Laura X, born Laura Rand Orthwein, Jr., later changed to Laura Shaw Murra, is a lifelong activist, pacifist, supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and legislative campaigner. Laura X grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She attended Vassar College for three years, where she co-founded a chapter of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. In 1961, she moved to New York City and became a picket captain with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the American Committee on Africa. After attending the March on Washington in 1963, Laura X crossed the country, moving to Berkeley. Under surveillance from the FBI due to her friendships with John Murra and James Baldwin, Laura X participated in Women Strike for Peace and, as a student, the UC Berkeley Student Free Speech Movement in 1964, which led her to be evicted. From her collection of materials that started in 1962, Laura X founded the Women’s History Library in 1968, which would be donated to her foundation, the Women's History Research Center. In 1978, Laura X founded and directed the National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape (NCMDR) and campaigned to outlaw spousal rape at the federal and state levels. She coordinated forty-five state campaigns and provided resources, research, and experts to testify. In this interview, Laura X discusses growing up in St. Louis, her education in St. Louis, boarding school in Massachusetts, New York City, and Berkeley, work as an educator in New York State and City, her reign as the Queen of the Veiled Prophet Ball, early encounters with racism in St. Louis, and her appreciation of folk music and musicians (particularly Fred Neil), especially in New York City. Laura X also discusses the campaigning work of NCMDR, the political and legal fight to outlaw spousal rape, her socialist beliefs, the efforts taken to preserve her International Women's History Archive and publish it on microfilm, and the political obstacles that feminist causes have encountered.