her that she was “sterile”. She attempted to get an abortion and found a doctor in Florence who was willing to help her – for a fee.

Bonino felt humiliated and angry – all abortions were illegal in Italy at the time – and became involved with the Radical party, an organisation interested in civil and human rights, and the growing feminist movement. She and other militants set up a network of centres “for sterilisation and abortion” (CISA) across Italy that challenged the law by providing safe and free abortions.

Colvin, who died this week, made a stand on an Alabama bus nine months before Rosa Parks. When we met, her message about the struggle was clear

“In life, there’s the beginning and the end,” John Carlos, the African American sprinter who raised his fist in a black power salute from the podium of the 1968 Olympics, once told me. “The beginning don’t matter. The end don’t matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you’re prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we’re getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet.”

Claudette Colvin, who died earlier this week in a hospice in Texas, did her job while she was here on the planet, although it was several decades before her physical and material sacrifice was acknowledged. On 2 March 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, aged just 15, Colvin took a stand and refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman.

Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester