On Monday, January 20, 2025, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 2006 to 2018, passed away from a brain tumor. She was 67 years old. As announced by her family in a statement, she was surrounded by loved ones including her “ever-loyal” dog Ollie. Richards, the daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards of Texas, was one of the most well-known and outspoken defenders of reproductive rights.
In the 2018 Teen Vogue interview below, Richards spoke to young people candidly about her career journey, activism, and positive “disruption.”
For Cecile Richards, getting in trouble was scary at first. She was was in 7th grade, and she wore a black armband to school to protest the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. But after sitting in the principal’s office at her school, Cecile would learn to get over her fear of being reprimanded because the moment signified something greater.
“I realized it didn’t take that much to get the attention of the principal,” Cecile told Teen Vogue at the Teen Vogue Summit on June 2. “Wearing a black armband wasn’t the scariest thing ever, but the fact that he even noticed and was upset, it sort of made me realize how much power I potentially had.”
In her new book, Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead — My Life Story, the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund talks about, well, making trouble. Cecile, who recently stepped down from her post with PPFA, details the early instances in her life in her book that showed her the potential to make change when you make waves, and much of it started with that armband.
Throughout her career, Cecile took that power she sparked in 7th grade and wielded it to make change. She first worked as an organizer for low wage workers, before moving on to become deputy chief of staff for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. In 2006, Cecile became the President of Planned Parenthood.
“I’ve always had the good fortune of having a job that made somebody mad. I think that if you’re not making somebody mad you’re not really trying hard enough in terms of really fighting for the things that are important,” she said.
But Cecile doesn’t make trouble just because.
“Change is hard,” she said. She cited the civil rights movement, noting that the leaders disrupted the status quo to do good. And achieving that, she said, is what pushes her to do more. “What keeps me going is the wins. It might have took decades but we finally got birth control for everyone in this country. Maybe it was hard but we finally opened a Charleston, South Carolina, Planned Parenthood that provides transgender care to everyone in the state. That to me, it’s worth those fights — not just to make people mad and make trouble, but to really make a change and make a difference.”
