Nellie Dunaway Duke, a social justice warrior, died in Carrollton, Georgia, Tuesday, January 28, 2025, after a brief illness. She was 93.

West Georgia Woman magazine called Duke “a champion for women” on her 90th birthday, recalling her work for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the creation of the Georgia Commission on Women, which she chaired for decades.

She was born on a snowy March 8, 1931 – which is appropriately International Women’s Day – in Cave Springs, Georgia.

Duke grew up in Rome, Georgia, the daughter of Jack Dunaway, a pipe/steam fitter, and Emily Broom Dunaway, a textile worker and union leader. She played basketball for Girl’s’ High School in Rome, at a time when female players on defense were limited to one end of the court. Duke enjoyed playing running guard because it allowed her to roam full-court. She graduated from high school at 16, and then joined a semi-pro women’s basketball team for two years. Although her pro ball career ended when she met future husband Henry Duke in December 1948, she continued to shoot hoops with her grandchildren many years later. Nellie and Henry were married for 66 years before Henry’s death in 2015.

Soon after becoming Mrs. Duke, she began building her family. She is survived by four sons and a daughter: Gary Duke (Beth) and Carol Duke of Carrollton, Kenneth Duke and Michael Duke (Mimi) of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Alan Duke (Julia) of Los Angeles, California.  She has 10 grandchildren, including Jonathan Duke, Jessica Jones, Jennifer Jones Iglesias (Enrique), Jesse Duke (Whitney), Seth Duke, Sarah Duke, Emily Oxendine (Brandon), and Amber Norman. She was preceded in death by grandchildren Ben Jones and Hannah Duke. She also has 10 great-grandchildren: Hannah Duke, Jake Rowell, Jonah Brown, Jemma Dunbar, Ben King, Lena Lewis, Locke Lewis, Aden Oxendine, Kendall Oxendine, and William Oxendine. She was also preceded in death by her sister Charlotte Kell.

Duke was legendary for using her homemade “Nellie’s Jellies” to open doors around the Georgia capitol, always carrying jars in her pocketbook to give to lawmakers and governors as her calling card.

“Somewhere in my cabinet is a jar of Nellie’s Jellies,” said Gerald Johnson, who was a state representative from Carroll County when Duke convinced then-House Speaker Tom Murphy to call the ERA ratification for a vote in the house in 1982.

Speaker Murphy had spared his members from having to go on the record on the controversial women’s rights issue for years, but Duke was tipped off to a tactic to get Murphy’s attention.  When she was granted a private meeting with the speaker, she sat in the chair to the right of his desk to block his escape, Johnson said. Veterans knew that Murphy was too much of a Southern gentleman to get up and walk past a woman. So, he sat and listened to Duke’s plea that Murphy consider his own daughter’s rights. The ERA was voted down in the Georgia House, 116 to 57, but it let Georgia women know where their representatives stood.

“Nellie was one of those people everyone in Georgia politics needed, because she didn’t mind letting you know what she thought,” Johnson said. “Even those who disagreed with her loved her because she was down-to-earth.

“Nellie loved people, wanted everybody to be treated equally and have an equal and fair chance,” he said.

Duke and her family moved from Summerville, Georgia, to Carrollton when the Central of Georgia Railway transferred her husband to Carrollton as the depot agent in 1964. She was hired by First Methodist Church as Director of Christian Education, where she oversaw the Methodist Youth Fellowship and church day camps.

The Carrollton Recreation Department hired Duke as Teen Club director in 1968. She next worked as the West Georgia regional director for the  American Cancer Society for more than a decade before retiring.

The family is planning a celebration of her life in Carrollton on her birthday, March 8. Details will be announced at a later date.

Friends and family are invited to send condolence messages to the family at www.martin-hightower.com. Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel is entrusted with the arrangements, ensuring that Nellie’s life is commemorated with the respect and love she deserves.