Mária László (1909–1989) was a pioneering Hungarian activist who dedicated her work to improving the conditions of the Romani community. From the 1930s to the late 1950s, she pursued labour activism, political organizing, and humanitarian work. In a newspaper interview from 1958, she reminisced that she first rebelled against discrimination in 1937. She encouraged Roma to organize in the face of intensifying persecution during the 1930s. She was arrested as a suspected communist and endured years of police surveillance. As a survivor of the Romani Holocaust, László became one of the first people in postwar Hungary to publicly address the persecution of Roma during the Holocaust. Her efforts included advocating for the acknowledgment of Romani victims and pursuing compensation on their behalf.

Following the war, László joined the Budapest section of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party (MSZDP), where she rose to a leadership position. She was also a local secretary for the Hungarian Red Cross.

In 1957, László became the first secretary general of the Cultural Association of Gypsies in Hungary (MCKSZ), the first country-wide organization for Roma. During her brief but effective tenure, she leveraged the state socialist’s government focus on class equality, antiracism, and women’s emancipation to improve Romani people’s life chances. She collaborated with various national and local authorities and organizations such as the National Council of Trade Unions and the National Council of Hungarian Women to improve the employment and educational opportunities and housing of Roma and address systemic issues like poverty and racial discrimination that hindered Romani people’s social and economic integration.

However, in late 1958, political shifts aimed at assimilating Roma as a “social class” led to her dismissal from MCKSZ, and by 1961, the organization was disbanded altogether. Although her formal career as an official was cut short, Mária László’s work remains an example of dedication to Romani rights and minority justice within Hungary’s shifting political landscape.