1
25
39
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
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ms-0108
Title
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Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Colette Audry (English)
Date
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26 April 1982
Creator
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Audry, Colette, 1906-1990
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
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Text
Documents
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PDF
Coverage
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tgn:1000070
Language
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English
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Audry, Colette, 1906-1990
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
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824f0f6db3709c62738bfe913d85afd7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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ms-0168
Title
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Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of an interview with Anne-Marie Bauer (French)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06 June 1983
Creator
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Bauer, Anne-Marie
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, <em>Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.</em>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
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Text
Documents
Format
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PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Interviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
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PDF Text
Text
Sar~ Vowell "Assassination V,acation" April 20, 2005
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Thank you, thank you so much. I'm very proud to be here. I almost wish I were announcing I'd
just joined the KKK just because that would be okay here.
I guess I am unfortunately still against them. This book is just about the assassination of Lincoln,
Garfield, and McKinley and traveling around to historic sites and looking at plaques and markers
and monuments and statues to see how those things are remembered, or in Garfield's case not
remembered. I mean it's really a lot about as much about traveling as it is about, where there are
two words in the title. And it's about the second one almost as much as the first.
One night last summer all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing
show tunes. There they were John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, in tune and
in the flesh. The men who murdered Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley were elbow to
elbow with Lee Harvey Oswald and the kluzty girls who botched their hits on kluzty Gerald Ford
harmonizing on a toe tapper called "Everybody's Got the Right to be Happy", a song that I
cheerfully hummed walking back to the bed and breakfast where I was staying.
Not that I came all the way from New York City just to enjoy a chorus line of presidential
assassins. Mostly I came to the Berkshires because of the man who brought one of those
presidents back to life. I was there to visit Chesterwood, the house and studio once belonging to
Daniel Chester French, the artist responsible for the Abraham Lincoln sculpture in the Lincoln
Memorial. A nauseating four-hour bus ride from Port Authority just to see the room where from
patriotic chiseler came up with a marble statue. For some reason, none of my friends wanted to
come with. Because I had to stay overnight and this being New England the only place to stay
was a bed and breakfast. It was a lovely old country mansion operated by amiable people. That
said, I am not a bed and breakfast person. I understand why other people would want to stay in
B&Bs. They're pretty and personal. They're quaint, a nice way of saying no TV. They are
romantic, i.e. every object large enough to have a flower printed on it is going to have a flower
printed on it. They're cozy meaning that a guest has to keep their belongs on the floor because
every conceivable flat surface are covered in knickknacks, except for the one knickknack she
longs for- a remote control. And the real reason Bed and Breakfasts make me nervous is
breakfast. If it's not queasy enough to stay in a stranger's home and sleep in a bed bedecked with
19 pillows. In the morning the usually cornflake consuming, wheat intolerant guest, is served
flowery baked goods on plates so fancy any normal person would keep them locked in a china
cabinet even if Queen Victoria herself rose from the dead and showed up for tea. The guest
normally a silent morning reader of newspapers is expected to chat with the other strangers
staying in the strangers home. At my Berkshire Bed and Breakfast, I'm seated at a table with one
middle aged Englishmen and an elderly couple from Greenwich, Connecticut. The three of them
make small talk about golf, the weather, and the room chandeliers, one of which is apparently
Venetian. I can not think of a thing to say to these people. Seated at the head of the table, I am the
black hole of breakfast, a silent void of gloom sucking the sunshine out of their neighborly New
England day. That is not the kind of girl my mother raised me to be. I consider asking the
Connecticut couple if they have ever run into Jack Parr, who I heard had retired near where they
lived. But I looked like I was born after Parr quit hosting The Tonight Show because I was. And
so I'd have to explain how much I liked watching tapes of old programs at the Museum of
Television and Radio and I didn't want to get too personal.
Its seems that all three of them attended a Boston Pops Concert at Tanglewood the previous
evening and they chat about the conductor. This, I think, is my "In." I too enjoy being entertained.
Relieved to have, anything to say, I pipe up, "I went to the Berkshire Theatre Festival last night."
"Oh did you see Peter Pan?" the women asked. "No"
I say .. "assassins" ... "what's that" wonders the Englishman, and to make up for the fact that I've
been clammed up and moping I speak too fast merrily chirping .. "it's a Steven Sondheim musical
�in which a bunch of presidential assassins, and would be assassins, sing songs about how much
better their lives would be if they could gun down a President" Ohhh .. remarks Mr. Connecticut..
how was it?
Oh my god .. I gush .. even though the actors were mostly college kids I thought It was great.. the
orange haired guy who played the man who wanted to fly a plane into Nixon was hilarious and I
found myself strangely smitten with John Wilkes Booth every time he looked in my direction I
could feel myself blush
Apparently talking about going to the museum of television and radio is too personal but I seem
to have no problem revealing my crush on the man who murdered Lincoln.
Now a person with sharper social skills than I might have noticed that as these folks ate their
freshly baked blueberry muffins and admired the bed and breakfast teapot collection they
probably didn't want to think about presidential gunshot wounds .. but when I'm around strangers
I tum into a conversational Mount St. Helens .. I'm dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet .. Old guy loners
build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then boom .... it is 1980 ... Once I erupt they'll be
wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota. I continue but the
main thing that surprised me was how romantic assassins were.
Romantic? .. sneers a skeptic .. totally! I rebut, there's a very tender love scene between Emma
Goldman and Leon Czolgosz ... blank stares .... You know he was the anarchist who killed
McKinley in Buffalo 1901 ... the authorities initially suspected Goldman had helped him but all it
was, was he had heard her speak a few times about sticking it to the man. He'd matter but she
wasn't his co conspirator anyway .. the play dramatizes the moment they meet he stops her on the
street to tell her that he loves her and the guy who played Czolgosz was wonderful he had this
smoldering eastern European accent.. actually he sounded a lot like Dracula but in a good way if
you know what I mean ...
He told her Miss Goldmann I am in love with you, and she answered that she didn't have time to
be in love with him which was cute but this was my one misgiving about the performance I
thought that the woman playing Goldman was too lady like too much of a wallflower.. wasn't
Emma Goldman loud and brash and all gunghoe ... here was a woman who's words inspired a
man to kill a president. .. and come to think of it one of her old boyfriends shot the industrialist
Henry Frick .. maybe I'm too swayed by the way Maureen Stapleton played Goldman in the film
reds .. she was so bossy .. I remember Stapleton in that Woody Allen movie Interiors ... Geraldine
Page is all beige this and bland that so her husband divorces her and hooks up with noisy klutzy
Maureen Stapleton.. who laughs too loud and smashes pottery and wears a blood red dress to
symbolize that she is a live capital A ... wait I lost my train of thought where was I...
Englishmen.. I believe Dracula was in love with Maureen Stapleton .. oh right I didn't even
mention the most touching part.. Squeaky Frome and John Hinkley sing this duet a love song to
Charles Manson and Jodie Foster... Hinkly and Squeaky sing that they would do anything for
Charlie Manson and Jodie Foster and I really believed them ... Squeaky was like I would crawl
belly deep through hell.. and Hinkley's all .. baby I would die for you .. it was adorable .. Mister
Connecticut looks at his watch and I simultaneously realize that I've said way too much and that
saying too much means that I might miss my bus back home and I really wanna go home .. I yell
"nice meeting you" and nearly knocked down the teapot collection in my rush to get away from
them .. now before I leave I have to settle up my bill with the friendly B and B owner.. his first
name .. Hinkley ...... thank you
Thanks ... ummm ... I'm kinda reading some tangents tonight. The book is actually about
Presidential assassinations .. umm .. if you're into that.. but uhhh .. I was gonna read this other part
one of the ummm ... it was this .. It is kind of a tangent from the Garfield assassination even
though it sort of involves the Garfield assassin .. In his younger days, it was just this whole world
that I was so thrilled to kind of step into and this was one of my favorite parts of the book to work
on just because it was so fascinating to me ... hopefully to you.. that was a bad rhetoric to give a
build up
�Someone sent me this story pitch for this "merkin" life recently and the guy .. the whole pitch was
like .. wait till you get a load of this story .. its just gonna blow you away!! And he just kept
mentioning that over and over and he told the story and it was like ehh.. you know .. maybe next
time just don't.. just like .. go more low key on the build up
But I digress ...
One winter night in my kitchen as I poured peppermint tea into my friend Lisa's cup she said that
she liked my teapot and I told her that my happy yellow teapot has a kinky back story involving a
19th century vegetarian sex cult in upstate new York whose members lived for 3 decades as self
proclaimed bible communists before incorporating into the biggest supplier of dinnerware to the
American food service industry. Not to mention harboring their most infamous resident ... an
irritating young maniac who years after he moved away was hanged for assassinating President
Garfield
It goes without saying that in order for me to buy my teapot on the cheap at the Oneida Limited
Outlet Store at the Sherrel Shopping Plaza the second coming of Jesus Christ had to have taken
place in the year 70AD .. to the Oneida community 70AD was the year the temple in Jerusalem
was destroyed .. marks the beginning of the New Jerusalem, which means we've all been living in
heaven on earth for nearly 2000 years ... everyone knows there's no marriage in heaven though
one suspects there's no shortage of it in hell, soooo ... the Oneidians said .. we're here in heaven
already saved and perfect in the eyes of god, so lets move upstate and sleep around
I'm paraphrasing ... John Humphrey Noyes .. the founder, leader and guru of the Utopian Oneida
Community wrote in 1837 .. in the holy community there is no more reason why sexual
intercourse would be restricted by law, then why eating and drinking should be .. and there is as
little occasion for shame in the one case as in the other. .. any theologian who assure his fellow
Victorians that fondling one's neighbors wife is as ordinary as frying an egg was bound to attract
a following ... and in 1848 Noyes and 45 cohorts moved to Oneida to pursue what they called
group marriage .. eventually building the 3-story brick mansion house that remains today as a
combination museum/apt. building and hotel ... I spent a night there ... the next morning Joe
Volesky a retired Oneida native who taught high school American History for 36 years gives me
a guided tour. Volesky points to a yellowing photo of John Humphrey Noyes hanging on the
wall.. on paper Noyes resembles a bearded old fashioned every man, your great grandfather or
mine .. seems unthinkable that the head poking out of that starched collar was coming up with
dogma about ejaculation.. the same thing could be said about this house we trapse around ... it
looks like the past which is to say upstanding and chaste.. even though its small clean chambers
witnessed more nooky than all the bedrooms on MTV's cribs combined.
Volesky shows me an antique cabinet in which members of the community famous for their
homegrown produce .. dried herbs ... the Oneida community was an upstate tourist attraction right
from the start. Second Volesky says to Niagara falls. I'm taking the same guided tour offered 150
years ago to prim rubbernecks who came here to peep at sex fiends. I wonder how many of my
vacationing fore bearers went home disappointed. They thought they were taking the train to
Gomorra but instead they got to watch herbs dry.
Volesky opens a drawer in the herb cabinet so I can get a whifhe mentions that back in the day
that when one tourist was shown the cabinet she rudely asked her community member guide
what's that odor? To which the guide replied .. perhaps it's the odor of crushed selfishness.
Volesky grins .. how bout that for a utopian answer.. to my not particularly utopian nose crushed
selfishness smells a lot like cilantro.. paintings of John Humphrey Noyes and his wife Harriet
hang at the top of the stairs .. Noyes was married .. he was an abolitionist known to compare
wifery up north to slavery down south yet Noyes married Harriet in 1838. He sent her a proposal
letter that made up in candor what it lacked in woo.
Referring to Harriet not as his sweetheart but as his "yolk fellow" as if they were to be oxens
strapped together hauling hay .. Noyes informed her that his intentions towards said "yolk fellow"
will be not to monopolize and enslave her heart or my own but to enlarge and establish both in
�the free fellowship of God's universal family. In other words .. Harriet, don't wait up.
Noyes married Harriet in their native Vermont a full decade before leading his flock to Oneida
while his proposal is not one of history's great love letters, I've received more sentimental
invoices from my attorney. Noyes' sympathy for Harriet's childbearing heartbreaks early on in
her marriage had a profound influence on the future sexual practices at Oneida, specifically what
he came to call "male continence." A sexual technique that's about as fun as it sounds.
Harriet gave birth 5 times in 6 years but only one of those children lived. "This experience is what
directed my studies and kept me studying," Noyes later recalled. After our last disappointment I
pledged my word to my wife that I would never again expose her to such fruitless suffering. At
first Noyes recounts he simply vowed not to touch her, then it occurred to him that genitalia have
two functions .. the reproductive which led the aforementioned catastrophes and the social.
He concluded that one function has little to do with the other and that he could eliminate the
possibility of eggs being fertilized by not ejaculating. "I experimented on this idea," he wrote,
"and found that the self control which it requires is not difficult, that my enjoyment was
increased, that my wife's experience was quite satisfactory as it had never been before, that we
escaped the horrors and the fear of involuntary propagation." Noyes broke down the sex act into
3 parts: The beginning marked by the simple presence of the male organ in the female, the
middle involving a series of reciprocal motions, and of course the end .. an ejaculatory crisis
which expels the seed.
Naturally ones thoughts tum to canoeing.
Noyes describes sex as a day trip to the nearby Niagara River. The skilled boatman, he asserts
will learn the wisdom of confining his excursions to the region of easy rowing. If not, its over the
falls and splat. At the Oneida Community not ejaculating wasn't just a hobby it was a whole way
of life. In fact, Noyes points out the Oneida community in an important sense owed its existence
to the discovery of male continence. At its core the Community was about sharing. Sharing love,
sex, food, chores, money, decisions, time. The only thing the Oneida men were supposed to keep
to themselves was their sperm. When I asked Volesky why masturbation was also frowned upon.,
he said "self-pleasuring takes you away from the group." One of the corollaries of Noyes' theory
of group marriage was a taboo against special love and a system of defenses to guard against all
kinds of intense passion. Consider the following set of problems and the ingenious way in which
they resolved.
Young people were always getting crushes. Young people only want to sleep with one another.
Older people would like to enjoy sex but they aren't as attractive as younger people. Oneida men
are supposed to practice male continence but perfecting male continence takes practice and until
teenage boys know how to control themselves, their female partners are in danger of
impregnation.. so here's what they did:
Post-menopausal women deflowered young boys.. that way .. conception is avoided and older
women enjoy the pleasure of the flesh. Young girls annoyingly prone to falling in love, were
ushered into womanhood by an older male. Usually an experience boater like Noyes himself...
and if his proposal to Harriet is any indication, Noyes had a knack for deflecting mush sentiment
by making a girl feel like part of a team.
The admonition against special love meant not only a ban on falling in love. Tt applied to all
expressions of over the top passion ... for example, a little girl who had grown too fond of her
favorite doll was marched into the kitchen and told to toss it into the fire. A gifted violin player
in danger of becoming a virtuoso and thus too attached to his instrument handed it over to the
Oneida authorities and never played again. When a visiting Canadien teacher complained that the
community did not foster genius or special talent, Noyes was delighted replying, "we never
expected or desired to produce a Byron, a Napoleon or a Michaelangelo." And you know you've
reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadien is alarmed by your lack of
individuality.
Where did the other violinists, the ones who are kinda good but not too good performers go?
�Volesky ushers me into the grand room came to be known as the Family Hall, a recreated 19th
century opera house.
Every night, Volesky says the group assembled here for a family meeting in which Noyes lead
them in a discussion of spiritual and business issues. Volesky points at a pleasant old photograph
of the room in which people are sitting in rocking chairs or knitting or both but before enjoying
the evenings aggressively second rate entertainment they would engage in what they thought of as
a cleansing ritual.. the enchantingly named "mutual criticism." Mutual criticism required a
member of the group to stand up in front of everybody and listen to the enumeration of his or her
faults. The bright side of being that night's subject for criticism was the rare treat at Oneida of
being the center of attention.
The downside was that everyone you knew and loved was allowed and even encouraged to look
into your eyes and ask you what your problem is.
Reading the accounts of community members moments in the critical sun, one thing that stands
out is how specific the criticisms were. A young man was told that he didn't read enough and
when he did he only skims things.
Though my personal favorite is the New Englander who is taken to task for his too frequent
mention of Vermont. Standing in the room where the mutual criticism took place, I conjecture
about how the process went for the future assassin, Charles J. Guiteau.
To give you an idea about Guiteau, in the glossary of a children's book about the Garfield
assassination one of the vocabulary words children are supposed to learn by studying Guiteau is
nuance ... well Volesky replies he was here from 1860 to 1865 then he left and came back. From
what I read, he was pretty annoying. He wasn't happy and yet he stayed here for 5 years.
Considering that Oneida's group marriage policy theoretically promised constant sexual trysts
unfortunately for Guitneau those trysts had to be consensual. That no one wanted to sleep with
Charles Guiteau is hinted at in his Oneida nickname, "Charles Getout."
Here's a distraction: When researching the Oneida Community, I couldn't help but notice that in
their letters, community members referred to the Oneida Community as the "OC."
Coincidentally, the "OC" is the name of a night time soap opera on television's Fox Network I am
currently obsessed with set in Orange County, California. The show's three biggest stars are Peter
Gallagher and his legendary pair of eyebrows ... eyebrows cozy enough to move in to a home a
couple of rocking chairs with a nose between them like a table piled high with every book you
ever loved. Thus, when I see the Oneida Community being referred to as the "OC" I cannot help
but picture all the ladies of Oneida standing in line to curl up in Peter Gallagher's eyebrows trying
in vain not to feel a special love.
The subject of Peter Gallagher's eyebrows I realize is a digression away from the Oneida
Community and yet I do feel compelled indeed, almost theoretically bound, to mention that one
of the reasons the Oneida Community broke up and turned itself into a corporate teapot factory is
that a faction within the group led by a lawyer named James William Towner was the culprit. The
communities most esteemed elders were bogarting the team members so they left in a huff for
none other than Orange County, California where Towner helped organize the Orange County
government, became a judge and picked the spot where the Santa Anna Courthouse would be
built ... a courthouse where it is reasonable to assume Peter Gallagher's attorney character on the
"OC" might defend his clients.
As we stand in Oneidas family hall Joe Volesky tells me that when he first volunteered as a guide
here he spent a lot of time thinking about the men and women who came here to lead such
eccentric lives.
What was it like when these people were born in that generation of Americans, he wondered
continuing so at that point I came across Jonathan Edwards in a sermon, "sinners in the hands of
an angry god." Do you know it? Do I ever? Written in 1741 Edwards sermon describes us sinners
as spiders that our creator dangles over the mouth of hell ... it goes .. " the wrath of God burns
against them. There damnation does not slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the
�furnace is now hot ready to receive them. The flames do now rage and glow." I love this sermon
as literature because its diabolical lingo is so grim so harrowing that its almost cute.
"Wasn't so cute in yesteryear," Volesky says. Your first definition of you as a woman, me as a
man, is that we are sinners. You're a sinner, I'm a sinner, you look at God, what do you see? An
angry God. Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Volesky says that thinking about that sermon and its notion that human beings are arachnids, god
is about to flip into a fire helps him understand that the ways of the Oneida Community in which
heaven is already here was like this incredible shot of oxygen because we're not so evil. That's
behind us .. God doesn't have to be angry.
Interesting ... I have this recurring nightmare in which I have to move back in with my old college
roommate, and I'll admit that's what I was expecting to find at Oneida the 19h century equivalent
of sharing a house with a friend that brought home a crazy drifter to sleep on our couch. A man
who claimed the local car dealership was built out of needles nourishing the earth. And the week
before I went to Oneida I had that claustrophobic dream again that I had to move back in with the
girl who claimed to enjoy baking and always promised tomorrow was going to be muffin day
even though tomorrow was never muffin day. It was muffin day maybe once. But Volesky
inspired me to think about the claustrophobia of American culture in the 18th and 19th centuries.
How women like me would've given anything for free willing life with drifter man and a muffin
day instead of being doomed to a choice between mother superior and a husband your parents
picked. How reassuring it must have been to have this place to know that it was here.
If I had never gone to Oneida and talked to Joe Volesky, ifl had simply read a book about the
Community and bought my Oneida teapot at Macy's Herald Square .. I might have thought about
fornicating Utopians as they brewed Earl Gray, but now when I watch the steam rise from the
yellow spout I like to pretend I'm seeing people breath ... Thanks!
Thank you ... umm I'm just gonna read one other little tiny excerpt that umm, well, try and stop
me I guess.
And then I'll take your questions ... on February 12th my friend Ben and I get up very early to
make the 6:30 train to Washington to attend the Lincoln's birthday wreath ceremony the National
Park Service puts on at the Lincoln memorial every year. The ceremony is very cold and very
long mostly elderly volunteers from archaic organizations placing donut shaped flower
arrangements at the Lincoln statue's feet. And because he had been such a good sport about
getting up so early I want to make it up to Ben. After lunch I settle up the bill and tell him I have
a surprise for you.
I lead him around the corner to the court of claims building in the courtyard past the fountain I
point at a plaque, chirping tadaaaa! This was the site of Secretary of State Sewards house where
he was stabbed in bed the night Lincoln was shot.
Bennet looks at the plaque and then back at me wondering this is my surprise .. a plaque about
seward
Uh huh ... he doesn't say anything for a while just stands there reading the plaque shaking his
head .. it says on this site commodore john rogers built an elegant house in 1831 in it on april 14th
1865 an attempt was made to assassinate w .h. seward secretary of state by one of the conspirators
who murdered Abraham Lincoln the same night.
Bennet looks at me rolls his eyes and silently trudges out of the courtyard.
I can theoretically grasp that a person might not get excited about a two dimensional engraving
attached to government building marking the spot where the man who negotiated the purchase of
Alaska was knifed by a friend of John Wilkes Booth. But this person, the person who was up for
taking a 6:30 train in order to get to a Lincoln's 195th Birthday Wreath Ceremony, the person
who, come to think of it, also went with me to Gettysburg for the 13 7th Anniversary of the reading
of the Gettysburg address, the person who was so excited when we went to the Reagan
Presidential Library even though I found it a little disappointing in terms of scholarship.
A person with whom I have spent Saturday night at the Chess Club chatting with a man who went
�to Rckovik with Bobby Fisher for his match against Borris Fasky. I've prided myself on knowing
my audience so I'm shaken by Ben's indifference as he trudges out of the courtyard. I harrang
him with what I think are other juicy facts about buildings on Lafayette Square such as right next
store:.Mark Hannah's house.
Who was he? Only William McKinley's best friend. Surprisingly this info also bombs. In fact
home in New York I'm not ready to give up on making a case for the Seward plaque, cuz I love
that thing .. I emailed Bennet the next morning that the court of claims building where the Seward
plaque is hung was designed by John Carl Warnecke the architect who helped Jaclyn Kennedy
with her historic preservation crusade to save Lafayette Square and after JFK was killed Mrs.
Kennedy hired Warnecke to design his grave at Arlington and in the process I guess there's
nothing more romantic than pouring over graveyard designs she and Wamacke fell in love .. she
was having an affair with the man in charge of her slain husbands tomb ... for some reason
Bennet seems to think the sex and death gossip is more interesting than the Seward plaque.
Seward plaque by the way has become our synonym for disappointment. When I break it to Ben
that I'm having trouble getting Fiddler on the Roof tickets .. a musical he's keen on seeing because
it reminds him of his grandmothers flight from the shdettle, he answers, "whatever, I can take it
my people have been getting Seward plaqued for millennia" ... thank you! Thanks.
So now I'm gonna sit over there so hopefully you'll recognize me and I will take your questions.
Transcribed from the original audio by Nerval, Edited by C. Ridenour, FHF, 28 Apr 2008
�
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Ford Hall Forum
Lectures
Women's History
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/368060291638cf0586bc88903139b13b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=lE2NwZxyVoaNREjEmfrm5pyUwjB2bwi1MwSSdH9P5v9iDVQLprz-ki5yjPgbN6rSOUHO96l7d3lJfe3R5B8uAt6-%7EZcob-HauetJO4eMjPSW-Z51VjdN%7EsJ892jRlDUYTczOqz5Br590EdYbYb8s8udICneVsVTgkj-ilsWhDjzwXQSVI4gIxWyIaPpfrBlCJrxAj3wahJXr2bMAJkdYZgJ7y0-YtreiR5lIq0C%7ExuQ1ChR%7EMAz1valzqcf-yUZA-VpOy9Wym9IQ6QCVzgUbcMH4IYxyksgOyoBvsJFtPyOMFuKtTYCHPEaAmFiy1ZYAOoeK%7EhStWjb1ilRdNp1RUw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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''
Maya Angelou-1st Amendment Award Recipient 1982 , May 9, Northeastern Univ. Ballroom, B~ston. ·
Address: "Responsibility to Speak for Freedom's Sake"
"She does not know her beauty. She thinks her brown body has no glory. If she could dance naked under
palm trees and see her image in the river, she would know. But there are no palm trees on the street, and
dishwater gives back no images." Thank you.
Thank you very much. I am honored that you have chosen me; to honor me. I am in my tum, honored. I
thank you very much. I know that this city, for the last few hundred years, has interesting histories. I
know that the finest moments in American history have taken place here. I know that at your Faneuil Hall
Mr. Frederick Douglass and Mr. Martin Delaney and Ms. Sigourney Truth and men and women who were
actively opposing an evil in our society were welcomed, and were welcomed by people that sometimes
risked and sometimes lost their lives in the abolition of the slave trade in this city. So I am particularly
moved that you honor me so, I thank you very much.
That first poem was first written by Wearing Cuni, a black male poet writing in the 30s, late 20s and 30s,
of this century. As a piece of poetry, it's perfect. Its lyricism is not debatable, its structure is mysterious.
But when one looks into the poem, one sees how Mr. Cuni used his genius to extract a situation which
alas, is familiar to us all.
The gist of that condition, what happened with the issue that faces a person, or human family, two people,
people in a family, in a neighborhood, in a city, in a town, in a country, what happens to the species when
the issues which faces them, it, her, him is the problem of self worthlessness?
The poem again: "She does not know her beauty. She thinks her brown body has no glory. If she could
dance naked under palm trees and see her image in the river, she would know. But there are no palm trees
on the street, and dishwater gives back no images."
Perfect pieces of poetry. Now Mark Twain said in 1904, "If you would have a person enslaved, the first
thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. My italics, of course then you can
justify all actions. The second thing you must do is to convince your allies that the person is subhuman
My parentheses, then of course you can gamer support. But the third and unkindness cut of all is to
convince that person that he or she is just not quite really, you know, to be considered not seriously, not
sincerely, as a full human being. A qualitative job has been done ladies and gentlemen on the Black
American and the White American, the Native America, the Jewish American, Asian American, the
Hispanic American., and all mixtures in between. A qualitative job has been done, particularly, vis-a-vis,
the Black American, so that unfortunately that even among liberals, the relationship between black and
white American liberals tends to be at its best patronizing, at its best. And yet ladies and gentlemen, only
equals make friends, otherwise the relationships are out of order. They are askew, awry somehow.
I chose this evening to talk to you about the gifts, the contributions of black Americans, through the
literature, literature. Now literature I know really means that body of written information handed from
one generation to the next to encourage that next generation to survive.
But I use the literature as an umbrella word, so that under it I include also oral literature, I include the fact
that black people all over the world can hold entire conversations without forming words. I include body
behaviors. I include any information handed from one generation to the next under that broad umbrella.
Admittedly I am taking all types of licenses.
But when a black woman puts her hands on her hips high up, that's a particular kind of instruction. When
a woman is a little bit older and still holding her hands and drops them just off the hip, just about there,
and sashays, that's an instruction. But when an older black women, balls up both fists and puts them on
�the back of her hip and steps back, beware - caveat - beware. So I include all sorts of things under that
umbrella. Now I know that as you know that the first blacks were brought here in 1619. Now I understand
how close we are physically to Plymouth Rock and all that. But without meaning to signify or cast
dispersions, but I want to remind you that that was one year before the Mayflower docked. That's it. It
was sad to say that the Native American, to whose continent we were brought, strangers in chains and
slaves more so, the Native American is now less than 600 thousand in the entire United States and Black
Americans are upwards of 30 million and that is a conservative estimate.
Because I have a friend Muriel who says there are more than 30 million Black people in the Baptist
Church. He's not even including AMEs, CMEs, AME Zions, Mormons - which is another whole program
that ... I mean why they go in but. .. I believe that we have survived because of a tremendous love. And by
love, I do not mean sentimentality nor mush. I mean that condition in the human spirit, so powerful, so
profound, that it allows us to dream of building bridges, gives us the courage to build those bridges, and
the gall to cross them, to communicate with each other. That's what I mean by love.
And the love is to be found in the literature. When I look at the imperative of speaking, I am here because
I come from a race famous for speaking, for communicating, the misery and the joy, the ecstasy and the
horror of the human condition. All over the world people sing my songs without really understanding the
conditions under which they were written. No one knows the names of those great artists. James Weldon
Johnson wrote "Oh Black and unknown bards how came your lips to touch the sacred fire" Indeed.
So I come from a long line of people who have been communicating seriously, sincerely, and effectively
for centuries. Now that their communications have seldom been operated on with honesty, sincerity, and
the like courage is not a slur against the givers of that information. When I look at the poetry and think
about romantic love in the Black community. Ahh, you know it is sad to say that when a number of nonBlacks write about Blacks and love, they would have us believe that White people make love and Black
people just have sex. Going to far ...
And yet Miss Georgia Douglass Johnson, a black lady poet, 19th century wrote:
I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips and lights are in my hair
I want to die while you love me
Who would care to live 'til love had nothing more to ask and nothing more to give
No, I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed your kisses turbulent, unspent,
To warm me while I'm dead.
James Weldon Johnson writing in 1910 wrote:
Seem like to me the moon don't shine so bright,
Seem like to me the sun dun lost it light,
Seem like to me that nothings going right,
Since you went away.
Seem like to me that everything is wrong,
Seem like to me the birds dun lost their song,
Seem like to me the days are just twice as long,
Since you went away.
Seem like to me I just can't help but sigh
Seem like to me my throat keeps getting dry,
Seem like to me a tear stay in my eye
Since you went away.
�Mr. Paul Lawrence Dumburg writing in 1892 wrote a Negro love song. It could have been written last
week by a newly liberated woman. The refrain in the song is "jump back honey, jump back."
Seen my lady home last night
Jump back honey, jump back.
Held her hand and squeezed it tight,
Jump back honey, jump back.
Heard her sigh that little sigh
I saw that light gleam in her eye,
Saw that smile go flitting by and said
Jump back honey, jump back.
The Mocking bird was singing fine,
Jump back honey, jump back.
And my heart was beating so that when I reached my lady's door
I just couldn't bear to go, I said
Jump back honey,jump back.
So I put my arms around her waist
Jump back honey, jump back.
Raised her lips and took a taste
Jump back honey, jump back.
I said love me honey, you love me true
You love me well as I love you
And then she answered of course I do,
But jump back honey, jump back.
Before I continue and go back and take you back to the 18th century, and the courageous speaking out of
the Black American, I want to tell you this true story. Some years ago I was with Porgy and Bess and I
was the premier dancer. I sang the role Ruby, but I sang by heart. I had no training in music. The
associate conductor simply sat down at the piano and with the right hand played the melody part. And so I
learned what I was to sing, but I was not a singer. And we traveled through Europe and North Africa,
Israel and arrived in Morocco. And the company sent the sets on to Spain and the conductor informed the
singers that the company, including me, that we were obliged to perform in concert. Now there were
among 62 people in the company, there were 140 degrees in music. There were so few places for Black
singers of European classical music to perform, the company could afford to get a person with one degree
from Curtis and another from Julliard just to be in the chorus.
So there they were, singers, trained, stunning, when the conductor informed them that they were to
perform in concert, they were delighted. Now black opera singers and white opera singers, and Asian and
Hispanic, and Native American and Balinese, all - they're one people, sort of like New York taxi drivers,
they are all one tribe, you know. You know that. They were all prepared, and I'm sure they had their
portfolios on micro-fiche on the back of their watches or in their ear lobes or something. But I went to the
conductor and said, "I am sorry that is not my discipline. I don't know any arias." The conductor was
Alexander Smallins, who is a grrreat grrreat Rrrrrussain conductor, with grrreast Rrrrrussain hair and
sparkling fiery eyes, and an artistic temperament which I think he heated up every morning in a samovar.
He turned to me almost maddened. He said "BUTA, DON'T YOU KNOW A SPIRITUAL?" and I
thought, "Is grits groceries?" Do I know a spiritual? I grew up in Arkansas, in a town about half the size
of this stage if you don't include the wings. And my grandmother was mother of the church. Mother took
me to church on Sunday. I don't me we left. I mean we went to church on Sunday and on Monday night
we went to usher board meeting, Tuesday night missionary meeting, Wednesday night was prayer
meeting, Thursday night was choir practice, Friday night visit the sick. Saturday we didn't go to church.
We used Saturday, all day, to prepare to go to church on Sunday. So it was my life and I knew every long
�meter hymn, gospel, doctor Watts, every spiritual of course. So I said, "Yes I, I know a spiritual." Well
the singers went out and delivered themselves beautifully, of Rossinni, and, Bach and Hayden and lovely
little Perrcell pieces about that long, and very Britain. They were very well received. When I went out to
the stage, there was a 120 piece orchestra in the pit. How could they help me with their violin, cello? I
said its all right just lay out, I'll go for myself. So I thought of a song my grandmother sang every Sunday
of my life. I went to live with her from California when I was 3 and stayed until I was 13. And every
Sunday mama would go into the church and sit in the mother of the church pew. The minister would
begin the service, 15 minutes after, every Sunday he would turn and say and now we will be led by a
hymn by Sister Henderson- my grandmother, very Sunday.
You know when you're young no one can embarrass you so much than someone your related-your
parents, anybody. I used to sit in the children's pew and think, Mama get up and sing. Everybody knows
you're going to sing, they even know what you're going to sing. Mama just get up and sing. She'd take
her time. She'd put her pocketbook down beside. She'd press her handkerchief in her lap, fold it, press it
again, fold it. It looked like that took twenty minutes. While the kids in the children's pew were going. gr,
gr, gr. But finally she put her handkerchief down and sang. And every Sunday she sang it, and I sang it in
Morocco alone on the stage:
"I am pilgrim soul. I'm lost in this wide world alone. No hope have I for tomorrow. I started to make
heaven my home. My mother she's found her sweet glory. And my father still living in sin. And my
brothers and sisters won't own me because I am trying to get in. Sometimes I tossed and driven, Lord.
Sometimes I don't know where to roam. Oh, but I've heard of the city called Heaven. And I have started
to make it my home."
When I finished singing 4,500 Arabs jumped up, hit the floor, started to stomp. Well, Azeme Allah, I
Azem e Allah. I was very young. I don't mean just chronologically. I was young because I was ignorant. I
had no idea of the power and richness ofmy inheritance. I had no idea. So I stood there while the people
stomped and screamed and I looked stage right and the Bell Canto singers were leering at me. And stage
left they were going, nr, nr, nr. And I felt, Oh I'm sorry. Too sorry. Sorry that I have the glory. Now until
you've sung "Steal Away" or "Go Down Moses" or "Down by the Riverside" or "Ride on King Jesus" or
"Chariot," I suggest you have it sung back to you in French or Spanish or Ahanta or Ashanti or Fanti or
Serbo-Croat or Italian, I suggest you have come to grips with the literature. A literature so real that it will
not indulge the distance of continents, oceans, languages, centuries, racism, sexism, ageism. It indulges
none of those distances. I says I speak through the black experience. That's what I know. I am talking
about the human condition. What it is like to be a human being? What stirs us? What makes us weep?
What makes us laugh? How do we dare to love and how on earth can we get over an incredible literature?
So I feel free to use it you see for the next three or four hours as we sit here. I'm sure you brought your
sandwiches and whatever you need, bagels or lox or something, champagne. In looking in the Black
American history. Now at another time when I look at the White American history, it is necessary you
know to always say thank you to people who have had courage. Because courage is the most important of
all the virtues. Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtue with consistency. I didn't
myself say that first, I think it was Plato, but never mind. Anyway it is a good statement. Its still good, all
of those thousands of years later. So but for those people who risked and lost and sometimes did not lose
their lives, because they loved right. Not because they loved Black or Asians or Jews, Hispanics. But
because they loved right. They must always be thanked so that somebody young who is straddling the
fence and might go the other way can be encouraged to take heart and become a hero-shero.
However this evening it is the Black American I must speak about- the Black American, because we are
in the most dangerous place we have seen since the Emancipation Proclamation. I think our children are
in the most frightful jeopardy. They are our children. They are the Black peoples children. they are white
�people children too you know. For they will give us tomorrow. Whatever they give us, we damn well
deserve it. They're our children and they are in jeopardy. When we have girls at ten on their own street
comers here, in Boston, Boston, who are selling their bodies at ten, at eleven. black girls, some white
girls. Those are our children, and those are our tomorrows ladies and gentleman. And so when we dress in
our finery and get into our fine automobiles, and go to our fine homes and lock the doors as securely as
possible, we are locking them against are children. It is imperative that we see it and take responsibility
for the time we take up and for the space we occupy.
XXXXXXXXX Ad in the middle here on tape- archive of the Ford Hall Forum XXXXXXX
I didn't really come to preach to you because you all are good. Oh, oh no? I figured to hear more laughter.
Oh no you are too good for that. In the course oflooking at the courage and love of the Black community,
it has to be said that for centuries we were obliged to laugh when we were not tickled and to scratch when
we did not itch. And those gestures have come down to us as "Uncle Tom." I suggest that the people who
employed those humiliating ploys were successful. Heros and Sheros who were successful. Or there are
some people here this evening who wouldn't be here listen to me, who wouldn't be here to talk to them.
I don't think we often enough stop to wonder how that black man's throat must of ached each time he said
''yes sir boss you alls are right I sure are stupid." So he could make enough money so he could go home
and feed someone. Or that black woman who said "No ma'am Miss Ann you didn't hurt me when you
slapped me. No ma'am I ain't tender-hearted." So she could make money so she could go home and feed
someone. There is a woman who rides this bus in New York City. If the bus stops to abruptly she says
"Ahh, haha!" She's a maid, she sits at the back with two shopping bags. "Oo hoo hoo." Bus passes up
somebody, picks them up "Ah. Ha ha" I watched this woman for nine months. I thought you know, if you
don't know black features, you may think she's laughing. She's not laughing. Nothings happening to her
eyes. She extending her lips and making a sound. "Ha ha ha ha."
So I wrote a poem for her and her survival apparatus:
When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death, ha ha!
My life has been one great big joke.
A dance that's walked and song that's spoke, ha ha.
I laugh so hard I nearly choke when I think about myself, ha ha.
60 years in these folks world,
The child I works for calls me girl.
I say Ah! Yes ma'am, the workers say,
I'm too proud to bend and too poor to break, ah, ha, ha.
I laugh until my stomach aches when I think about myself.
And my folks can make me slit my side,
I laughed so hard I nearly died.
The tales they tell sound just like lying,
They grow the fruit but eat the rind.
I laugh until I start to cry.
When I think about myself, and my folks, and the children.
We wear the mask that grins and lies.
It shades our cheeks and hides our eyes
This debt we pay to human guile.
With tom and bleeding hearts, we smile
And mouth myriad subtleties.
Why should the world over-wise in counting all my tears and sighs?
Let them only see me only when I wear the mask.
�We smile, but Oh my God, our tears could be from tortured souls arise
Oh we sing, the clay is vile beneath my feet
But let the world think otherwise, Ha ha ha ha
We wear the mask. Ha Ah Ha Ha Ha
You know there are many African "isms" still current in America life. White American life and Black
American life. But I don't know if you give the same award to the same person twice. Maybe in about 15
years I'll come back and do that. That's another lecture. Or I can just tag along when you give it to
somebody I know.
So I'm going to recite a poem of Langston Hughes:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I
I
I
I
am
am
am
am
the
the
the
the
farmer,
worker
Negro,
people,
bondsman to the soil.
sold to the machine.
servant to you all.
humble, hungry, mean--
�Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--0, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
0, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-Except the dream that's almost dead today.
0, let America be America again-The land that never has been yet-And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-America will be!
Out
The
We,
The
The
of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
the people, must redeem
land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
mountains and the endless plain--
�All, all the stretch of these great green states-And make America again!
Mr. Langston Hughes.
We are a potent people, enriched by all the bloods of this planet. We are people with a potential so great,
incredible courage, exquisite love, and we have a future. Ladies and gentlemen we have one future. We
will all share it. It will be marvelous. It will be difficult, painful, hard work. But we will all share the
ecstasy or it will be grotesque, and horrible, and miserable, and murderous, and we shall all share it. It is
our land. We are one people. I have refused years ago to allow any human being to set barriers between
me and any other human being. Fortunately, I was able to internalize when I was about 14 a statement of
Terence. Terence said "homo sumi: humani nil a me alienum puto." "I am a human being. Nothing human
can be alien to me." It is interesting to see when you look into any encyclopedia, under Terence with one
"r", you'll find in italics Terentius Afer- an African slave sold to a Roman senator, freed by that senator.
He became the most popular play write in Rome. Six of his plays and that statement have come down to
us. In 154 B.C., this man, not born free, not born a citizen, nor born a Roman citizen, not born a white,
said "I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me." It is a vast concept to grapple. It is a
tremendous concept. And as far as I can see, one can diligently spend ones life trying to internalize and to
ingest, all that that means and maybe reach around the periphery, maybe.
But it a marvelous thing, it frees and elevates when one knows because it means of course on one hand if
a person does the most heinous, a person commits the most heinous crime, you can no longer say I could
never do that, because a human did it. Now if it was an elephant or an alligator, something like that, you
could say it. But you could say I hope and pray and mean that all my energy are used constructively as
opposed to destructively. But if a human being did it, I could do it. Now of course what that does is it
frees one to think that if someone else can dream a great dream, compose, paint, write a masterpiece, have
a child, dare to love someone, have the unmitigated gall to accept love in return, you can do it because it
was a human being who did it.
So having that trying ingest such a large swallow and have it sink to the fingertips and toenails and hair
follicles. And really not just think it, but act upon it, is a way to, for me anyway, it helps me to be guided
throughout my life. To allow myself to not be minimized by anyone else's prejudice or at anyone else's
whim, for their convenience. Indeed not, I shall not, ladies and gentleman I shall not. Since life is our
most precious gift and since it was given to us to live but once, let us so live that we will not regret years
of useless virtue. And in dying we can say oh my conscious life and energy has been dedicated to the
most noble cause in the world- the liberation of human beings.
There's an African statement which is "The trouble for the thief is now how to steal the chiefs bugle, but
where to blow it." It is a delicious one to deal with. West Africans call that deep talk because when you
think about it, you have immediate sort of wry appreciation. When you really let it sink down deeper, it
makes you come to grips with your own responsibility to our present state of affairs, which we all bemoan
in public, and so often in the privacy, in the depths of our hearts haven't the courage to speak out against
what we see in our streets, and sometimes in our homes, indeed.
I have one last piece that I am obliged to do. I know I'm taking a long time, but I did ask if you brought
your hamburgers or sandwiches, your wine or whatever. I believe that women are phenomenal. I do.
Applaud yourselves. I know us to be. We remain, however phenomenal, our measure has not been taken
ladies because nobody is capable of taking our measure. You have no idea. Now gentlemen, I know that
you are also phenomenal. I know, because I know that nature abhors imbalance and will not deal with it
for very long and certainly not with any friendliness. And like you, I have been told that all the 98% of
the species which have lived in this little blob of spit and sand are now extinct. So I know that you must
be as phenomenal as we are, or we wouldn't be here. But I will tell you this, you will have to write your
�own poem.
That's it. I wrote this poem for Black women and White women, and Asian and Hispanic and Native
American and Aleute and women on the beaches of Bali and Berber wives and non-wives. I wrote it for
young Jewish girls with braces on their teeth, I wrote it for women on the cover of Essence Magazine and
Vogue, and those women who pose for the before pictures on Weight Watchers. I wrote it for anorexics.
We are phenomenal. I believe that.
Many wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
When I start to tell them, they think I'm telling lies.
I say, Oh it's in the reach of my arms
Its in the span of my hips,
Its in the stride of my step,
Its in the curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally. phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room just as cool as you please,
And to a man, the fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say, it's the fire in my eyes, and the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist, the joy in my feet.
Men themselves have tried to see what they see in me.
They try so much, but they can not touch my inner mystery.
When I try to show them they say they still can't see.
And now you understand just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about or have to talk to loud.
When you see me walking it ought to make you proud.
I say, it's in the click of my heels,
It's in the bend of my hair,
It's in the palm ofmy hand,
It's in the need for my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally. phenomenal woman,
And that's my mother and all of your mothers
And then there's my grand mother, and all of your grandmothers
And there's your great-grandmother and all of your great-grandmothers
And then there's my great-great and all of your great-great-grandmothers
Then there's all of you and me.
From a going on, singing on, walking on, praying on, dancing on, dying on, living on, and rising on
people, I believe that the gift given to the world by those people is an inspiration to continue. I believe so.
I believe it is one of the most exciting gifts any single group has made to the human, to the species. When
a Black American or a Black person says "Stay Black and beautiful", it sounds on the face of it extremely
simple. But it is so encouraging and exhortation that I think it should be an easy access in Black and
Whites and Whites and Asians and Asians and Hispanics and Native Americans, I believe that everybody
should be able to use it. Because obviously it doesn't mean just stay a particular color since we range
from plum blue to milk white. I think that what the speaker is encouraging the listener to do is survive,
�and do better than that, to thrive. And to do better than that, to thrive with some passion, some
compassion, some humor and some style.
That has been our gift, given not by the free and easy. In fact when the Declaration of Independence was
signed, for the most part, my people were illiterate. When the large packets of what Thomas Wolfe calls
this Everlasting Earth and divvied up and handed about among the powerful, for the most part, my people
couldn't claim, let alone the chains they wore, but not the awkward names they have been given. But
there it is, through all of that they have given to the species, the suggestion that it is possible to be a 4th
generation welfare recipient and still walk as if you have descended from kings:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me
Bowed head and lowered
Shoulders falling down
Weakened by my soulful
broken?
eyes?
like teardrops,
cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You
You
You
But
may shoot me with your words,
may cut me with your eyes,
may kill me with your hatefulness,
still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
�Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Transcribed from the original audio by C. Ridenour, FHF, 30 April 2008
�
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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Transcript of the 1982 Ford Hall Forum's First Amendment Award featuring Maya Angelou
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9 May 1982
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MS 113/1.1 Folder: 183
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Transcript of an audio address delivered by honoree Angelou at the Ford Hall Forum First Amendment Award, titled "The Responsibility to Speak for Freedom’s Sake."
Ford Hall Forum
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Lectures
Women's History
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/84446b93181917a9a30296a4dbe5fc78.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=aA2fKYv1bATRbbe2DdbxCPHbJY-55kkxEiqvonlZng-MtOl%7ENcEgyiCwrr9nsXr8dJIaIlGTDiAvq7Mruj02c4kWAue5ir6EsImpm-56RAd6SfUR58YfjMzUzySFmcgsd6A0uBsnkccbwakaeRxX1jf6l9uZVpMEvR1TSGvabm%7EyvXga20WfIGV3oH7O%7ESLVjuRTVISG8uArSQpPiaCcCTnC4XlG1gvs9BnIBc1kSC4G5GXr-fNtZwcA-7VL2ieQszFvhKNOtxx7Duqw9Dh1rAwebjCno74M8EoGCP-3TGWKT1lU21DNSABtEznFM-Gn8HTd5fjIPUwGbAdnQncE3Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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Text
New American Gazette: Transcript of Ayn Rand Forum
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
Title: New American Gazette: “Apollo (11) and Dionysus (at Woodstock),” at Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Date: 1 March 1990
Speakers: Ayn Rand, Marvin Kalb
Item Information: New American Gazette: “Apollo (11) and Dionysus (at Woodstock),” at
Ford Hall Forum. Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1908-2013 (MS113.3.1, item 0013) Moakley
Archive, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Digital Versions: audio recording and transcript available at http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net
Copyright Information: Copyright © 1991 Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Summary:
Transcription of a Ford Hall Forum that featured Ayn Rand, a prominent Russian-American
objectionist philosopher and novelist. Ayn Rand provides a detailed analysis of two major event
of the sixties -- the Woodstock music festival and the Apollo 11 spaceflight in a forum entitled,
“Apollo (11) and Dionysus (at Woodstock).” The forum was originally recorded on November 9,
1969 and rebroadcast as part of the New American Gazette radio program on March 1 1990. The
radio broadcast is introduced by host Marvin Kalb.
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
1
�MS113.0013 Transcript
Transcript Begins
ANNOUNCER: From Boston, the Ford Hall Forum presents the New American Gazette with
special guest host Marvin Kalb
[00:00:29]
MARVIN KALB: The year was 1969. On July sixteenth, nearly one million observers traveled
to Cape Kennedy to witness the launching of Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon. A
month later, on August fifteenth, 400,000 young people gathered in a cow pasture near
Woodstock, Vermont [sic], for a three-day music festival.
Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand long argued that human reason and intellect command our
moral code and lift us to the stars. Emotions and physical senses root us to the earth. The two
sides, she believed, reason versus emotion, represented the fundamental conflict of our age.
Now, the sixties had provided her with two stunning examples.
[00:01:18]
The best-selling author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged offered a fresh, startling, and
controversial opinion on the significance of Woodstock. In August 1969, Time magazine
reported that "Woodstock may well rank as one of the significant political and sociological
events of the age"; adding that Woodstock was "the stuff of which legends are made." Miss Rand
heartily disagreed.
Twenty years later opinions had shifted. Woodstock is now remembered as a great social
experiment, primeval and futuristic, and a brief demonstration of unity and cooperation. Miss
Rand died in 1982. Had Miss Rand lived until Woodstock's twentieth anniversary, it is doubtful
that she would have reformed her caustic view of the Age of Aquarius. Perhaps she would have
been comforted by the ensuing decade of greed and the emergence of yuppies from the former
love children of the sixties. Yet, that was her prediction of more than twenty years ago when she
concluded that these rebellious hippies were in fact no less traditional in their attitudes or beliefs
than their middle class parents.
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
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�MS113.0013 Transcript
[00:02:40]
In this program, she reveals her piercing wit, intellectual vigor and shrewd observations of an
American society that both attracted and repelled her, that delighted and infuriated her, that
expressed the highest goals of reason and the dark, wild chaos of the irrational emotions. On this
occasion, Miss Rand used her reason and wit to reassure her admirers and vanquish her foes
while demonstrating the philosophical principles of objectivism.
Stay with us for a special look back at two of the most significant events of the sixties as seen
through the eyes of Ayn Rand—Apollo 11 and Dionysus at Woodstock.
[00:03:37]
AYN RAND: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on July 16, 1969, one million
people, from all over the country, converged on Cape Kennedy, Florida, to witness the launching
of Apollo 11 that carried astronauts to the moon.
On August fifteenth, 300,000 people, from all over the country, converged on Bethel, New York,
near the town of Woodstock, to witness a rock music festival.
[00:04:12]
These two events were news, not philosophical theory. These were facts of our actual existence,
the kinds of facts—according to both modern philosophers and practical businessmen—that
philosophy has nothing to do with. But if one cares to understand the meaning of these two
events, to grasp their roots and their consequences, one will understand the power of philosophy
and learn to recognize the specific forms in which philosophical abstractions appear in our actual
existence.
[00:04:50]
The issue in this case is the alleged dichotomy of reason versus emotion. This dichotomy has
been presented in many variants in the history of philosophy, but its most colorfully eloquent
statement was given by Friedrich Nietzsche. In The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music,
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
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�MS113.0013 Transcript
Nietzsche claims that he observed two opposite elements in Greek tragedies, which he saw as
metaphysical principles inherent in the nature of reality. He named them after two Greek gods:
Apollo, the god of light, and Dionysus, the god of wine.
[00:05:36]
Apollo, in Nietzsche's metaphysics, is the symbol of beauty, order, wisdom, efficacy—though
Nietzsche equivocates about this last—that is, the symbol of reason. Dionysus is the symbol of
drunkenness or, rather, Nietzsche cites drunkenness as his identification of what Dionysus stands
for: wild, primeval feelings, orgiastic joy, the dark, the savage, the unintelligible element in man;
that is, the symbol of emotion.
[00:06:11]
Apollo, according to Nietzsche, is a necessary element, but an unreliable and thus inferior guide
to existence that gives man a superficial view of reality: the illusion of an orderly universe.
Dionysus is the free, unfettered spirit that offers man—by means of a mysterious intuition
induced by wine and drugs—a more profound vision of a different kind of reality, and is thus the
superior. And, indicating that Nietzsche knew clearly what he was talking about, even though he
chose to express it in a safely, drunkenly Dionysian manner, Apollo represents the principle of
individuality, while Dionysus leads man, quote, "into complete self-forgetfulness," unquote, and
into merging with the "oneness” of nature. Those who, at a superficial reading, take Nietzsche to
be an advocate of individualism, please note.
This much is true: reason is the faculty of an individual, to be exercised individually; and it is
only dark, irrational emotions, obliterating his mind, that can enable a man to melt, merge and
dissolve into a mob or a tribe. We may accept Nietzsche's symbols, but not his estimate of their
respective values, nor the metaphysical necessity of a reason/emotion dichotomy.
[00:07:55]
It is not true that reason and emotion are irreconcilable antagonists or that emotions are a wild,
unknowable, ineffable element in men. But this is what emotions become for those who do not
care to know what they feel, and who attempt to subordinate reason to their emotions. For every
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
4
�MS113.0013 Transcript
variant of such attempts—as well as for their consequences—the image of Dionysus is an
appropriate symbol.
[00:08:26]
Symbolic figures are a valuable adjunct to philosophy. They help men to integrate and bear in
mind the essential meaning of complex issues. Apollo and Dionysus represent the fundamental
conflict of our age. And for those who may regard them as floating abstractions, reality has
offered two perfect, fiction-like dramatizations of these abstract symbols—at Cape Kennedy and
at Woodstock.
[00:09:02]
They were perfect in every respect demanded of serious fiction—they concretized the essentials
of the two principles, in action, in a pure, extreme, isolated form. The fact that the spacecraft was
called Apollo is merely a coincidence, but a helpful coincidence.
(laughter)
If you want to know fully what the conflict of reason versus irrational emotion means—in fact,
in reality, on earth—keep these two events in mind. It means Apollo 11 versus the Woodstock
festival. Remember also that you are asked to make a choice between these two, and that the
whole weight of today's culture is being used to push you to the side of and into the mud of
Woodstock.
In my article "Apollo 11," in The Objectivist, September 1969, I discussed the meaning and the
greatness of the moon landing. And parenthetically, for those interested in the subject, I would
very much recommend that you do read that article because in today's lecture I will not have the
time to discuss in detail both events. And therefore, if you want my discussion and my analysis
of Apollo 11, please read it in the September issue of my magazine The Objectivist. I shall
merely quote the essential point of that article. Quote, "No one could doubt that we had seen an
achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being, an achievement of reason, of logic, of
mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality. The most confirmed evader in the
worldwide audience could not escape the fact that no feelings, wishes, urges, instincts or lucky
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
5
�MS113.0013 Transcript
conditioning could have achieved this incomparable feat—that we were watching the embodied
concretization of a single faculty of man: his rationality," closed quote.
[00:11:20]
This was the meaning and motive of the overwhelming worldwide response to Apollo 11,
whether the cheering crowds knew it consciously or not—and most of them did not. It was the
response of people starved for the sight of an achievement, for a vision of man the hero. This was
the motive that drew one million people to Cape Kennedy for the launching. Those people were
not a stampeding herd nor a manipulated mob; they did not wreck the Florida communities, they
did not devastate the countryside, they did not throw themselves, like whining thugs, at the
mercy of their victims; they did not create any victims.
[00:12:04]
They came as responsible individuals able to project the reality of two or three days ahead and to
provide for their own needs.
(laughter)
There were people of every age, creed, color, educational level and economic status. They lived
and slept in tents or in their cars, some of them for several days, in great discomfort and
unbearable heat. They did it gamely, cheerfully, gaily. They projected a general feeling of
confident goodwill, the bond of a common enthusiasm. They created a public spectable—
spectacle of responsible privacy. And they departed as they had come, without benefit of press
agents.
(laughter)
[00:13:04]
The best account of the nature of the general feeling was given to me by an intelligent young
woman of my acquaintance. She went to see the parade of the astronauts when they came to New
York. For a few brief moments, she stood on a street corner and waved to them as they went by.
Quote, "It was so wonderful," she told me, "People didn't want to leave after the parade had
passed. They just stood there, talking about it, talking to strangers, smiling. It was so wonderful
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
6
�MS113.0013 Transcript
to feel, for once, that people aren't vicious, that one doesn't have to suspect them, that we have
something good in common," unquote.
This is the essence of a genuine feeling of human brotherhood – the brotherhood of values. This
is the only authentic form of unity among men, and only values can achieve it.
[00:14:05]
There was virtually no comment in the press on the meaning of the popular response to Apollo
11. The comments, for the most part, were superficial, perfunctory, mainly statistical. There was
a brief flurry of nonsense about unity, as if it were some mysteriously causeless emotional
primary, with suggestions about directing that—this unity to such inspiring goals as the crusades
against poverty, air pollution, wilderness desecration, even urban transportation. Then the subject
was dropped, and the Apollo 11 story was dropped as of no further significance.
[00:14:50]
One of the paradoxes of our age is the fact that the intellectuals, the politicians and all the sundry
voices that choke, like asthma, the throat of our communications media have never gasped and
stuttered so loudly about their devotion to the public good and about the people's will as the
supreme criterion of value. And never have they been so grossly indifferent to the people. The
reason, obviously, is that collectivist slogans serve as a rationalization for those who intend, not
to follow the people, but to rule it. There is, however, a deeper reason. The most profound breach
in this country is not between the rich and the poor, but between the people and the intellectuals.
In their view of life, the American people are predominantly Apollonian; the mainstream
intellectuals are Dionysian.
[00:15:52]
This means that people are reality-oriented, commonsense-oriented, and technology-oriented.
The intellectual calls this materialistic and middle-class.
(laughter)
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The intellectuals are emotion-oriented and seek, in panic, to—an escape from a reality they are
unable to deal with, and from a technological civilization that ignores their feelings.
The flight of Apollo 11 brought this out into the open. With rare exceptions, the intellectuals
resented its triumph. A two-page survey of their reactions, published by the New York Times on
July twenty-first, was an almost unanimous spread of denigrations and denunciations—see my
article "Apollo 11." What they denounced was technology what they resented was achievement
and its source, reason.
[00:17:00]
The same attitude, with rare exceptions, was displayed by the popular commentators, who are
not the makers, but the products and the weather vanes of the prevailing intellectual trends.
Walter Cronkite of CBS was a notable exception. But Eric Sevareid of CBS was typical of the
trend. On July fifteenth, the eve of the launching, he broadcast from Cape Kennedy a
commentary that was reprinted in Variety, July twenty-third, quote: "In Washington and
elsewhere, the doubts concern future flights, their number, their cost and their benefits, as if the
success of Apollo 11 were already assured. We are a people who hate failure. It's un-American.
It is a fair guess that failure of Apollo 11 would not curtail future space programs but re-energize
them," unquote.
Please consider these two sentences: "We are a people who hate failure. It's un-American." In the
context of the rest, this was not intended as a compliment, though it should have been; it was
intended as sarcasm. But, who doesn't hate failure? Should one love it? Is there a nation on earth
that doesn't hate it? Surely, one would have to say that failure is un-British or un-French or unChinese.
(laughter)
I can think of only one nation to whom this would not apply—failure is not un-Russian. It—
(laughter and applause)
I mean this in a sense which is deeper than politics, philosophically.
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[00:19:06]
But what Mr. Sevareid had in mind was not failure. It was the American dedication to success
that he was deriding. It is true that no other nation as a whole is as successful as America, which
is America's greatest virtue. But success is never automatically immediate. Passive resignation is
not a typical American trait; Americans seldom give up. It is this precondition of success, the
"try, try again" precept, that Mr. Sevareid was undercutting.
[00:19:44]
He went on to say that if Apollo 11 succeeded, quote, "the pressure to divert these great sums of
money to inner space, terra firma and inner man will steadily grow," unquote. He went on to
discuss the views of men who believe, quote, "that this adventure, however majestic its drama, is
only one more act of escape, that it is man once again running away from himself and his real
needs, that we are approaching the bright side of the moon with the dark side of ourselves."
(applause)
Do you agree with that? I don't. Continuing the quote, "We know that the human brain will soon
know more about the composition of the moon than it knows about the human brain, and why
human beings do what they do," unquote.
This last sentence is true, and one would think that the inescapable conclusion is that man should
use his brain to study human nature by the same rational methods he has used so successfully to
study inanimate matter. But not according to Mr. Sevareid; he reaches a different conclusion,
quote, "It is possible that the divine spark in man will consume him in flames that the big brain
will prove our ultimate flaw, like the dinosaur's big body, that the metal plaque Armstrong and
Aldrin expect to place on the moon will become man's epitaph," unquote. This means that the
solution is for man to give up his big brain.
[00:21:40]
On July twentieth, while Apollo 11 was approaching the moon, and the world was waiting
breathlessly, Mr. Sevareid found it appropriate to broadcast the following remark: "No matter
how great this event," he said, "nothing much has changed,” quote, “Man still puts his pants on,
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one leg at a time, he still argues with his wife," unquote, et cetera. Well, each to his own
hierarchy of values and of importance.
(laughter and applause)
On the same day, David Brinkley of NBC observed that since men can now see and hear
everything directly on television, by sensory-perceptual means, as he stressed, commentators are
no longer needed at all. This implies that perceived events will somehow provide men
automatically with the appropriate conceptual conclusions. The truth is that the more men
perceive, the more they need the help of commentators, but of commentators who are able to
provide a conceptual analysis.
[00:23:08]
According to a fan letter I received from Canada, the United States TV commentaries during
Apollo 11's flight were mild compared to those on Canadian television. Quote, "We listened to
an appalling panel of experts disparage the project as a mere technological cleverness by a
stupid, pretentious speck of dust in the cosmos. They were also very concerned about the inflated
American ego if the voyage succeeded. One almost got the impression that they would be greatly
relieved if the mission failed," unquote. Such are today's intellectuals. Or the majority of them.
What is the actual motive behind this attitude, the unadmitted, subconscious motive? An
intelligent American newsman, Harry Reasoner of CBS, named it inadvertently. I had the
impression that he did not realize the importance of his own statement. Many voices, at the time,
were declaring that the success of Apollo 11 would destroy the poetic-romantic glamour of the
moon, its fascinating mystery, its appeal to lovers and to human imagination. Harry Reasoner
summed it up by saying simply, quietly, a little sadly, that if the moon is found to be made of
green cheese, it will be a blow to science. But if it isn't, it will be a blow to, quote, "those of us
whose life is not so well organized," unquote.
(laughter)
[00:25:01]
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And this is the whole shabby secret: to some men, the sight of an achievement is a reproach, a
reminder that their own lives are irrational and that there is no loophole, no escape from reason
and reality. Their resentment is the cornered Dionysian element baring its teeth.
[00:25:24]
What Harry Reasoner's statement implied was the fact that only the vanguard of the Dionysian
cohorts is made up of wild, rampaging irrationalists, openly proclaiming their hatred of reason,
dripping wine and blood. The bulk of Dionysus's strength, his grassroots following, consists of
sedate little souls who never commit any major crime against reason, who merely indulge their
petty irrational whims once in a while, covertly, and, overtly, seek a balance of power, a
compromise between whims and reality. But reason is an absolute. In order to betray it, one does
not have to dance naked in the streets with wine leaves in one's hair; one betrays it merely by
sneaking down the back stairs. Then, some day, one finds oneself unable to grasp why one feels
no joy at the scientific discoveries that prolong human life or why the naked dancers are prancing
all over one's own body.
Such are the Dionysian followers.
[00:26:44]
For a reunion with wildness, for intergalactic travel. The goal, the ideal, the salvation and the
ecstasy have been achieved by 300,000 people wallowing in the mud on an excrement-strewn
hillside near Woodstock.
(applause)
Their name for the experience of travel unaccompanied by life, to peripheries untouched by time
and space, is LSD trips.
[00:27:31]
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair did not take place in Woodstock. Like everything else about
that event, its title was a phony—(laughter)—an attempt to cash in on the artistic reputation of
the Woodstock community. The fair took place on an empty thousand-acre pasture leased by the
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promoters from a local farmer. In response to $200,000 worth of publicity and advertising,
300,000 hippies showed up for the occasion. These figures are from the New York Times; some
sources place the attendance estimate higher.
According to Newsweek, the three-day Woodstock fair was different from the usual pop festival
from the outset. Quote, “It was not just a concert but a tribal gathering, expressing all the ideas of
the new generation—communal living away from the cities, getting high, digging arts, clothes
and craft exhibits, and listening to the songs of revolution," unquote. The article quotes one of
the promoters as declaring, quote, "People will all be doing—going into their own thing. This is
not just music, but a conglomeration of everything involved in the new culture," unquote.
[00:28:56]
So it was. No living, eating or sanitary facilities were provided. The promoters claimed that they
had not expected so large a crowd. Newsweek describes the conditions as follows: "Festival food
supplies were almost immediately exhausted and water coming from wells dug into the area
stopped flowing or came up impure. A heavy rain Friday night turned the amphitheater into a
quagmire and the concession area into a mud-hole. Throngs of wet, sick and wounded hippies
trekked to impromptu hospital tents suffering from colds, sore throats, broken bones, barbedwire cuts and nail-puncture wounds. Festival doctors called it a health emergency, and fifty
additional doctors were flown in from New York City to meet the crisis," unquote.
[00:29:49]
According to the New York Times, August eighteenth, when the rainstorm came, quote, "at least
80,000 young people sat or stood in front of the stage and shouted obscenities at the darkened
skies—(laughter and applause)—as trash rolled down the muddy hillside with the runoff of the
rain. Others took shelter in dripping tents, lean-tos, cars and trucks. Many boys and girls
wandered through the storm nude, red mud clinging to their bodies," unquote. Drugs were used,
sold, shared or given away during the entire festival. Eyewitnesses claim that ninety-nine percent
of the crowd smoked marijuana, but heroin, hashish, LSD and other stronger drugs were peddled
openly. The nightmare convulsions of so-called “bad trips” were a common occurrence. One
young man died, apparently from an overdose of heroin.
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[00:30:54]
The Newsweek report concludes with, quote: "The promoters had hired members of the Hog
Farm, a New Mexico hippie commune, to peacefully police the fair. At week's end near the Hog
Farm campsite, a hard core of crazies barked like dogs and freaked out in a bizarre circle dance
lit by flashing strobe lights. The songs seemed to sum up what the young Agrarians believed,
despite all misadventures, the festival was all about—'Now, now, now is all there is. Love is all
there is. Love is. Love,'" unquote.
(applause)
Who paid for this love feast? Apparently, the unloved ones—(laughter and applause)—those
who know that there is more than the now for a human being, and that without it, even the now is
not possible. The citizens of Bethel, the nearest community, were the victims, abandoned by their
law-enforcing agencies. These victims were neither bums nor millionaires; they were farmers
and small businessmen, who worked hard to earn their living. Their stories, reported in the New
York Times, August twentieth, sound like those of the survivors of a foreign invasion.
(laughter)
[00:32:35]
Richard C. Joyner, who operate—the operator of the local post office and general store on Route
17B, quote, "said that the youngsters at the festival had virtually taken over his property,
camping on his lawn, making fires on his patio and using the backyard as a latrine. Clarence W.
Townsend, who runs a 150-acre dairy farm was shaken by the ordeal. 'We had thousands of cars
all over our fields,' he said. 'There were kids all over the place. They made a human cesspool of
our property and drove through the cornfields. There's not a fence left on the place. They just
tore them up and used them for firewood.' 'My pond is a swamp,' said Royden Gabriele, another
farmer. 'I've got no fences and they used my field as a latrine. They picked corn and camped all
over the place. They just landed wherever they could. We pulled 30 of them out of the hay mow
smoking pot. If they come back next year I don't know what I'll do. If I can't sell, I'll just burn the
place down,'" unquote.
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No love or thought was given to these victims by the unsanitary apostles of love. And some day
the world will discover that without thought there can be no love. Furthermore—
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: You're listening to Ayn Rand on a special edition of the Ford Hall Forum's
New American Gazette
[00:34:27]
AYN RAND: Furthermore, the universal loving was not extended by the promoters of the
festival even to one another. Quote, "In the aftermath of Woodstock," writes the New York
Times, September ninth, "as the euphoria of the three days of peace and music dies out, the tales
of the problems, the bickering, the power struggles and the diverse philosophies of the four
young businessmen are coming out," unquote. The promoters were four young men, all of them
in their twenties. One of them, the heir to a drugstore products fortune, pledged his fortune to
cover the festival's losses. Inasmuch as the Woodstock hordes broke down the ticket-selling
procedure, and half the people got in without paying the seven dollar admission, the fair was a
financial disaster, according to the young heir who said, in an earlier story, that his debts might
reach two million dollars.
[00:35:23]
Now the four promoters are splitting up and fighting over control of the Woodstock Ventures
Corporation. One of them was described as, quote, "a hippie who keeps one foot in the financial
world at all times and as a boy who eschews shoes, shirts and barbers, but who likes chauffeured
Cadillacs and overseas jet travel and plunges in the stock market," unquote. All of them,
apparently, have connections with several large establishment-oriented corporations and Wall
Street investment firms who are interested in cashing in on the youth market. One of these four
stated openly, quote: "Maybe the best way to define the Underground Industrial Complex is
materialistic people of the underground trying to make money off of a generation of underground
kids who feel they aren't materialistic," unquote.
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[00:36:24]
The problems that plagued these promoters, quote, "before, during and after the festival reflect
the difficulties in merging the ideas of making money off the kids and trying to let the kids
believe that a rock festival, for example, is, as one of them likes to put it, 'a groovy meeting of
the tribes, a part of the revolution,"' unquote.
If this is disgusting, there is something more disgusting still—the psychology of those hundreds
of thousands of underground kids, who, in justice, deserve no better.
(applause)
Under the title "Woodstock: Like It Was," the New York Times, August twenty-fifth, published a
lengthy interview with six young people who had attended the festival. The interview gives only
their first name—first names. Five boys: Steve, Lindsey, Bill, Jimmy and Dan, and one girl,
Judy. Most of them were college students; the youngest one was "a sixteen-year-old junior at one
of the city's better private schools. All were from comfortable middle-class backgrounds. I shall
quote some of this interview. It is a remarkable psychological document.
Quote:
[Rand reads a passage from the New York Times interview.]
Question: Why did you want to go to the festival?
Lindsey: It was the music. I wanted to go because of the music. That was the only
reason.
Judy: They had the most fantastic line-up of stars that I've ever heard about,
more than any place I've ever heard of, better than Newport.
Question: Did you have any idea where you'd sleep or what there would be to
eat?
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Judy: Well, we drove down in a caravan of two cars. There were four girls and
two guys. But we were supposed to meet 20 or 30 other people who were driving
down from New Hampshire and they were supposed to bring a tent, but we never
met each other. We just scattered.
Question: What about food?
Judy: We brought a bag of carrots. And some soda.
(laughter)
Question: Did you expect to be able to buy more there?
Judy: We never really thought about it.
Unquote.
[00:38:59]
RAND: When they were asked what they felt at the scene, Judy answered, quote, "I just had a
feeling that, wow, there are so many of us, we really have power. I'd always felt like such a
minority. But I thought, wow, we're a majority; it felt like that. I felt, here's the answer to anyone
who calls us deviates."
(laughter)
[00:39:26]
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Question: Was that before you heard any music?
Judy: I never made it to the concert. I never heard any music at all.
(laughter)
Question: The whole weekend?
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Judy: Yeah. The whole weekend.
(laughter)
Unquote.
RAND: Further, all the participants stressed a sense of what they called community.
[00:39:53]
Quote:
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Steve: Everyone came there to be together. Not that everyone would cease to be
an individual, but everyone came there to be able to express their life style.
Question: Was there a lot of sharing?
A voice: Everything was shared.
Bill: I was sitting in a group of people and it was hot and the sun was beating
down. All of a sudden you'd have a box of Cocoa Puffs hit you in the side. They'd
say, 'Take a handful and pass it on.' And like Saturday afternoon we were sitting
there and this watermelon came by—
(laughter)
RAND: You haven't heard anything yet.
(laughter)
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
—and this watermelon came by with three mouthfuls taken out of it.
(laughter)
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You were supposed to take a bite and pass it on—
(laughter)
—because some guy three rows over said, 'Give those people some watermelon.’
Unquote.
[00:41:15]
RAND: Further, all the panel participants carried some kind of drug to the festival—mostly
marijuana. Quote, "Not infrequently drugs were given away by young people eager to share.
What couldn't be had free could be bought from dealers roaming freely through the crowd. Most
of the participants regarded the drugs as an essential part of the scene."
[00:41:36]
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Question: How much of the time were you people up there stoned; that is, deeply
drugged?
Lindsey: About 102%.
(laughter)
Question: Could you have had the festival without the drugs?
Steve: I'm sure there were people there you would have had trouble with if there
had not been drugs there.
RAND: One of the boys remarked that some of the older ones were using cocaine.
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Question: The older ones? How old?
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Judy: About twenty-four or twenty-six.
Unquote.
[00:42:17]
RAND: When they were asked what they wanted to be in the future, they answered as follows:
Quote:
[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Jimmy: All my life I've had just about everything I want. And I have to have
whatever I want for the rest of my life, except from now on I have to begin to think
of how to provide it for myself. And I don't want to work because I can't have
everything and do everything I want if I have to stay in the same place from nine
to five.
(laughter)
Judy: I'm going to try everything at least once. I lived on a communal farm for a
month on the Cape. And, well, I liked it and I really enjoyed staying there and I've
always wanted to go back and try this thing again, grow tomatoes and things.
(laughter)
Question: Do you want a family?
Judy: One child. Just, you know, to procreate. But I don't want a family because I
don't want to get into that much responsibility. I want to be able to move. I want
to be able to leave at any time. I don't want that much restriction.
Unquote.
RAND: Further in the interview, quote:
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[Continues reading from the New York Times interview.]
Question: Was sex an important part of the scene at Woodstock?
Dan: It was just a part. I don't know if it was an important part or not.
Steve: In any society of 500,000 people over the course of three days you're
going to have sex, let's face it.
Jimmy: They were no more free or less free in Woodstock than they are any other
place.
Dan: There was some society to what people did. I mean, they waited until night.
(laughter)
Question: You mean there were certain standards of decorum?
Dan: I think there were, yes.
(laughter)
People still have some reservations. Some. Not as many.
Close quote.
RAND: Had enough?
(laughter)
[00:44:21]
Has it ever occurred to you that it is not an accident, but the psychological mechanism of
projection that has made people of this kind choose to call their opponents pigs?
(applause)
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These are the young people whom the press is hailing as a new culture and as a movement of
great moral significance—the same press and the same intellectuals who dismissed or denounced
Apollo 11 as mere technology.
Of the publications I have read, Newsweek was the most fastidious in regard to Woodstock: it
offered no praise. The New York Times started by denouncing the festival in an editorial entitled
"Nightmare in the Catskills," August eighteenth, but reversed itself the next day and published an
editorial with a softened tone.
[00:45:30]
Time magazine went whole hog.
(laughter)
It published an essay under the title "The Message of History's Biggest Happening," August
twenty-ninth. This included such statements as, quote: "As the moment when the special culture
of US youth of the sixties openly displayed its strength, appeal and power, it may well rank as
one of the significant political and sociological events of the age," unquote. And, quote: "The
spontaneous community of youth that was created at Bethel was the stuff of which legends are
made," unquote.
Life magazine published a special edition devoted to the Woodstock festival. The best skills that
technology has created in the field of color photography was used to fill that issue with beautiful
pictures of scummy young savages.
(laughter and applause)
[00:46:41]
The hippies are right in one respect: the culture of today's establishment is done for, it is rotted
through and through, and rebelling against it is like rebelling against a dead horse.
The hippies are wrong, however, when they fancy themselves to be rebels. They are the distilled
essence of the establishment's culture, they are the embodiment of its soul. They are the
personified ideal of generations of crypto-Dionysians now leaping into the open.
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Among the various types of today's younger generation, the hippies are the most docile
conformists. Unable to generate a thought of their own, they have accepted the philosophical
beliefs of their elders as unchallengeable dogma, just as, in earlier generations, the weakest
among the young conformed to the fundamentalist view of the Bible.
[00:47:48]
The hippies were taught by their parents, their neighbors, their tabloids and their college
professors that faith, instinct and emotion are superior to reason. And they obeyed. They were
taught that material concerns are evil, that the State or the Lord will provide, that the lilies of the
field do not toil. And they obeyed. They were taught that love, indiscriminate love, for one's
fellow man is the highest virtue. And they obeyed. They were taught that the merging of one's
self with a herd, a tribe or a community is the noblest way for man to live. And they obeyed.
There isn't a philosophical idea of today's establishment which they have not accepted and which
they do not share.
[00:48:43]
When they discovered that this philosophy did not work—because, in fact, it cannot work—the
hippies had neither the wit nor the courage to challenge it. They found, instead, an outlet for their
impotent frustration by accusing their elders of hypocrisy, as if hypocrisy were the only obstacle
to the realization of their ideals. And, left blindly, helplessly lobotomized in the face of an
inexplicable reality that is not amenable to their feelings, they have no recourse but to the
shouting of obscenities at anything that frustrates their whims, at men or at a rainy sky,
indiscriminately, with no concept of the difference. It is typical of today's culture that these
exponents of seething, raging hostility are taken as advocates of love.
[00:49:43]
Avowed anti-materialists whose only manifestation of rebellion and of individualism takes the
material form of the clothes they choose to wear, are a pretty ridiculous spectacle. Of any type of
nonconformity, this is the easiest to practice, and the safest. But even in this issue, there is a
special psychological component. Observe the hippies' choice of clothing. It is not intended to
make them look attractive, but to make them look grotesque. It is not intended to evoke
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admiration, but to evoke mockery and pity. One does not make oneself look like a caricature
unless one intends one's appearance to plead, Please don't take me seriously.
And there is a kind of malicious wink, a contemptuous sneer in the public voices acclaiming the
hippies as heroes. The hippies are a desperate herd looking for a master, to be taken over by
anyone; anyone who would tell them how to live, without demanding the effort of thinking.
Theirs is the mentality ready for a Fuhrer.
(applause)
[00:51:16]
The hippies are the living demonstration of what it means to give up reason and to rely on one's
primeval instincts, urges, intuitions, and whims. With such tools, they are unable to grasp even
what is needed to satisfy their wishes; for example, the wish to have a festival. Where would
they be without the charity of the local squares who fed them? Where would they be without the
50 doctors, rushed from New York to save their lives, without the automobiles that brought them
to the festival, without the soda pop and beer they substituted for water, without the helicopter
that brought the entertainers, without all the achievements of the technological civilizations they
denounce? Left to their own devices, they literally didn't know enough to come in out of the rain.
(laughter and applause)
[00:52:24]
Their hysterical incantations of worship of the now were sincere. The immediate moment is all
that exists for the perceptual-level, concrete-bound, animal-like mentality because to grasp
tomorrow is an enormous abstraction, an intellectual feat open only to the conceptual—that is,
the rational—level of consciousness. Hence, their state of stagnant, resigned passivity. If no one
comes to help them, they will sit in the mud. If a box of Cocoa Puffs hits them in the side, they'll
eat it. If a communally chewed watermelon comes by, they'll chew it.
(laughter)
If a marijuana cigarette is stuck into their mouth, they'll smoke it. If not, not. How can one act,
when the next day or hour is an impenetrable black hole in one's mind?
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[00:53:20]
And how can one desire or feel? The obvious truth is that these Dionysian desire-worshipers do
not really desire anything. All of them are seeking desperately for somebody who will provide
them with something they will be able to enjoy or to desire. Desires, too, are a product of the
conceptual faculty.
But there is one emotion which is not, and which the hippies do experience intensely—chronic
fear. If you have seen any of them on television, you have seen it leaping at you from the screen.
Fear is their brand, their hallmark. Fear is the special vibration by which they claim to recognize
one another.
(applause)
[00:54:15]
I have mentioned the nature of the bond uniting the admirers of Apollo 11, the brotherhood of
values. The hippies, too, have a brotherhood, but of a different kind; it is the brotherhood of fear.
It is fear that drives them to seek the warmth, the protection, the safety of a herd. When they
speak of merging their selves into a greater whole, it is their fears that they hope to drown in the
undemanding waves of unfastidious human bodies. And what they hope to fish out of that pool is
the momentary illusion of an unearned personal significance.
[00:54:57]
But all discussions or arguments about the hippies are almost superfluous in the face of one
overwhelming fact—most of the hippies are drug addicts. Is that—
(applause)
I will assume that your blame is directed at the hippies because this is a fact. I didn't create it. I
object to it, also.
(inaudible)
(applause)
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
24
�MS113.0013 Transcript
Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state, from a reality
that one cannot deal with, from an atrophying mind one can never fully destroy? If Apollonian
reason were unnatural to man, and Dionysian intuition brought him closer to nature and truth, the
apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self-confident men do not seek
to get stoned.
(applause)
Drug addiction is the attempt to obliterate one's consciousness, the quest for a deliberately
induced insanity. As such, it is so obscene an evil that any doubt about the moral character of its
practitioners is itself an obscenity.
(applause)
Such is the nature of the conflict of Apollo versus Dionysus.
[00:57:01]
You have all heard the old bromide to the effect that man has his eyes on the stars and his feet in
the mud. It is usually taken to mean that man's reason and his physical senses are the element
pulling him down to the mud, while his mystical, supra-rational emotions are the element that
lifts him to the stars.
[00:57:27]
This is the grimmest inversion of many in the course of mankind's history. But, last summer,
reality offered you a literal dramatization of the truth. It is man's irrational emotions that bring
him down to the mud; it is man's reason that lifts him to the stars.
Thank you.
(applause)
ANNOUNCER: You've been listening to a special edition of the New American Gazette. Ayn
Rand was recorded at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston on November 9, 1969, by WGBH FM in
Boston.
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
25
�MS113.0013 Transcript
The New American Gazette is produced for the Ford Hall Forum by Deborah Stavro. Postproduction engineer is Brian Sabo. Major funding for the New American Gazette is provided by
Digital Equipment Corporation.
The programs are produced in cooperation with the nation's eight presidential libraries, the
National Archives and Northeastern University. If you'd like a cassette of this program, send a
check for $12 to the Ford Hall Forum, 271 Huntington Avenue, Suite 240, Boston,
Massachusetts, 02115.
That’s the Ford Hall Forum, 271 Huntington Avenue, suite 240, Boston Massachusetts, 02115.
Join us again for the New American Gazette.
END OF RECORDING
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | archives@suffolk.edu
26
�
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The New American Gazette: Ayn Rand “Apollo (11) and Dionysus (at Woodstock)," at the Ford Hall Forum [transcript]
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Ford Hall Forum: Transcript of Gloria Steinem Forum
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
Title: Ford Hall Forum: Gloria Steinem speech “Moving Beyond Words,” at Ford Hall Forum,
May 12, 1994.
Recording Date: May 12, 1994
Speakers: Gloria Steinem, Sally Jackson
Item Information: Ford Hall Forum: Gloria Steinem discusses “Moving Beyond Words,” at
Ford Hall Forum. Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1908-2013 (MS113.3.1, item 0173), Moakley
Archive, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Digital Versions: audio recording and transcript available at http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net
Copyright Information: Copyright © 1994 Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Summary:
Transcription of a Ford Hall Forum that featured Gloria Steinem, an American feminist,
journalist and co-founder of Ms. magazine. Steinem reads excerpts from her book Moving
Beyond Words and discusses the state of the women's movement and offers possibilities for the
future, focusing on such issues as economic empowerment, women politicians, and life
affirmations.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
Transcript Begins
SALLY JACKSON: Good evening and welcome to the Ford Hall Forum. I’m Sally Jackson
and I’ll be your moderator for this evening. Introducing Gloria Steinem is a daunting task, what
to leave in, what to leave out. Let me speak directly to the women in this audience under the age
of 30. If you are not at this moment worrying about your typing speed, you have Gloria Steinem
to thank.
(laughter and applause)
[00:00:33]
When you look in the newspaper for a job and there is no section called, “Help Wanted:
Female,” you have Gloria Steinem to thank.
(applause)
If considering law school, medical school or the Supreme Court seem possible, you have Gloria
Steinem to thank.
(applause)
[00:00:54]
She has been instrumental in helping to change not just how we’re treated and thought of and
how we’re paid but how we feel about ourselves. Through her writings, her speaking, her
creating Ms. magazine, and perhaps most of all her example, she has helped make us all who we
are today, more enlightened, confident, liberated, and wiser women and men. Gloria Steinem is
the author of several books including Revolution from Within, a book on self-esteem, and the just
published and available for sale this evening, Moving Beyond Words.
I am truly delighted to present Gloria Steinem.
(applause)
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:01:54]
GLORIA STEINEM: It’s true that I’m of the generation that was supposed to learn how to
type. And I was so worried that I would end up typing that I made it a point not to learn how to
type, which has penalized me ever since. So you see, whether we conform or fight it, the “it” is
still the problem until we humanize or overthrow it. Depending on the state of your patience this
evening you can pick your verb. It’s nice to hear that our presence in the world has been noticed
or makes a difference. But we also know that a movement is only composed of people moving.
And though the absence of any one of us in this room would change the world profoundly, in my
absence the movement would go right on. It is populist. It is about our lives. It is about justice,
the future, looking at the world as if everyone mattered, overthrowing a few little things like
patriarchy, racism, hierarchy, monotheism, a few little things like that.
[00:03:02]
And thanks to your generosity of spirit in taking time out of your busy lives tonight to take a
chance on a stranger. Although I must say I don’t feel like a stranger. I bet a lot of us has been in
the same room before or in the same march or in the same something. How many of us have
been together before?
That’s a kind of perfect proportion, you know. That’s about, I don’t know maybe a fifth. So that
means there are old friends but there are also new friends. So we’re expanding at the same time.
But anyway, thanks to your generosity in spending this time we have something very precious,
which is an hour or so in this room together. So here’s my plan. If everything goes well each of
us, me included, will leave here with one new fact, one new feeling of support, a sense of
community, revolutionary colleagues, subversive organizing idea. And in order to make that
happen we can only do it together.
[00:04:21]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
So I hope that during what is usually called the question and answer period you will feel quite
okay about not just asking questions but also giving us answers, we could all use some, about
making organizing announcements of upcoming trouble-making meetings you think this group
should know about, saying where the bodies are buried locally. If you’d rather not say it in
public, just pass me a note. I’m self-employed. I’ll say anything.
(laughter)
And truly to turn this into an organizing meeting. If we’re here we share values in some way. It’s
a chance for us to not just have a discussion but on the way out look around and see two or three
people you don’t know, introduce yourselves, say what you’re doing, what you care about. You
could leave here with a new job, a new friend, a new love affair. Anything could happen.
[00:05:25]
And selfishly I look forward most of all to that period because it gets—it means that I learn
something. I just came from Washington, which was the first city on my book tour. And I
learned from audiences there everything from the fact that women had put together a softball
team called the Outrageous Acts, average age 44.4 years, and perfectly dignified women came
up and said, “I play second base”, to the fact that there is a 40-day hunger strike in progress to
eliminate—to get the government to eliminate the School of the Americas, which is the place
where, as you probably know, foreign police forces and intelligence forces are trained, often in
torture and in very undemocratic techniques.
And these women are courageously out there in an, to me, unpublicized hunger strike trying to
make sure that our government finally eliminates this school, which is responsible not only for
many of the atrocities in Latin America but also for training the very police force in Haiti that we
are now trying to oust. So think what we could learn from each other.
[00:06:54]
I’m going to—this is supposed to be partly reading and partly lecture. So I’m going to read from
this book at the beginning, at the end—and at the end and speak extemporaneously in between.
The first thing that I’d like to read to you is a little portion if—of, “What If Freud Were Phyllis?”
�MS113.0173 Transcript
which is going to be a challenge to the signers. And then I’d like to talk about the other—some
of the other parts of that essay. Then a few other new ideas, or there’s no new idea on earth but
growing ideas. And then a reading at the end.
(reading from her book Moving Beyond Words)
It’s important to understand that when Phyllis Freud was growing up in Vienna, women were
considered superior because of their ability to give birth. From the family parlor to the great
matriarchal institutions of politics and religion, this was a uniform belief .
Though she was a genius who was to tower above all others in enlightenment she was of course
a product of her time. Women’s superior position in society was so easily mistaken for an
immutable fact of life that males had developed exaggerated versions of such inevitable but now
somewhat diminished conditions as womb envy. Indeed, these beliefs in women’s natural right to
dominate were the very pillars of Western matriarchal civilization, impossible to weaken without
endangering the whole edifice.
[00:08:40]
At the drop of a hat wise women would explain that while men might dabble imitatively in the
arts they could never become truly great painters, sculptors, musicians, poets or anything else
that demanded originality for they lacked a womb, the very source of originality.
(laughter)
I should tell you that everything in here is real. It’s just reversed. There’s not a word here that he
didn’t say and you’ll find the real quotes in the footnotes.
[00:09:09]
Similarly, since men had only odd, castrated breasts, which created no sustenance, they might
become family cooks, provided they followed recipes, of course. But certainly could never
become great chefs, vintners, herbalists, nutritionists, or anything else that required a flare for
food, a knowledge of nutrition or an instinct for gustatory nuance.
And because childbirth caused women to use the medical system more than men did—
�MS113.0173 Transcript
—True, of course. I hope that the Clinton remembers this.
[00:09:41]
Making childbirth its natural focus there was little point in encouraging young men to become
physicians, surgeons, researchers, or anything other than nurses and other, low-paid healthcare
helpers.
Even designing their own clothes could be left to men only at risk of repetitive results. When
allowed to dress themselves they seldom could get beyond an envy of wombs and female genitals,
which restricted them to an endless succession of female sexual symbols. Thus the open buttonto-neck V of men’s jackets was a well-known recapitulation of the V of the female genitalia. The
knot in men’s ties replicated the clitoris while the long ends of the tie were clearly meant to
represent the labia. As for men’s bow ties they were the clitoris erecta in all its glory.
(laughter)
All these were, to use Phyllis Freud’s technical term, representations.
Now just in case you think I made these up I want to read you a Freudian quote. “In her
unconscious envy of the penis many a woman adorns herself with feathers, sequins, furs,
glistening silver and gold ornaments that hang down in what psychoanalysts call representations
of the penis.”
[00:11:01]
And here’s—and here are some things that Freud said were phallic symbols: “sticks, umbrellas,
posts, trees, objects which share with the thing they represent the characteristic of penetrating
into the body and injuring. Thus sharp weapons of every kind, knives, daggers, spears, sabers,
but also firearms, rifles, pistols, revolvers, water taps, watering cans, fountains, pencils, pen
holders, nail files, hammers, the remarkable characteristic of the male organ, which enables it to
rise up in defiance of the laws of gravity”—(laughter)—“leads to its being represented
symbolically by balloons, flying machines,”—(laughter)—“and most recently zeppelin airships.”
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:11:58]
Back to the—back to Phyllis.
Of course one can understand why men would not choose to replicate their own symbols, chicken
necks, bits of rope, dumb bells, cigarillos, spring potatoes, kumquats, belfries and the like. But
instead would choose to admire the glories of cathedrals, stadia, and mammoth caves, the ocean,
the sky and other representations of the womb as well as to replicate the exquisite jewel of the
clitoris in ties that were the only interesting feature of male dress.
Nonetheless, you can also understand why stylish husbands of the well-to do or wife-hunting
young bachelors of the upper classes preferred to be dressed by talented female designers.
Clearly men’s imitativeness did not include modesty however. On the contrary.
As Phyllis Freud was to write decades later in “Masculinity,” her great synthesis of a lifetime of
learning about her male patients, quote, “The effect of womb envy has a share in the physical
vanity of men since they are bound to value their charms more highly as a late compensation for
their original sexual inferiority.” Unquote.
In addition, men’s laugh—lack of firsthand experience with birth and nonbirth—with choosing
between existence and nonexistence, conception and contraception, as women must do so wisely
for all of their fertile years—severely inhibited their potential for developing a sense of justice
and ethics. This tended to disqualify them as philosophers, whose purview was the “to be or not
be” issue, the deepest question of existence versus nonexistence.
Practically speaking, it also lessened men’s ability to make life-and-death judgments, which
explained their absence from decision-making positions in the judiciary, law enforcement, the
military, and other such professions.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
Finally, as Phyllis Freud’s clinical findings showed, males were inclined towards meanness and
backbiting, the inevitable result of having been cut off from the coveted sources of life and
fulfillment to which their mates had such ready access within their own bodies.
[00:14:19]
As she wrote, “The fact that men must be regarded as having little sense of justice is no doubt
related to the predominance of envy in their mental life for the demand for justice is a
modification of envy and lays down the conditions subject to which one can put envy aside.”
After life-giving wombs and sustenance-giving breasts, women’s ability to menstruate was the
most obvious proof of their superiority. Only women could bleed without injury or death; only
they rose from the gore each month like phoenix, only their—
(laughter)
—only their bodies were in tune with the ululations of the universe and the timing of the tides.
Without this innate lunar cycle, how could men have a sense of time, tides, space, seasons,
movement of the universe, or the ability to measure anything at all?
(laughter)
How could men mistress the skills of measurement necessary for mathematics, engineering,
architecture, surveying, and so many other professions? In Christian churches, how could males,
lacking monthly evidence of Her death and resurrection, serve the Daughter of the Goddess? In
Judaism, how could they honor the Matriarch without the symbol of Her sacrifice recorded in
the Old Ovariment? Thus—
(laughter)
—thus insensible to the movements of the planets and the turning of the universe, how could men
become astronomers, naturalists, scientists—or much of anything at all?
[00:16:01]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
Of course men are sexually passive just—are passive sexually just as they tend to be
intellectually and ethically. After all, the libido is intrinsically feminine, or, as Phyllis Freud put
it with her genius, “man is possessed of a weaker sexual instinct.”
This also proved—was also proved by man’s mono-orgasmic nature. No serious authority
disputed the fact the females, being multiorgasmic, were better adapted to pleasure and thus
were natural sexual aggressors. In fact, “envelopment,” the legal term for intercourse, was an
expression of this active/passive understanding. It was also acted out in microcosm in the act of
conception itself. Consider these indisputable facts of life: The large ovum expends no energy,
waits for the sperm to seek out its own destruction in typically masculine and masochistic
fashion—(laughter)—and then simply envelops this infinitesimal orgas—organism. As the sperm
disappears into the ovum, it is literally eaten alive—much like the male spider being eaten by his
mate. Even the most quixotic male liberationist will have to agree that biology leaves no room
for doubt about intrinsic female dominance.
[00:17:28]
What intrigued Freud was not these well-known biological facts, however, but their
psychological significance: for instance, the ways in which males were rendered incurably
narcissistic, anxious, and fragile by having their genitals perched so precariously and visibly
exposed on the outside of their bodies.
(laughter)
Though the great Greek philosopher Aristotelia had been cruel to say—(laughter)—that men
were simply mutilated women, men’s womblessness and loss of all but vestigial breasts and odd,
useless nipples were the end of a long evolutionary journey toward the sole functions of sperm
production, sperm carrying, and sperm delivery. Women did all the rest of reproduction. Thus it
was female behavior and psychology that governed gestation and birth. Since time immemorial,
this disproportionate reproductive influence had unbalanced the power of the sexes in favor of
women.
[00:18:33]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
Finally there was the unavoidable psycholog—physiological fact of the penis. Its very existence
confirmed the initial bisexuality of all humans. All life begins as f emale in the womb as
elsewhere—which was the only explanation, of course, for men’s residual nipples—and penile
tissue had its origin in the same genital nub, and thus retained a comparable number of nerve
endings as the clitoris. But somewhere along the evolutionary line, the penis had acquired a
double function: excretion of urine and sperm delivery. Indeed, during the male’s feminine,
masturbatory, clitoral stage of development before young boys had seen female genitals and
realized—
I mean he really said all this stuff. I’m just reversing. Okay.
—And realized that their penises were endangered and grotesque compared to the compact,
well-protected, aesthetically perfect clitoris—it had a third, albeit immature, function of
masturbatory pleasure. All this resulted in an organ suffering from functional overload. The
most—
(laughter)
[00:19:45]
The most obvious, painful, diurnal, nocturnal, indeed even multi-diurnal and multi-nocturnal
result for this residual, clitoral tissue of the penis was clear. Men were forced to urinate through
their clitorises. No doubt this was the evolutionary cause for the grotesque enlargement and
exposure of the penis and for its resulting insensitivity and unfortunate appearance.
(laughter)
Though the nerve endings in the female clitoris remained exquisitely sensitive and close to the
surface, carefully carried as they were in delicate mucous membranes, which were cushioned
and cradled by the labia. The exposed penial versions of the same nerve endings had gradually
become encased in a deadening epidermis, a fact that deprived men of the intense, radiating
whole-body pleasure that only a clitoris could provide. Men’s diminished capacity for orgasm
and lesser sex drive followed as day follows night.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:20:52]
It was almost as if Father Nature himself had paid “less careful attention” to the male. His
unique and most distinctive organ had become confused. Was the penis part of the reproductive
system or the urinary tract? Was it intended for conception or excretion? How could males be
trusted to understand the difference?
(laughter)
As a result of this functional confusion, plus what even the enlightened Phyllis Freud had to
admit were, quote, disgusting, unquote genital results the penis was the constant subject of rude
names and cruel jokes. Even in dignified, professional meetings, when Phyllis Freud reported on
some newly discovered psychological implication of this unfortunate functional overlap, there
was often laughter that would have offended delicate male sensibilities had any males been
present. Inevitably, distinguished women would rise to pay tribute to the clitoris as the only
human organ dedicated solely to sexual pleasure—
True, you know.
—an argument for female superiority that was as old as time.
Nature’s necessity of spacing births was a final dictator of the male role. As Phyllis Freud
reasoned so brilliantly, since insemination and pregnancy could not accompany every orgasm,
experienced by multi-orgasmic females, it must also be the case for males that sexual maturity
could be measured by their ability to reach climax in a non-procreative way.
Female centrality was clear. Thus male adaptability must be equality clear. Male sexuality
became mature only when pleasure was transferred from the penis, which was desensitized and
rendered unpleasant by its dual function any way—to the mature and appropriate areas: the
fingers and the tongue. Immature penile orgasms had to be replaced by mature lingual and
digital ones.
[00:23:01]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
In her ovarian essay, “Masculinity,” Phyllis Freud was clear. In the clitoral phase of boys the
penis is the leading erotogenic zone. But it is not going to remain so. The penis should hand over
its sensitivity and at the same time its importance to the lingual, digital areas.
And I say in a footnote that if you think that I’m being cruel to men I would submit that we have
allowed in this reversal more nerve endings to men than Freud allowed to us by telling us that
orgasms were entirely vaginal where there are almost no nerve endings.
As for birth control itself, Freud opposed it—
Which he did.
After all, if men were mature enough to achieve lingual, digital orgasm, birth control was
unnecessary. If a woman wished to conceive a child, birth control was insurrectionary. With her
characteristic generosity, however, Phyllis Freud held to the belief that some new form of
contraception could be invented that would not produce neurosis.
[00:24:09]
Sigmund Freud did believe that all forms of birth control produced neurosis, not to mention that
masturbation was the source of all addiction and produced neurosis. But cocaine use was just
fine.
(laughter)
It was this willingness to explore, experiment and theorize about experiences so different from
her own and to seek scientific justification for the social order as it does and must exist, that was
to distinguish Phyllis Freud’s work throughout her long and much honored life. Thus we find her
late in her career still pondering with fascination the sexual life of the adult man, which
remained to our intrepid explorer something of a dark continent.
[00:24:58]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
This is all, of course, about empathy. Phyllis Freud was invented in order to speak to the
American Psychiatric Association, as I was invited to do on the subject, as the women
psychoanalysts wanted me to speak, about the sexual abuse of patients by their analysts. And I
was so worried about being stoned to death by the APA that I invented Phyllis Freud as a means
of striving for empathy, to try to ask the audience to understand what it might be like, what it
would feel like if a profession was 90 percent female and patients were 70 percent male. And the
entire profession, as indeed much of the popular culture, was informed by the work of Phyllis
Freud.
But I have noticed as I travel around talking about Phyllis Freud that while people are willing to
laugh at Phyllis, although sometimes they get angry at me for doing this, there is more of a
reluctance to take on what you will find as the story of the footnotes—which became a narrative
in themselves called “The Watergate of the Western World.” Because the basic question is, first
of all, why did Freud become so popular here when he was not popular in Europe in the same
way?
[00:26:41]
And I think the answer for which we all must take responsibility was and is that the religious
support for the caste systems of sex and race and for hierarchy itself was not working any more.
And he came along with this pseudoscientific secular support for the power structure as it exists.
But the second question in addition to our responsibility for this is how did he get to be such a
crazy guy?
Well, I think that the papers recently revealed, only in the past few years, his letters that Jeffrey
Masson printed in the late eighties, which won Jeffrey Masson such hostility from the—much of
the psychoanalytic community. They tell us, and there’s no reason not to believe him, that he
was sexually abused and psychologically abused by his own parents. His father convinced him
that if he touched his penis, if he masturbated, he would be subject to hysteria, neurosis and other
extreme problems.
[00:28:08]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
People tried to excuse this as if that was the belief of the time. Actually, it wasn’t the complete
belief of the time. But Freud used to get up and debate people who said that masturbation was
harmless and the problem was just a bias against it. And also he says such things as,
“Unfortunately, my father was one of those perverts who is responsible for the hysterical
symptoms of my siblings,” and also names a nurse whom he had before the age of three as
someone who abused him.
This—these letters were written in the period of time in which he believed, or almost believed—
was beginning to believe the patients who came to him, men and women, but especially women
who had been abused and sexually abused as infants and little children. He was onto what we are
just now learning. But to admit that, to admit it was real would have caused him to admit what
had happened to him. And after his father’s death he seems to have set about the long process,
which he called his self-analysis, which he said was impossible for anybody else to do, of course,
but he could do a self-analysis—
[00:29:38]
He was the only guy who never had any therapy of any sort—to deny and bury and suppress the
facts of his own childhood.
As I see now the degree to which we are still trying to deny the reality of the extent and depth of
child abuse, including sexual abuse, as I see the same impulse to deny rising up in non-existent
phrases or non-existent syndromes like the false memory syndrome, which actually is just a
name—each case has to be looked at separately but there is no such thing as the false memory
syndrome. I understand again how deep the impulse is to say that this is not true of others. And
therefore I don’t have to believe it about, or remember it about my own past.
People sometimes ask me why I believe the prevalence of child abuse. Well, I think the evidence
is there in the—in a constellation of symptoms that are physical, somatic memories of headaches,
of bulimia, of interrupted sleep patterns of flashbacks to the scene itself, of everything that we
know—but when they ask me this, why I believe the prevalence of child abuse I always say,
because it didn’t happen to me.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:31:32]
And for those of us who either have had the luck of an un-abused childhood or the ability to dig
out those memories and realize how painful they were, how wrong they are and go through the
long process of healing we, I think, have a special responsibility and a special gift to believe the
evidence before us and to try to end this abuse in the next few generations. Sometimes I think
that the only form of arms control is how we raise our children. Because we’ll go on killing each
other with something as long as we raise children with violence and they come to believe that
violence is the way we solve problems.
So I hope that while we’re laughing at this bit of satire, we will also look at its reverberations in
daily life now and consider that, for instance, we know from cases of child abuse that were
documented in hospitals and in reliable ways, extreme child abuse, that now that those same
children have grown into adulthood, 30 percent of them don’t remember it, have buried it. And
though it is still governing their lives it is to frightening to dig out and to look at.
[00:33:30]
It’s a very—it’s controversial now. It’s heated up now. It’s not to say that we believe everything
but that we look at each case individually and we keep open minds and open hearts. You know,
the McMartin case—remember the McMartin case in California? Which was the longest trial in
the history of the nation, seven years, about the use—the sexual abuse of the children in this preschool and their use in pornographic films and so on—that was what the children alleged. As the
prosecution attorney said, the jury found the family, or the accused perpetrators innocent she
thought, because they simply found the reality too hard to believe.
Now the tunnels beneath the preschool, which the children reported as the way they were taken
out of the preschool without knowledge of the neighborhood, have been excavated and verified.
[00:34:39]
I’m not trying to convict people here who have been exonerated by a court. But I do think that
we need to be open and aware of the abuse of children including ourselves and people around us,
�MS113.0173 Transcript
as a root cause of why prostitutes are prostitutes and many men are in prison and others enjoy
close-up torture because they themselves were tortured as children and identify with the
aggressor since it’s too painful to identify with the victim. That to just be open and to look at the
abuse of children as the cause of many of the unexplained ills we see around us. We can read
Alice Miller. We can read Judith Herman. We can read many authors who have great insight and
experience into this.
There’s another essay here in this book of six, long essays, which is sort of more like six short
books or six condensed books. They’re sort of like powdered milk, you know. If you poured
water on anyone of them it would become a book.
[00:36:10]
I didn’t intend for it to become this kind of book which has no genre. I thought it was just going
to be a collection of previously published essay, refrying the beans, as writers say. But as you
can see, Phyllis, which was meant to be this little five-page riff, turned into something quite
different. And the book itself turned into one that is mostly original writing.
But I noticed that the essay about which I am asked the least is one called “Revaluing
Economics.” I hoped that this essay might create contempt for economics and thus increase our
ability to feel unintimidated by it and to understand it and to begin to change it. Because though I
started out in a very, or perhaps because I started out on this journey in a very simple way, which
was that I was trying to explain to reporters in the middle of the Carter administration—
Remember Carter? Anyone?—why it was that the Women’s Commission had been fired by him.
Headed by Bella Abzug and so on.
[00:37:31]
The Women’s Commission had dared to analyze not just expenditures on child care and other
women’s concern but the entire federal budget. And the Carter people got angry and they fired
the Women’s Commission. So we were explaining why it was that this had been done, and I kept
saying to the reporters that the National Budget was the only statement of values this country
�MS113.0173 Transcript
ever makes. And therefore each of us, as citizens, has the right and the duty to look at the values
that that budget represents.
Well, after saying this a few times, I realized that if that was true it was also true that my own
budget was the only statement of values I ever made. And so I took out my checkbook with that
in mind and looked at the checkbook stubs to see what—how they would represent my values if I
were to be hit by a Mack truck tomorrow. And I wasn’t very pleased. I mean I like to think that I
put my money where my beliefs are but I wasn’t happy.
[00:38:41]
And ever since then I’ve been following—they say follow the money, that’s true. But more than
that follow the values. And it ended in this essay, which is challenging the idea that the economy
is an objective report on what is—on supply and demand, and on what is scarce and so on. And
saying, no, it isn’t that at all. It is a bias statement of what is valuable and what is not. The census
decides what is visible. The National System of Accounts [System of National Accounts], which
is an international accounting system, decides what is valuable. And we must challenge both of
those minotaurs at the heart of the economic maze.
Because together they are declaring all—most productive in the work in the world invisible, that
is all the work that’s done in the home, whether by men or by women, but mostly by women has
no economic value whatsoever. In third world countries water that’s carried in jars on women’s
heads from the well has no economic value. But if it comes through pipes it has an economic
value.
[00:40:05]
We know how much it costs to replace a homemaker’s services but her services have no imputed
value in the budget nor do—nor does the work of reproduction and nurturing have any value.
And it doesn’t have to be like this. I mean there are a lot of challenges to this system, especially
in the third world, so called. We can challenge it here where it was invented.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
In addition the environment is not valued. A tree that’s standing out there giving you oxygen has
absolutely not economic value whatsoever. But when it’s cut down it acquires one. We’re never
going to save the environment unless cutting down trees is seen as asset depletion and not just a
source of profit, which is what is—the way it’s seen now.
So I hope that you might look at this—you know, I realize the reason nobody asks me about this
piece is the deadly word “economics.” It sort of makes you—and as an economics-impaired
person—(laughter)—I have tried, I have tried to produce an essay for other economics-impaired
people because it is the heart of the wrong values that we are trying to change. And we have to
have a healthy lack of respect for it if we are to seize control of it and change.
The last essay is called, “Doing Sixty.” It started out as the introduction but it wouldn’t stay that
way. And it’s really an account of one more woman. I’m sure there are many women in the
audience who can also testify to this, of becoming more radical with age. You know people,
reporters and sociologists look at high schools and colleges and young workers. And if they
don’t find the red hot center of feminist activism there, though there are more young,
courageous, activist feminists than there ever were before. But if they don’t find the center there
they think it isn’t there.
[00:42:36]
Well, it’s always been the case that women’s pattern of activism has been the reverse of men’s. I
don’t mean everybody, but just as a general, cultural pattern. Probably all the men in this room
are exceptions to what I am saying. But women tend to be more conservative when we’re young
and grow steadily more radical as we get older. And men tend to be rebellious and active and
radical when they’re young and grown more conservative as they get older.
If young women have a problem it’s only that we think there’s no problem when we’re young.
We haven’t yet experienced the great radicalizing events of a woman’s life, getting into the labor
force, having children, discovering who cares for them and who doesn’t, having two jobs instead
of one and so on. And also young women have more social power as—at eighteen or twenty than
they will when they’re fifty. Whereas men are the other way around.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:43:35]
So I have recognized this pattern intellectually long ago. But I hadn’t realized that I was subject
to it, too. And I’ve only just begun to realize, after fifty, which was—fifty was sort of like
leaving this long, familiar country called the female role. Whether you conforming to it or
fighting it you’re still aware of it. And it last from twelve to fifty more or less or thirteen to fifty.
So when I turned fifty I felt as if I was leaving something. And I responded to this with my
favorite emotion, which was defiance. I’m going to go right on doing everything I did when I
was thirty or forty, so there.
But, in fact, as I realized by the time I was about fifty-five, this is not progress. This is not going
forward. And at sixty I began to feel that I was entering a new country. There are no maps for
this country. We are invisible. Women over sixty-five are the single, poorest demographic group
in the nation.
[00:44:49]
But intrinsically, this stage of life, which exists for all of us, men too, for, in a much greater,
critical mass for the first time. I mean people over—people are living thirty-five years longer in
this nation than they did in nineteen hundred. We’re like a new species. This period, for women
especially, off the patriarchal family map is scary but it is free. It’s sort of like going back—
remember when you were a little girl of eight or nine or ten. And you were this kind of shit-free,
clear-eyed creature and you were climbing trees and you knew what you wanted and what you
thought and everything. And then at about eleven or twelve or thirteen you started to become a
female impersonator and, you know—
(laughter)
And then—well, it’s sort of like going back to the clear-eyed eight or nine or ten year old little
girl. Except now you’re a grown up. You’re independent. You have your own apartment, maybe.
So this is my account of some of the things that I’ve begun to realize. And this will be my last
reading here before—it’s brief—before we start our organizing meeting.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[00:46:07]
(reading an excerpt from her book Moving Beyond Words)
I’m just beginning to realize the upcoming pleasures of being a nothing-to-lose, take-no-shit
older women, of looking at what once seemed outer limits as just road signs. For instance, I used
to take pleasure in going to a feminist Seder every year, subverting that ancient ceremony by
including women in it. In our women’s segata [?] we honored not only Deborah, Ruth and other
heroines of the Bible but also our own fore mothers. “Why have our mothers on this night been
bitter,” we read together, “because they did the preparation but not the ritual. They did the
serving but not the conducting. They read of their fathers but not of their mothers.”
Lately however, I’ve been wondering why start with anything that must be so changed, so fought
against? Why not begin with the occasions of our own lives and create the ceremony we need for
births or marriages, adopting friends as chosen family or setting off on a new adventure.
[00:47:09]
Having learned the pleasures of ritual I’m thinking of founding a service called Ceremonies-ToGo. I used to pass urban slums or rows of poor houses anywhere and compulsively imagine
myself living there. What would it be like? It was a question of such fearsome childhood power
that I only recently realized it had fallen away. It’s simply gone. The deep groove worn by such
imaginings has finally been filled by years of words written and deeds done, crises survived and
friends who became family, work done for others and thus an interdependence. In other words, I
no longer fear ending up where I began.
I used to indulge the mag—in magical thinking when problems seemed insurmountable. Often
this focused on men for they seemed to be the only ones with power to intercede with the gods.
Now it has been so long since I fantasized a magical rescue that I can barely remember the
intensity of the longing. Instead, I feel my own strength, take pleasure in the company of mortals
and no longer believe in gods except those in each one of us.
[00:48:25]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
I used to think that continuing my past sex life was the height or radicalism. After all, women too
old for childbearing were supposed to be too old for sex. And becoming a pioneer dirty old lady,
seemed a worthwhile goal—
(laughter)
—which it was for a while.
But continuing the past, even out of defiance is very different from advancing. Now I think, why
not take advantage of the hormonal changes age provides to clear our minds, sharpen our senses
and free whole areas of our brains. Even as I celebrate past pleasures I wonder, did I sometimes
confuse sex with aerobics?
(laughter)
[00:49:07]
I used to be one of the majority of Americans whose greatest fear was dependency in old age, a
fear the must have roots other than economic. For it is no more prevalent among women or the
racial groups of men most likely to be poor. Then I listened to historian Gerda Lerner question
that fear among a group of middle-aged women. As she pointed out, we don’t fear dependency in
the early years of life. On the contrary we understand that being able to help children find what
they need can be a gift in itself.
Why shouldn’t we feel the same about the other end of life? Why shouldn’t the equally natural
needs of age be an opportunity for others to give? Why indeed? Now I wonder if women’s fear of
dependency doesn’t stem from our being too much depended upon. Perhaps if we equalize the
caretaking and the giving with men and with society this will bring us a new freedom to receive.
I used to think that uprooting negative childhood patterns was an activity reserved for
individuals. Now I wonder if this familiar healing process wouldn’t benefit countries and races,
too.
[00:50:25]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
In the country in which we live there is a glorification of violence and a willful denial of how
much violence hurts. I wonder if we’re collectively doomed to keep repeating these violent
patterns until we admit the hurt that took place in this nation’s childhood, the reality of genocide
that wiped out millions of indigenous peoples and all but destroyed dozens of major cultures.
Plus the still only half-admitted realities of slavery and its legacy within each one of us.
I’m happy about the new Holocaust museum in Washington for I know our government refused
to admit thousands of Jews until it was too late. But we also need to have a Native American
museum which finally admits that the so-called uninhabited Americas were actually home to as
many people as Europe. And a Middle Passage museum to memorialize the beginning of the
massive injustice of slavery that is still playing itself out.
[00:51:28]
We need this remembrance not for guilt or for punishment, which only creates more of the same,
but to root out the patterns of our national childhood.
I used to think that nationalism was the only game in town, the most radical act was to support
poor countries in their rights against rich ones. Now I look at artificial boundaries, lines that
can stop no current of air or polluted river and mourn the violence lavished on defending them.
Long ago, in times suspiciously set aside as pre-history we were mostly nomadic peoples who
claimed nothing but crisscrossing migratory paths. Cultures were the richest where different
peoples and paths were the most intermingled.
We’re still a nomadic species. We move and travel on this earth more than we ever have before.
Yet we insist on the destructive fiction of nationalism, one that becomes even more dangerous
when it joins with religions that try to create nations in the sky.
[00:52:36]
Lest all this seem too impractical, let me add one more contrast between the old and now. I used
to think that I would be rewarded for good behavior. Therefore, if I wasn’t understood I must not
be understandable. If I wasn’t successful I must try harder. If something was wrong it was my
�MS113.0173 Transcript
fault. More and more I see that context is all. When someone judges me, anyone or anything, I
ask compared to what? When I see on television a series about children of divorce for instance, I
find myself asking, what about a series on children of marriage.
When a women fears the punishment that comes from calling herself a feminist I ask, will you be
so unpunished if you don’t? When I fear conflict and condemnations for acting a certain way I
think, what peace or praise will I get if I don’t? I recommend the freedom that comes from
asking, “Compared to what?” Hierarchical systems, all of them prevail by making us feel
inadequate whatever we do so we will internalize the blame. But once we realize that there is no
such thing as adequacy it sets us free to say we might as well be who we really are.
[00:54:02]
I’ve always had two or more tracks running in my head. The pleasurable one was thinking
forward to some future scene, imagining what should be, planning on the edge of fantasy. The
other played underneath with all too-realistic fragments of what I should have done. There it was
in perfect microcosm, the past and the future coming together to squeeze out the present, which
is the only time in which we can be fully alive.
The blessing of what I think of as the last third or more of life, since I plan to reach 100, is that
these past and future tracks have gradually dimmed until they are rarely heard. More and more
there is only the full, glorious, alive-in-the-moment, don’t-give-a-damn-yet-caring-for-everything
sense of the right now.
I was about to end this with, there’s no second like the next one. I can’t wait to see what
happens. And that remains true. But this new state of mind would have none of it. There is no
second like this one.
Thank you.
(applause)
[00:55:54]
�MS113.0173 Transcript
SALLY JACKSON: While people are gaining their courage, let me ask you a question. One of
the chapters in the book talks about when you took advertising away from Ms. magazine. What’s
the situation now? How’s that working?
GLORIA STEINEM: Oh, well, I’m happy to—(coughs)—excuse me I’m still getting over the
flu here—I’m happy to say that probably due to the support of people in this room Ms. magazine
is doing better without advertising than it ever did with advertising.
(applause)
It’s actually, you know, it’s actually making money and was able last year to give some money
back to the movement, which has always been our dream to do.
[00:56:25]
I do think that we need to look at especially women’s—at all of the media—but especially
women’s magazines for the influence of advertising and understand that beauty products won’t
advertise unless they are praised in the pages of women’s magazines, and their little diagrams of
where to put your rouge and so on. And food won’t advertise unless there are recipes and
clothing won’t advertise unless there’s endless praise of fashion. And that’s why women’s
magazines look the way they look.
But we pick them up and I fear that we’re made to be contemptuous of each other because we
think that even though we don’t want all this stuff, somebody wants this stuff. Well, the
somebody are the—is the advertisers. And yes there’s—we must be equally aware of the
influence elsewhere but there’s a difference. If Time or Newsweek attacks an advertiser or a kind
of product they may lose that advertiser for a period of time.
[00:57:23]
In women’s magazines, if you fail to praise it, you don’t get the ads in the first place. And that’s
why they’re such catalogues. Think of what we could do with the thousands of pages if they
were free, if the—if there was a true separation between advertising and editorial.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
SALLY JACKSON: Sir.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I wondered if Phyllis Freud isn’t more serious than you even think.
As I understand it anthropologists aren’t sure what the function of males is, at least in the primate
world except to provide diversity. Females—males consume more resources than they produce
in general. But—and a female world would in fact be better off in almost every way than with
males. But males are aggressive. They try for dominance. In other words, there is a—they do
something that is not necessarily useful but, in fact, creates the world that we have. They engage
in war.
[00:58:24]
Do you see any way for the feminist movement to be sustained in the presence of a world of
war?
GLORIA STEINEM: I guess I have a more cheerful view about males than you—
AUDIENCE MEMBER: But wars do occur. And the males cause them.
GLORIA STEINEM: What you say is true. I would only say that it is culturally true not
necessarily biologically unchangeably true.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: It happens in the primate world. And the gorillas and the
chimpanzees, they parallel humans.
[00:58:59]
GLORIA STEINEM: Well, the—you can always tell what somebody thinks by the animals
they choose to study. Do you know what I mean? Lionel Tiger, you know, is not a friend because
he is only studying chimps in captivity where they behave quite different from in the wild. And
somebody who studies elephants who are vegetarian and peaceful and matriarchal and so on, you
know, is a whole different guy, so I—and also, we do have a cerebral cortex. We are the one
�MS113.0173 Transcript
animal that exper—influences our own evolution by changing circumstances, adapting to the
circumstance, changing them again and so on.
There are societies in the world—I mean if, you know, if it were biological there would be no
societies in which this wasn’t true. But there are tribal societies in which there is not war for
territory or institutionalized violence. And the one, shared characteristic of those societies is that
the gender roles are not polarized. Men are not taught that they have to be in control or
aggressive or even violent in order to be men. And women are not taught we have to support
violence, be passive, supportive and so on in order to be women.
[01:00:17]
So I mean Olof Palme, the great prime minister of—late prime minister of Sweden always said
that it was the most important task of every government in the world to humanize and do away
with gender roles because they were the root cause of violence.
(applause)
SALLY JACKSON: Your question?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Since you and I are in the same room for the first time this may
sound naïve. When I walked in I was amazed to see so few men here. And I’m wondering if
that’s typical of your presentations and if so, why.
[01:00:58]
GLORIA STEINEM: Well, I think maybe there are something like a third of audience is men.
What do you think? Can you tell from—Twenty percent, twenty-five, a fourth to a third—
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Ten.
GLORIA STEINEM: Ten.
(laughter)
�MS113.0173 Transcript
[01:01:14]
SALLY JACKSON: And yet they were the first three questions.
GLORIA STEINEM: That’s because the women know the answers.
(laughter and applause)
GLORIA STEINEM: No I realize, you know, what you say is true. Although I have found in
general that there are more men in audiences than there used to be. And—but just as there need
to be men in audiences to hear women just as there need to be white people in audiences to hear
speakers of color. You know, I mean we have to realize that we all have to gain by this. I guess
the ideal audience that I’ve discovered to date is a third men and two-thirds women. Because if
an audience is half and half the women are less likely to actually stand up and say what they are
really thinking. They’re sort of worried about hurting the men’s feelings or how they’re going to
respond or something.
[01:02:17]
But if it’s about a third, then women will still talk and the men get to hear women telling the
truth which is part of the education. So—but it is interesting that it’s always, even if there are a
few men, it’s always men who ask questions first. I think it’s harder for women just to get up and
hear our own voices and, you know, speak out. But next time bring some friends.
(laughter)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I don’t have all the answers. I was wondering if you would
comment on the future of the women’s movement as you see it.
[01:02:55]
GLORIA STEINEM: Oh. That’s like, describe the universe and give two examples. Right,
right? Well, it’s—the future is in our hearts. It depends on what we want it to be. I guess it’s
helpful to look, to take a sort of birds eye view and remember that the first wave in this young
country lasted a hundred and fifty years and gained a legal identity for women of all races as
�MS113.0173 Transcript
human beings. So we shouldn’t be surprised that this wave is going to last a hundred years at
least to get a legal and social equality for women as human beings.
We’re only about twenty-five years into it. Those twenty-five years have built a majority support
for all the basic issues. Consciousness has really changed. And we’ve begun to change the
structures, but just begun. And we have a backlash because we’ve changed the majority
consciousness. So I think where we are is fighting the backlash, which is inevitable, and having
the courage to look forward, you know, to envision, because otherwise we can’t create what we
can’t envision, new structures. New structures. I mean, you know, if—it’s terribly important that
men raise children as much as women do.
[01:04:23]
The country now understands that women can do what men can do. But we haven’t yet
demonstrated the men can do what women can do. So women have two jobs. And kids grow up
not knowing that men can be loving and nurturing just like women can and then they divide
themselves up. Yet we don’t have changed work patterns for the parents of little children. Both
men and women. I mean that’s just one of, you know, there are hundreds of examples of the
ways in which the structure hasn’t yet changed to make our dreams real possibilities for most
people. So structural change I think is the order of the day.
SALLY JACKSON: Yes?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. My question is, how did you overcome the inertia initially of
needing to be pleasant in a society and what keeps you going?
(laughter)
[01:05:21]
GLORIA STEINEM: I don’t think I’ve overcome it, actually. I mean I would come back to the
magazine—the Ms. Magazine office having done some television thing and the young interns
who had this much better shit detector than me would say, “Why do you smile all the time? What
you’re saying is serious. You don’t have to”—I would say, “You’re right. But what can I tell
�MS113.0173 Transcript
you. I was a fifties person, of Doris Day, you know. So, you know, you just—you struggle with
it, actually. You struggle with it. And it changes in increments.
And it changes from having support. Maybe that’s the most important thing, not to try to do it by
yourself. But to have a group of women or—and/or supportive men who you meet with once a
week so you can find out you’re not crazy, the system is crazy. That makes the difference.
SALLY JACKSON: This just handed me. Only two more questions and yours is next.
[01:06:18]
GLORIA STEINEM: I’ll answer shorter. I promise. Maybe we could do everybody standing
up. Could we do everybody standing up?
SALLY JACKSON: Sure.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: To be on the reverse end of it, I don’t want to strive to be unpleasant
but what I’m finding as a younger member of the audience in my own life is there is what you
talk about a lot, this notion that if I say, “I’m a feminist,” people think I’m man hating. People
think I’m all sorts of terrible things. So I’m striving right now to know what your answer is to the
question, what can I do to make feminism more palatable to my peers.
GLORIA STEINEM: Well, I think the first thing, I’m not trying to tell you what to do because
only you know. But the first thing may be to say, “I’m a feminist.” Because then people who
love you will begin to think differently about feminism.
[01:07:06]
It’s not—the thing is that it’s so unusual to be pro-woman and it’s so unusual to be pro-black or
pro, you know whatever the racial group that it’s perceived as being anti-male. Because the
maleness is supposed to have this kind of support. And whiteness is supposed to have this kind
of support. But it isn’t. We’re talking about fifty-fifty. So just remember that the problem is in
the ear of the hearer not yours. And ask yourself the question, compared to what. You know,
�MS113.0173 Transcript
what is life going to be like if you don’t say you’re a feminist. You’re more likely to acquire
support if—and people who are—who share values if you do say so. And you’ll change it. You’ll
change minds all around you.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
SALLY JACKSON: Quickly,
[01:07:59]
AMY RICHARDS:
I have an organizing announcement, which is to introduce or re-introduce
to some people the Third Wave. And I think it’s very appropriate for this audience, which seems
to be filled with young women. And maybe answers that question, which you just asked, which
is one of the problems is that women, a lot of young women feel alone. And the answer is to
come together. And one great way to come together is through the Third Wave, which is a
membership organization for young women, a national organization devoted to activism.
GLORIA STEINEM: The next meeting is?
AMY RICHARDS: Well, the next meeting—you can see me afterwards and I’ll give you more
details. Or I’ll put these next to where Gloria will be signing books. Thank you.
[01:08:33]
GLORIA STEINEM: And this is Amy Richards who is the parent of this book, almost as much
as me. I mean she’s been working with me and living through this book. And the Third Wave is
the organization that lasts a summer, a summer before last ran a voter registration. They in the
spirit of Freedom Summer 1964, they did another Freedom Summer and young men and women
feminists piled into buses and crisscrossed the country registering voters in poor neighborhoods.
I mean, you know, so they do great work.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: In this recent program where young girls are being taken to work by
their mothers, and being someone who used to hate feminism and only very recently realizing
�MS113.0173 Transcript
that I was very unliberated—I also saw with these children that what they were gaining, One of
the girls said that she could now learn how to carve her own future. That this was something that
was a piece that was missing from me in whole life.
Now I’m grown and I don’t have someone to take me to work and I’m looking for remedial—a
remedial program.
(laughter)
[01:09:49]
GLORIA STEINEM: That’s great. That’s great. Well, you know, pick out the area you’re
interested in and just say to somebody you know or can find, you know, “I’m looking for a
remedial program. How about taking an older daughter to work or a sister. Take a sister to work.
The Take-A-Daughter-To-Work Program has been great. The Ms. Foundation for Women
started this last year and it just—
(applause)
—it just caught on. It just is amazing. And it’s all in other countries now. And I do want to
assure you because the one question we always get is, “What about sons?” Though I still think
that if it were a program for African-Americans nobody would rise up and say, “What about
white people?”
[01:10:35]
But we have always created curriculums on the work of caring, for instance, for—in the last two
years for boys. And six million classrooms had these curriculums. I mean we are also thinking
about the boys. Maybe we should have a Take-Our-Sons-Home-Day.
(laughter and applause)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, many people are amazed by your youthful appearance and
wondering how you keep it up. And what I’m wondering is how you feel about cosmetic surgery
and estrogen treatment and how you feel men relate to this.
�MS113.0173 Transcript
GLORIA STEINEM: To cosmetic surgery?
[01:11:15]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right.
GLORIA STEINEM: Yeah. Well, speaking for myself I couldn’t bring myself, I don’t think,
to have cosmetic surgery and I’m not having estrogen treatment because I had breast cancer and
you’re not supposed to have—I had a very minor, so far, experience with breast cancer. But
you’re not supposed to have estrogen treatment. By saying those two things I’m not trying to say,
I’m not trying to pass judgement at all on women who choose to do this. We all have many
different forces in our lives.
As for men, men are now a third of all cosmetic surgery patients, though I think that that also
counts hair transplants.
(laughter)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (inaudible)—Influence on trying to deter age. That’s what I meant,
more the men’s influence on the women.
[01:12:05]
GLORIA STEINEM: Oh, well, men’s influence on women in trying to conceal age. It’s both
individual, real male pressure and imagined social expectations. Sometimes I think women might
be surprised if they just said their age and looked at their—as their real selves and discovered
that men love them as they are. Sometimes it really is, seems, feels necessary to keep a job, to
keep a marriage, to keep a social standing.
But I do think that if we were, if all of us who are lying about our ages were to tell our ages, our
idea of what fifty or sixty or seventy looks like would change overnight. I mean I have met
women who are successfully lying their ages, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. Twenty years.
There was a—there’s a case I report in the book about a woman in—who went to Israel for a—
�MS113.0173 Transcript
what’s it called, when you implant a fetus in a woman’s body and she gives birth even though
she is beyond child bearing age. She lied and said she was in her forties and she was really in her
sixties, and she gave birth.
[01:13:24]
You know, if we were to tell our real ages even doctors would be shocked. So I hope that we
might consider the great gift that the gay movement has given us in this phrase, coming out. It’s
such a wonderful paradigm of honesty and risk and truth. And just consider as much as we can
telling the truth, about—whether it’s about our ages, how we really feel, what we fear, what we
hope, whatever it is. Take the risk. Nobody will ever know if we don’t tell them. They can’t read
our minds.
SALLY JACKSON: And the last question or comment.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, I was wondering about what you mentioned about early
childhood education. I agree that it’s a very important time to influence. But I was wondering,
how do you—what is your philosophy about how to dialogue between the genders without the
males feeling threatened and what is your answer to Robert Bly?
[01:14:36]
GLORIA STEINEM: Well, to start with Robert Bly first, because that’s easier than child
rearing. He does, Robert Bly does talk, does allow men to talk about how much they missed
having loving and nurturing fathers. And that’s very valuable I think. However, it seems to me
retrograde to encourage men to talk about warrior status and so on. And also, when you see a
group of men together and they’re all white and heterosexual, you sort of know that something is
not so great. As you know when you see a group of women together and they’re all white or
heterosexual it’s not so great.
There are parts of the men’s movement that are I think much more substantive by far than Robert
Bly, who captured the media attention. But there are groups like the Oakland Men’s Project,
which has been together for 17 years I think, very diverse group of men, racially gay and straight
�MS113.0173 Transcript
men. And they came together to try to help boys in the Oakland area have an image of
masculinity that wasn’t violent.
[01:15:50]
In the process they made a community of their own. You know, they’re some of the few men I
know who talk to each other the way women talk to each other. And they’ve been greatly helped
by this. And their belief is that men’s work is ending male violence against women but also
against other men. And helping each other understand that this masculine box, you know, may
be—that you’re seeing in the man next to you—may be a prison for him, too.
It’s a wonderful group and they’re—I believe their doing programs in the Boston area. If you—I
was about to offer you, say, write me and I’ll write you back their address, which will drive Amy
crazy if I—but it’s listed, anyway, in Oakland, the Oakland Men’s Project.
[01:16:40]
About child rearing I think there are two paradigms out there that are both wrong, that are both
destructive. One is the right wing paradigm that says that children are little animals who need to
be tamed. And this, which is often religious as well, justifies, it justifies physical, corporal
punishment, psychological punishment. It can be very cruel. Then the more liberal paradigm is
that children are blank slates on which you can write anything. And that’s not true either. There
is a person already in that baby. The question is how to help that person become who they
already are. It’s like a seed in a flower.
So if we take the cues from the child, you know, try to help the child become who they can be,
instead of owning, possessing, controlling. That’s the key to it. Because that makes you—the
child know that she or he is lovable and good as they uniquely are. And they won’t feel like they
have to conceal some part of themselves in order to be loved. That’s the key to it, I think.
Children are fragile but children are incredibly durable, too.
And Alice Miller always says that if we—if a child has just one person in their life who loves
them as they really are, a teacher, a cousin, a parent, somebody, that they have a chance. And we
�MS113.0173 Transcript
can be that person because children belong to all of us. They don’t have to be our biological
children, right?
[01:18:20]
We can reach out to people we know who have children and who might, who could use a little
extended family. The—there’s the great African proverb, you know, that it takes a whole village
to raise a child. We can be part of that village.
SALLY JACKSON: I hope you will join me in thanking Gloria Steinem for a wonderful
evening.
(applause)
END OF RECORDING
�
Dublin Core
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
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English
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An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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MS113.0173
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Gloria Steinem's speech “Moving Beyond Words,” at Ford Hall Forum [transcript]
Date
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12 May 1994
Description
An account of the resource
Transcription of a Ford Hall Forum that featured Gloria Steinem, an American feminist, journalist, and co-founder of Ms. magazine. Steinem read excerpts from her book Moving Beyond Words and discussed child abuse as wells as economics.
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Ford Hall Forum
Steinem, Gloria
Jackson, Sally
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0173
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English
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Text
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Forums (Discussion and debate)
Ford Hall Forum
Feminism -- United States
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Ford Hall Forum
New American Gazette
Women's History
-
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
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English
Description
An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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0:58:40
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MS113.0018
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The New American Gazette: Maya Angelou receives the Ford Hall Forum's First Amendment Award [audio recording and transcript]
Date
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16 February 1989
Description
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Charismatic writer, poet and lecturer Maya Angelou addresses the value of the First Amendment with story, song and spirit. The best-selling author of I Know why the Caged Bird Sings reflects on the responsibility to speak for freedom's sake, in this rebroadcast from the Ford Hall Forum archives.
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Ford Hall Forum
Angelou, Maya
Source
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0018
Language
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English
Type
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Sound recording
Sound recordings
Format
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MP3
Subject
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Forums (Discussion and debate)
Ford Hall Forum
United States. -- Constitution. -- 1st Amendment
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Find out more about our collections on <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections">our website</a>.
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Ford Hall Forum
Free speech
New American Gazette
Women's History
-
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
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English
Description
An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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1:22:37
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MS113.0022
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Helen Caldicott's speech, "The Threat and Nuclear War," at Ford Hall Forum [audio recording]
Date
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30 September 1984
Creator
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Ford Hall Forum
Caldicott, Helen
Source
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0022
Language
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English
Type
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Sound recording
Sound recordings
Format
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MP3
Subject
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Nuclear disarmament
Ford Hall Forum
Relation
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Find out more about our collections on <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections">our website</a>.
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Ford Hall Forum
Women's History
-
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
Language
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English
Description
An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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0:58:54
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MS113.0034
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Frances Moore Lappé and Deborah Toler discuss, "World Hunger: Lesson of Ethiopia" at Ford Hall Forum [audio recording]
Date
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20 October 1985
Creator
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Ford Hall Forum
Lappé, Frances Moore
Toler, Deborah
Source
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0034
Language
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English
Type
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Sound recording
Sound recordings
Format
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MP3
Subject
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Forums (Discussion and debate)
Ford Hall Forum
Hunger Prevention
Relation
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Find out more about our collections on <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections">our website</a>.
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Copyright Ford Hall Forum. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Ford Hall Forum
Women's History
-
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
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English
Description
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The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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0:58:44
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MS113.0117
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The New American Gazette: Barbara Jordan and Betty Friedan at the Ford Hall Forum [audio recording]
Date
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20 July 1989
Description
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This episode combines talks given by two prominent women in politics: Barbara Jordan, a former member of Congress from Houston examines the politics of exclusion in "One Nation Indivisible: Rhetoric or Reality?" and feminist Betty Friedan traces the recent history of American women and political power and sets goals for the future.
Creator
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Ford Hall Forum
Jordan, Barbara, 1936-1996
Friedan, Betty
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0117
Language
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English
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Sound recording
Sound recordings
Format
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MP3
Subject
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Forums (Discussion and debate)
Ford Hall Forum
Women -- United States -- Social conditions
Feminism -- United States
African Americans -- Civil rights
Relation
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Find out more about our collections on <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections">our website</a>.
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Black history
Ford Hall Forum
New American Gazette
Women's History
-
Dublin Core
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
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Ford Hall Forum
Language
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English
Description
An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
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0:59:20
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MS113.0067
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The New American Gazette: Sandra Day O'Connor and Mary King [audio recording]
Date
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11 February 1988
Description
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This episode of the New American Gazette features the remarks of Sandra Day O'Connor and Mary E. King at the Conference on Women and the Constitution. It was convened by former First Ladies Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter and Lady Bird Johnson on February 12, 1988 to celebrate the US Constitution and the contributions that women have made to the country’s founding document. 'O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, discussing some of the significant leaders and milestones in the struggle of American women for equal protection and opportunity under the U.S. Constitution. Author and activist Mary King urges women to seek political self-determination by asking, "Where to from here?" She further contends that the women's movement and the civil rights movement merged to form a powerful bond.
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Ford Hall Forum
King, Mary E.
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0067
Language
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English
Type
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Sound recording
Sound recordings
Format
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MP3
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New American Gazette: Transcript of King, Parks, and
Montgomery Forum
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
Title: The New American Gazette: Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Leola Brown
Montgomery at Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Date: 12 February 1988
Item Information: The New American Gazette: Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Leola
Brown Montgomery at Ford Hall Forum. Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1908-2013 (MS113.3.1,
item 0068) Moakley Archive, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Digital Versions: audio recording and transcript available at http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net
Copyright Information: Copyright © 1988 Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Summary:
This episode of the New American Gazette featured the remarks of Coretta Scott King, Rosa
Parks, and Leola Brown Montgomery from the Conference on Women and the Constitution. The
conference was convened by former First Ladies Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter and
Lady Bird Johnson on February 12, 1988 to celebrate the US Constitution and the contributions
that women have made to the country’s founding document. Coretta Scott King, an activist and
civil rights leader, urged women to become the moral vanguard for a more compassionate,
humanitarian world society. Sharing experiences from the struggle for civil rights and
desegregation, Rosa Parks and Leola Brown Montgomery discussed their groundbreaking
accomplishments in seeking justice and equality for all people. The radio program is introduced
by Barbara Jordan an American lawyer, educator and politician who was also a leader of the
Civil Rights Movement.
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Transcript Begins
ANNOUNCER: From Alumni Auditorium in Northeastern University in Boston, the Ford Hall
Forum presents the New American Gazette, with your host, Barbara Jordan.
BARBARA JORDAN: One year ago more than 300 academics, government officials, activists
and private citizens met for a two-day meeting in Atlanta to reflect on the unique contributions
that women have made to our country’s founding document. The Conference on Women and the
Constitution was convened by former First Ladies Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter and
Lady Bird Johnson to celebrate the US Constitution. Coretta Scott King urges women to become
the moral vanguard for a more compassionate humanitarian world society.
[00:01:00]
At the conference, in which I was honored to participate, we saluted women who not only rocked
the cradle but rocked the boat, women who rewrote the laws, waged the debates and campaigned
for equality throughout the Constitution’s 200-year history. As the women’s movement emerged
to the forefront to of the nation’s consciousness, its leaders were quick to adopt methods and
activities used with success by the Civil Rights Movement.
Few are better qualified to speak with authority on the legacies of these two movements for
social change than today’s guest on the New American Gazette. As a longstanding Civil Rights
activist and president of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change,
Coretta Scott King continues her husband’s devotion to human rights. In addition, Mrs. King
leads a broad coalition of religious, labor, business, civil and women’s right organizations to
educate and lobby for full employment and economic opportunity for all.
[00:02:23]
Today, Mrs. King speaks of the courage and commitment necessary in working for equality.
Predicting that women will lead the great freedom movements into the next millennium, Coretta
Scott King urges women to become the moral vanguard for a more compassionate humanitarian
world society.
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�MS113.0068 Transcript
[00:02:48]
Painting broad brush strokes for a bold, new vision of the world, while reviewing the legacies of
the past, is Coretta Scott King.
[Applause]
CORETTA SCOTT KING: To all of the distinguished persons on the dais here, to all of you
distinguished ladies and gentlemen in the audience today, let me say what a great privilege it is
for me to participate in this conference which has been so successful. But you brought us
together at a very important time in our nation’s history. And you’ve brought together a
remarkable group of leaders and scholars who have dedicated their lives to the protection and
extension of women’s rights under the Constitution. And I’m truly proud to be a part of this
coming together.
[00:04:20]
From the early days of the Republic, women have spoken out for equality. Women like Abigail
Adams understood that freedom was an indivisible ideal instead of an elitist privilege.
Continuing this tradition into the 19th century, Lucretia Mott was a major force in launching the
abolitionist, feminist, and peace movements in this country. Freedom has always been an
indivisible goal for all right-thinking Americans. It is clear, however that the Civil Rights
Movement profoundly influenced the explosion of feminist thought and action that began in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
The movement inspired a broad range of freedom struggles and lent a new legitimacy to the
constitutional rights of protests and the moral obligation of civil disobedience of unjust laws. The
movement was not only about rights for black citizens. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
provided a powerful tool, provided a powerful tool women could use to fight sex discrimination
in hiring and promotion on the part of private employers, employment agencies, and unions.
[00:06:02]
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The movement was also a direct challenge to McCarthyism and the climate of fear and
oppression that was consuming the soul of this nation. And I recall when we went to
Montgomery in 1955 it was the height of the McCarthy era. And what we did in Montgomery
was against the law, to boycott a business, to stand up and protest the way we did. Those of us
who lived back than and who were active understand how difficult it was to have accomplished
what we did accomplish in Montgomery at that particular time.
The movement showed millions of Americans that you can indeed. You must defy authority
when that authority is in the wrong. We must also remember that women were among the most
courageous and dedicated civil rights workers, beginning with Mrs. Rosa Parks, to Johnnie Carr
and to Viola Liuzzo, Fannie Lou Hamer and many others who paid the highest price in the black
freedom struggle; women who could be found in the front lines of every campaign from
Montgomery to Memphis. Let’s be clear that all of these women were great feminists because
they stood up for freedom. And they were not about to be turned around. [Applause]
Not even by threats, or violence, and other forms of intimidations. The Civil Rights Movement
reminded America of the promise of equality that has been dishonored by generations of racism
and paternalism. No one knows better than I do that there was some male chauvinism in the
movement.
[Laughter]
[00:08:31]
And even today I occasionally have to straighten out some of my male colleagues.
[Laughter]
But once people start talking and thinking and organizing for freedom there is no end to it. But
let me say that my husband did encourage me to be actively involved. And I was actively
involved throughout the whole struggle. He even encouraged me at times when I really just
didn’t figure out how I could do it and really take care of the family and the children the way
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they should be taken care of. He said when it was critical, get somebody else. Find somebody.
As a matter of fact there are some women here who are in the, who were in that delegation that
went to the 17-nation disarmament conference in Geneva in 1962.
[00:09:33]
And when I told Martin that I had received this invitation from Women Strike for Peace. And we
had just had a talk. And he was getting ready to get started in Birmingham, it started the
mobilization. He said, “Well, now I’ve been traveling so much and you’ve been traveling. So
you are going to have to stay home for a while with the children because they’re being
neglected.” He often projected his own sense of guilt and neglect onto me.
[Laughter]
And of course I said, “No problem.” But then a week or so later I got this invitation and I took it
to him as I always did. I always cleared everything with him. He said, “You should do that.
That’s important.” I said, “Well, what about the children?” “Well, get someone to stay with
them.”
[Laughter]
[00:10:31]
But you can’t be truly nonviolent as Martin was and as I seek to be and separate your—as Martin
said, your moral concerns and decide that some things you’re going to be nonviolent and some
things you’re not. It’s either you’re non-violent or you’re partially non-violent. And it is an
evolutionary process. So I feel that people on the basis of conscience should have an exemption.
And the question is who decides that. But we fought the battles of supporting those young men,
brave young men in those days, back in the late forties.
And I always saw the connection between the peace and justice issues as being indivisible. And
so when Martin said, “You need to be there,” because we were going to talk to the Russians and
the United States delegations about a test ban treaty. Because many of the women, 50 American
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housewives were very upset about the fact that the babies milk was being poisoned by the
continuing nuclear testing
[00:11:50]
And so I went on that trip. And from that point on then I became the family spokesmen on peace
issues and the rallies in New York and Washington. And I marched and I spoke on platforms.
And so unfortunately, and I don’t brag about it, I was the only woman most times and certainly
the only black. And about 1967 when Martin said, you know, “I can no longer be silent on this
issue because silence is betrayal.” And I think some people misunderstood what he was talking
about. It was a matter of conscience for him.
And every issue that he dealt with in the Civil Rights Movement was elevated to a moral issue.
And that’s not what we are about today. And I think that’s where we have fallen short in terms of
achieving some of our goals. Because it’s political. What’s expedient, you know, what works?
But somehow when the great gains have been made throughout history, it has been those people
who had the courage to stand on their convictions and do what conscience tells them is right to
do, that makes the difference. And I think women are more prone to follow their consciences.
[00:13:03]
And that’s why it’s important that we have women in high places of decision-making throughout
our country at every level, in the corporate board rooms and the highest levels of government.
Even we envision the day when Geraldine Ferraro can be president of the United States.
[Applause]
It is important to appreciate that the Civil Rights Movement influenced the women’s rights
struggle. But it is even more important that we recognize that women and minorities must build
and strengthen the coalition for civil and human rights if we are to make real the promise of the
Constitution. Our brother Justice Thurgood Marshall, as he eloquently criticized the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 for protecting slavery and for not providing the franchise for
women.
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[00:14:17]
This has ruffled the feathers of some of the proponents of unbridled constitutional boosterism.
Some people apparently feel that blacks and women should join in a critical celebration of a
document that protected the slave trade and denied women their democratic rights. But Justice
Marshall tells it like it. Our criticism of the un-amended Constitution is not intended to be
divisive. Instead we want to insure that common generations understand the importance of
protests and dissent in making the Constitution a document, which all freedom-loving people can
be proud of.
Just as the Civil Rights Movement helped enforce the reconstruction amendments, the women’s
rights movement is needed to enforce the spirit and letter of the Nineteenth Amendment. We still
have a way to go, however, before we can say that the Constitution is working for all Americans.
In recent years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of black elected officials. But
black office holders are still less than two percent of all elected officials, even though we are
more than twelve percent of the population.
[00:15:36]
Women are also severely underrepresented in American political life. It has been said again and
again. Today women are about 53 percent of the population of the United States. Yet, even
though women are a majority of American voters, we hold only one out of every seven elected
offices in the nation. It’s clear that not enough women are running for office and not enough are
voting at all. Black women who suffer a burden of double discrimination, the lack of political
representation in national and higher state level elected office is almost total.
It seems hard to believe that in 1988 along one black women sits among the 535 members of the
United States Congress. And that isn’t an indictment on me and all of the other black women as
well as our white sisters and brothers.
[Applause]
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[00:16:42]
One of the reasons why it’s hard to get elected is because you’ve got to raise a lot of money. And
it becomes incumbent upon those of us who cannot actually do the job to support others in
financial ways to help make it happen. Although black women, or about seven percent of the
population, when you only have one in the Congress of 535, that says a lot about where we need
to concentrate our efforts. Black women hold less than one half of one percent of all elective
offices in America.
Now we’ve made progress and that’s tremendous. But we still have a long way to go. If black
women were fairly represented in Congress we would have about 30 black women in the US
House of Representatives. We don’t even have 30 black women or men in the House of
Representatives. We would have seven women serving as US Senators. Well, you know, those of
you who are knowledgeable, we’ve got about one or two, one.
[00:18:16]
I mean it’s like two now. You know, I know it’s been almost an all-male club for a long time.
The Senate is a very powerful body, you know, and it’s hard for women to get there. But we
need some women there, more women to join those two. If we were fairly represented as black
women, we would have three or four black women governors instead of none. Seven black
women would be mayors of the nation’s 100 largest cities instead of none, although we have
some women in some of the smaller cities.
If America is to fulfill the promise of the Constitution we will need many more women of all
races holding elective office. Let us resolve that there will be more women office holders
because we are going to take the responsibility to make it happen.
[Applause]
[00:19:24]
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We’re going to mobilize all our voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in every major
city in the nation until the women of the nation are fairly represented at every level of federal,
state, and local government.
[Applause]
To help rectify this injustice, we have to make a greater effort to campaign more vigorously for
election law reforms and to take full advantage of existing laws. This means utilizing every
possible opportunity to set up voter registration tables in our churches, temples and schools, at
cultural events, in our places of employment as well as unemployment and welfare offices, and
other social service agencies. The variety of creative voter registration tactics we can employ is
limited only by our imaginations. As women we’ve come a long way in the last decade but we
still have a lot of work to do to make sure that issues of concern to women are placed squarely in
the forefront of the national debate—affirmative action, quality, affordable child care, the equal
rights amendment, the civil rights restoration act, parental leave, and so many other forms we
care about will be voted on in the Congress in the months ahead.
[00:20:49]
The women of the 1980s and 1990s have an historic mission in a very real sense. It was the
mission of Black Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, not merely to obtain our
freedom but to expand democracy for all Americans in the same way it is the mission of women
not only to improve their own circumstances but to advance the values of caring and compassion
in American society and throughout the world. The women of America have time and again
demonstrated a remarkable capacity for overcoming hardship and adversity.
We are more than equal to the historic struggle that lies ahead and we look to the future with
courage and commitment because our cause is just. Let the word go out from Atlanta that in
1988 we will organize ourselves as never before. And nobody is going to turn us around.
[Applause]
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[00:21:55]
So let us encourage more women to run for public office and let us encourage those who prefer
to work behind the scenes to become super star campaign managers and super star deputy voter
registrars. And we must remember, however, that voter registration and get out the vote
campaigns are only one part of political empowerment. We must also become more aggressive
lobbyists to advance our legislative interests.
We need a clearly defined legislative agenda and we have to build and strengthen legislative alert
networks so that every women’s and minority organization in America is quickly informed when
Congress is ready to act on bill we are concerned about.
[00:22:42]
In addition to greater political empowerment we have to start thinking about a more systematic
approach to coordinating our economic power. Women’s groups especially should join together
and form a nationwide, selective patronage council that will help inform and to support those
who support us. Every week women make consumer choices involving countless millions of
dollars. Imagine what could happen if we began to coordinate consumer choices on the basis of
corporate social responsibility.
[Applause]
And we do this as part of our struggle for greater economic empowerment. And we need to be
become more active in organizing stockholder’s campaigns and play a greater role in trade
unions and other progressive groups, which can join us in coalitions for common goals.
[00:23:44]
We need to do all these things, not only to improve the living standards of women and our
families but because we have an historic mission to put things right in America, we have
something special and unique to contribute to this country and the world. Something that arises
out of the joy and suffering of our collective experience as women. We have a strength and a
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tenacity and a gift for nurturing and compassion, which has been finely honed and tempered in
our struggle to raise families in a sexist society.
And let me put it this way. If the women of America don’t lead the struggle against poverty,
racism and militarism, then we must ask who will. We can send women of conscience, ability,
and integrity to the halls of power in Washington, D.C. and in our state and local governments if
we pick up the ballot and use the power. If we exercise our rights and responsibilities as citizens
and as consumers with all the compassion and wisdom of womanhood. We not only will win the
struggle against racism and sexism, we just might save this nation from its pending appointment
with Armageddon.
[Applause]
As we struggle for political and economic empowerment we must make sure the women become
the moral vanguard for a more compassionate and humanitarian world community. We must
advocate a vision of a world where starvation will not be tolerated. We must lead the way to a
world where no child lives in fear of a nuclear holocaust or suffers the ravages of war and
militarism. We must project a bold, new vision of a world where valuable resources are no
longer squandered on the instruments of death destruction but are creatively harness for
economic development and opportunity. This is the ultimate mission of black women in politics.
[00:26:05]
And I believe that after two centuries of struggle we are on the right road to making the
Constitution work for all Americans and that women will be leading the great freedom
movements as we move into the new millennium. Make no mistake about it, we will face
increasing resistance in the years ahead because political and economic power are never
surrendered without conflict and struggle.
But we are more than equal to the historic struggle that lies ahead and we look forward to the
future with courage and commitment because our cause is just. Women are getting organized as
never before. And again, nobody is going to turn us around.
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�MS113.0068 Transcript
[Applause]
[00:26:56]
If we, the women of America sow the seeds of political and economic empowerment, in the not
too distant future, we will reap a bountiful harvest from freedom from sexism, racism and
militarism. And when that day comes, my sisters and brothers, the morning stars will sing
together and the children of God will shout for joy. And with this faith and in this spirit together
we shall overcome.
[Applause]
[You’re listening to Coretta Scott King on the New American Gazette.]
[Applause]
[Pause]
[00:28:03]
BARBARA JORDAN: On December 1, 1955 a black woman riding a segregated bus in
Montgomery, Alabama refused to move to the back of the bus when asked to make way for a
white passenger. The subsequent arrest of Rosa Parks dramatized southern segregationist laws to
the nation and served as a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. The resulting
Montgomery bus boycott began four days later and lasted 13 months. Today we meet women
whose uncommon deeds and courageous beliefs have earned them the title: heroines of
constitutional change.
Sharing experiences from the struggle for civil rights are Rosa Parks and Leola Brown
Montgomery. Moderating a panel of heroines of constitutional change is Christine King Farris,
Vice President of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
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[Applause]
[00:29:35]
CHRISTINE KING FARRIS: We’re very fortunate to have in person those who made these
changes in our great country in our Constitution becoming a reality. Today then we will start
with Mrs. Leola Brown Montgomery. Her daughter Linda Brown Smith could not be with us
today. But, of course, the mother, Mrs. Leola Brown Montgomery for bringing that suit of the
Brown v. Board of Education.
LEOLA BROWN MONTGOMERY: Thank you.
CHRISTINE KING FARRIS: And so at this time Mrs. Montgomery will share with us. We
are so happy to have you.
[00:30:25]
LEOLA BROWN MONTGOMERY: Thank you, Ms. Farris. I’d like to say I’m very pleased
to be here. It makes me very happy to be on this program. I participated in many commemorative
activities but this one is very important because it focuses in on women. And we know we’re
most important [laughter] especially since women have played a key role in the history of
country, both behind the scenes and in taking the lead. You look around and you see how far
we’ve come. But we still have a long way to go.
For example, the participation of minorities in this conference would not have been possible 40
years ago. At the same time, from Georgia to New York, from Michigan to California, reported,
racially motivated incidents make us aware that we also have a long way to go.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the Supreme Court decision of 1954, Brown versus the
Board of Education. On misconception is that this was the first attempt to use the legal system to
desegregate schools. In 1946 Heman Sweatt was denied admission to the University of Texas
Law School and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
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[00:31:50]
In Sweatt versus Painter, Mr. Sweatt became the first black student to attend law school at the
University of Texas at Austin. There were also many other, similar cases.
The second misconception is for some is where the case took place, simply because Topeka is in
Kansas and Kansas was not and is not known for having a large minority population. Also,
because in most written texts this case is referred to as Brown versus Board of Education, instead
of Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education. A lot of people may not even know where
Topeka is. But that’s where it began.
After the Civil War, blacks who migrated to Kansas, full of the promise and equal opportunities
faced separatism in restaurants, employment, public accommodations, recreation, theaters, and
ultimately in education. In 1949 the population of Topeka was around 80,000. Of this number
there were about 6,500 blacks.
[00:33:06]
The black citizens of Topeka faced the same challenges as blacks any place else in the United
States and were most incensed by the system that their children encountered to get an education.
There were only four black elementary schools in Topeka. There were many more elementary
schools for white children all within walking distance of their homes. Whereas many of the black
children lived nowhere near the schools that they had to attend and had to be bused several miles.
I consider Plessy versus Ferguson to be a forerunner of Brown versus the Board of Education
because that doctrine was justification used by school boards across the country to educate our
children in separate and unequal facilities. Although it was the premise that it was separate and
equal and that was not so.
[00:34:03]
In 1949 the Topeka chapter of the NAACP and their attorneys met with black parents to make
plans for each family to try to enroll in the white school nearest their homes. My husband, the
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�MS113.0068 Transcript
late Reverend Oliver L. Brown and I were willing participants because there were many
evenings when he would return home from his job, he would find me almost in tears because our
daughter Linda, who was then six years old would only get halfway to the school bus stop, which
was seven blocks from our home, and because of the cold she would have to return.
For a six-year old child waiting on a school bus that was sometimes 30 minutes late in the kind
of weather that we have in in Kansas was just too much to bear and too much for parents to
tolerate. Bus transportation was not even provided for our kindergarteners. So an elaborate
system of carpooling was establishing within the black community. Sometimes Linda would
return home and tears would be frozen on her face.
[00:35:10]
Even in warm weather, whether walking to the bus stop was hazardous because the children had
to walk through the busy and dangerous switching yards or the Rock Island Railroad and cross a
busy avenue. In September of 1950, 12 black families had agreed to attempt to enroll their
children in the schools nearest them. I remember the morning my husband took Linda by the
hand and took her over to the white school, which was only four blocks and attempted to enroll
her there.
He was told by the school principal that it was not his personal feelings but the policy of the
school board. And that made it impossible to enroll her there. After trying to enroll our children,
these 12 sets of parents who tried this, and being turned down, we went back to the NAACP and
a case was filed in the federal court in February 1951. The case was argued in federal district
court and it was decided in favor of the board of education. And it segregated elementary
schools.
[00:36:24]
The funny thing about Topeka was that the secondary schools were always integrated, junior
high, and high school. That is to say classes were integrated. But all activities and social events
were segregated. There were black football and basketball teams within the school; also white
football teams and basketball teams. Class parties were separate and held in different rooms.
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In Topeka the issues was not so much integrating the elementary schools to improve the quality
of instruction but rather then inaccessibility of the neighborhood schools. We lived only four
blocks from one of the elementary schools for white children. My children played with white and
Hispanic children all summer. Yet when fall came they had to be separated to attend school. And
the children didn’t really understand. They questioned me many times, “Why is this so?”
[00:37:21]
And my daughter wanted to know why she could not go with her friends. And I told her, “Dear,
it’s the color of your skin. They won’t let you go to that school.” Which she couldn’t
comprehend, a child six years old. During the local court battle, there was very definite division
within the black community. There were those who felt this action was long overdue. And there
were those who expressed concern about upsetting the balance of things, which they feared could
lead to job loss and threats of violence.
The local school board, which somehow believed itself to be above reproach mailed threatening
letters to the black teachers. I have one such letter here that I’d like to read in your hearing.
Dear Ms. Buchanan,
Due to the present uncertainty about enrollment next year in schools for Negro children,
it is not possible at this time to offer you employment for the next year. If the Supreme
Court should rule that segregation in the elementary schools is unconstitutional our
board will proceed on the assumption that the majority of people in Topeka will not want
to employ Negro teachers next year for white children. It is necessary for me to notify you
now that your services will not be needed for next year. This is in compliance with the
continuing contract law. If it turns out that segregation is not terminated, there will be
nothing to prevent us from negotiating a contract.
You will understand that I am sending letters of this kind to only those teachers of the
Negro schools who have been employed during the last year or two. It is presumed that
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16
�MS113.0068 Transcript
even though segregation should be declared unconstitutional, we will have need for
schools for Negro children and we would then retain our Negro teachers to teach them.
I think I understand that all of you must be under considerable strain. And I sympathize
with the uncertainties and inconveniences, which you must experience during this period
of adjustment. I believe that whatever happens will be ultimately, will ultimately turn out
to be the best for everyone concerned.
Sincerely,
Wendell Godwin, Superintendent of Schools
Now this was some of the things that we had to endure during that time.
After the unsuccessful attempts in federal court an appeal was made to the United States
Supreme Court under the guidance of the NAACP’s legal staff, headed by the now Honorable
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
[00:40:12]
At the Supreme Court level, the case was consolidated with similar cases from Clarendon
County, South Carolina; Prince Edwards County, Virginia; and New Castle County, Delaware.
And argued in terms of the psychological damage brought about by segregation in public
education. Experts from the psychiatric community examined whether or not segregation served
to break a youngster’s morale and block the development of a strong, positive self-concept so
essential to educational progress.
During that time my husband, the Reverend Oliver Brown, well his name was Oliver at that time,
Oliver Leon [?] Brown was called into the ministry and received his first assignment to St.
Mark’s AME Church in Topeka, Kansas. Exactly one year later I was home doing the family
ironing and listening to the radio. At 12 noon there was a flash and the regular program was
interrupted for an important announcement. That announcement was the Supreme Court’s
decision on ending segregation was unanimous. Unanimous.
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17
�MS113.0068 Transcript
[Applause]
I was overwhelmed and could hardly wait for the children and my husband to get home that
night so I could relay the news. When they came home I told them the news jubilantly and there
was much happiness, rejoicing, tears, embracing, and prayers. That night our family attended a
rally sponsored by the NAACP. Linda did not immediately benefit from the Supreme Court’s
decision because in the fall of 1954, she entered junior high school, which was already
integrated. However, her two younger sisters, Terri and Cheryl were able to attend integrated
elementary schools. Integration in that city that fall went very smoothly. It seemed as though
black and whites had been going to school together for years.
[00:42:23]
My family never suffered any abuse and racial strive or received any threatening phone calls
unlike that, which was suffered in many cities in other parts of the country. I think we were very
lucky.
It was at this time after the decision was handed down that the Constitution of these United
States became a living document to me because without the Fourteenth Amendment it might not
have been possible to seek legal recourse to overturn a legal ruling such as Plessy versus
Ferguson; paving the way for black people and other minorities and women to seek due process
of law. Brown One was the original decision of 1954. Brown Two reflected the 1955 Supreme
Court mandate that clarified what was meant by “with all deliberate speed.”
[00:43:17]
Many of you are well aware that we were back in Topeka during the fall of 1986, which is being
call Brown Three which is still in litigation. It has not been settled. As unfortunate as this may
seem, this sends a message that we can never become complacent. We must keep examining our
options, taking steps to ensure that the barriers of continued racism doesn’t erode the progress we
have made. It is in this country’s best interest not to enter into a fourth decade since Brown,
struggling with a definition of, “with all deliberate speed.”
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18
�MS113.0068 Transcript
There are many places still in these United States that do not understand the mandate or simply
mean to ignore it. But we must press on to make it known and to have it enforced throughout this
century. Thank you.
[Applause]
[00:44:35]
CHRISTINE KING FARRIS: Thank you very much, Mrs. Montgomery. We’re moving now
to the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Mrs. Rosa Parks.
[Applause]
Let me just give you a bit of background about Mrs. Parks. It was in 1955 in December, actually
that she was working as a seamstress in a local department store that this well-known bus
confrontation occurred. She was riding home after work on December the first of that year when
she and three other blacks were asked to rise and move to the back of the bus to give places to
the white rider. And of course, you know, that Mrs. Parks refused and the rest is history.
[Laughter]
[00:45:38]
And at this time I am happy to present to you the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Rosa
Parks.
[Applause]
ROSA PARKS: Thank you so very much, Ms. Farris and to Ms. Montgomery, and Ms. Lewis
Tucker, Mrs. King, and all of us who are here assembled, friends of freedom and seekers of
justice and equality for all people. And, of course, this women’s conference has been and is very,
very great. It does show the power of women and what we can do if we could make our minds
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19
�MS113.0068 Transcript
that we are going to be unified and work together. We have had a long history of, as they say,
male chauvinism, and I had my part also in some instances. And I want to tell Mrs. Montgomery
that was a very wonderful presentation that she made. And she revealed so many things I did not
know about Brown versus the Board of Education case.
[00:47:11]
I was the secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP and Attorney Thurgood Marshall,
of course, was a special counsel. And if I recall, well I have to depend on my memory, I didn’t
make a prepared speech that he went to the Supreme Court a number of times with this case—
not this case but to abolish racial segregation in the public schools. And it was in 1954, just as
Mrs. Montgomery spoke, I did get the news about this decision being handed down.
And I felt, I think, for the very first time that there was opportunity for young people to get an
equal education. I had already met Dr. Martin Luther King in early in the summer shortly after
he came from Georgia. And Mrs. King, I had heard her beautiful voice on occasion at some
recitals and some programs. But I didn’t know them personally well enough to try to involve
them in my youth counsel workshop.
[00:48:41]
So I went on anyway with what we had. And in the midst of this, I tried to get the election
notices out for the senior branch and get together this workshop and hold my job at Montgomery
Fair coming up to the Christmas holidays. I worked very hard. Sometimes I didn’t even sleep at
all. Sometime I would just lie down for an hour and get right up. Sometimes I didn’t even go to
bed.
But I was still in the struggle and trying my best to find a way out of the dilemma that we were in
because it was being much oppressive or just too much so for the youth. And mind was always
on youth because they could look at TV and they could know what was happening in other
places, and other people were doing things. So I tried to keep them encouraged in Montgomery.
And along with Mr. E.D. Nixon who wanted to find a litigant for this case, as it started with my
arrest.
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20
�MS113.0068 Transcript
[00:49:59]
And again I had to go back to the December 1, 1955 after I had finished my day’s work and
boarded the bus and found one vacant seat. The back of the bus was very crowded with people
standing all the way up to where I was sitting. And I don't know today why someone happened to
leave that seat unless they saw me get on the bus and decided they wouldn’t sit there. I don’t
know.
And it was just one of those incidents that when I, along with the other three people, and I
wonder sometime if it would have been different if four of us had gone to jail instead of one. But
of course they wanted to stay safe and it didn’t matter to me what happened. Because I felt that I
had endured much too long this oppression, this humiliation, or down right insult to me as a
woman, and also as a passenger. That if I continued I would just not protest that it would be not
in the best interest for me as an individual or us as a people.
[00:51:22]
And incidentally, I do want to mention that this same driver as I boarded the bus, I looked in his
face and I remembered him as one who had evicted me from the bus as far back as 1943. When
he—I didn’t even try to sit down, even though there were some vacant seats and I noticed the
black folks were all the way to the back standing up. So I walked straight back and went there to
find a place to stand.
And just about the time I stood up he looked back and told me to go to the back door. And I told
him I’m already on the bus and I don’t see any need of getting out of the bus, going back around
to get to the back door. So when he did that he rose from his seat and escorted me out of the bus
and I had to find another way home. I don’t remember now whether I walked the rest of the way
home or rather I caught another bus.
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21
�MS113.0068 Transcript
But it was in the winter time and it was kind of late and it was getting dark early. When people
asked me why did I wait until that day I can always say that I didn’t wait to that day to protest. I
had been protesting a long time.
[00:52:35]
But it was on December 5, 1955 that people decided, when they heard of my arrest that they
would remain off the buses. And it was the very fact that when people remained off the buses
and didn’t ride on December 1st and they had the mass meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church
that same evening, everything was falling into place. And I was wondering what was going on.
So I was very happy to know, first of all, that I had the fortitude to remain where I was and not
give in. And the fact that this driver insisted on swearing out a warrant against me instead of just
having me off the bus and going on by because the policeman was somewhat reluctant to take
me to jail. And on Monday morning when I went to trial, the buses were empty. And we were
happy about that. And people were walking.
[Applause]
[00:53:46]
People were walking in the street, young and old. Just it seemed that they just had a new spirit
and they were walking straight. And I saw on Eyes on the Prize how they were walking. I
suppose all of you have seen that. You see how people were walking in Montgomery. They had a
new step, holding their heads up and looking brave and smiling. So didn’t anyone look like they
were downhearted at all even though they were walking.
And shortly after my trial was over there began the Montgomery Improvement Association
because not too very long after that the NAACP was outlawed in Alabama. And it took some ten
years for them to be declared a legitimate organization again. So in Montgomery we had the
NAACP. In Tuskegee there was the Tuskegee Civic Association. Birmingham there was the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. So every organization that got together, doing
the same thing with the same people but not under the name of the NAACP.
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22
�MS113.0068 Transcript
[00:54:56]
Even though the NAACP remained a strong support in many ways but we just could not hold
meetings and be an organized branch.
I could go on and on but I’ll try to make this a little bit more brief and let you know that when
the carpools were set up we had a transportation system in Montgomery under the leadership of
Reverend Sims and Mr. Lewis there and others. They had dispatches in places. And it was very,
very great to have such a system. At the churches, various churches, sometimes several churches
at one night when they would be people singing and praying and shouting and rejoicing over our
freedom. Because we were indeed free as to the transportation system. So we could not continue
and did not at that particular time continue with implementing the Supreme Court decision on
public schools but we were together in that manner.
[00:56:24]
And the attention was from Montgomery throughout the country and in other countries, too. And
today if you go to Montgomery you will not only find everything integrated, no public signs.
And on the buses you will not only find blacks driving the bus but we have black women as well
who are driving the buses in Montgomery, Alabama.
[Applause]
And as long as the boycott law was considered illegal and there was so many incidents that I
cannot name but I certainly would advise all of you to want know more about what Montgomery
was is to read Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King’s first book. And I’m so happy to
know that we have the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, Center for Nonviolent
Social Change. And Mrs. King is carrying on very strongly. She has five very fine young people
and a sister and their families. It’s just great to know that we, those of us who cared for Dr.
King’s philosophy, that we have not given up, we will not give up, but we will continue as long
as life lasts. Thank you.
[Applause]
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23
�MS113.0068 Transcript
ANNOUNCER: You’ve been listening to the New American Gazette with this week’s guest
Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Leola Brown Montgomery, and Christine King Farris. This
program was recorded at the Women and the Constitution Conference in Atlanta on February 12,
1988 by the Carter Center of Emory University and the Jimmy Carter Library. The New
American Gazette was produced for the Ford Hall Forum by Deborah Stavro. Post-production
engineer is Roger Baker.
Funding for the New American Gazette is provided by Digital Equipment Corporation and Bank
of Boston. The programs are produced in cooperation with the nation's eight presidential
libraries, the National Archives and Northeastern University.
Join us again for the New American Gazette.
END OF RECORDING
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24
�
Dublin Core
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Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1910-2013 (MS113)
Creator
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Ford Hall Forum
Language
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English
Description
An account of the resource
The Ford Hall Forum Collection documents the history of the nation’s longest running free public lecture series. The Forum has hosted some the most notable figures in the arts, science, politics, and the humanities since its founding in 1908. The collection, which spans from 1908 to 2013, includes of 85 boxes of materials related to the Forum's administration, lectures, fund raising, partnerships, and its radio program, the New American Gazette.<br /><br />The digital files are being moved to: <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall">https://dc.suffolk.edu/fordhall</a>
Source
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<p>View the <a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/cgi/siteview.cgi//researchguides/11">finding aid to the Ford Hall Forum Collection</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
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n/a
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Identifier
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MS113.0068
Title
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The New American Gazette: Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks and Leola Brown Montgomery, Ford Hall Forum [transcript]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
12 February 1988
Description
An account of the resource
This episode of the New American Gazette featured the remarks of Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Leola Brown Montgomery from the Conference on Women and the Constitution. The conference was convened by former First Ladies Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter and Lady Bird Johnson on February 12, 1988 to celebrate the US Constitution and the contributions that women have made to the country’s founding document. Coretta Scott King, an activist and civil rights leader, urged women to become the moral vanguard for a more compassionate, humanitarian world society. Sharing experiences from the struggle for civil rights and desegregation, Rosa Parks and Leola Brown Montgomery discussed their groundbreaking accomplishments in seeking justice and equality for all people. The radio program is introduced by Barbara Jordan.
Creator
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Ford Hall Forum
King, Coretta Scott
Parks, Rosa
Montgomery, Leola Brown
Source
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Ford Hall Forum Collection,1908-2013 (MS113)
MS113.3.1/0068
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Document
Format
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PDF
Subject
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Forums (Discussion and debate)
Ford Hall Forum
African Americans -- Civil Rights
Relation
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Find out more about our collections on <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections">our website</a>.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Ford Hall Forum. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Civil rights
Ford Hall Forum
Women's History
-
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4171834cf7bfd110165d20d0a87cdcd8
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
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Sisters in the Resistance: interview with Lise Lesevre (French transcript)
Date
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1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lesevre, Lise
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, <em>Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.</em>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Type
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Text
Documents
Format
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PDF
Language
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French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Lesevre, Lise
Interviews
Identifier
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ms-0169
Coverage
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tgn:1000070
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
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9c48e40f7c0e278519f43353da5349ee
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001 (MS100)
Description
An account of the resource
The Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers document Joe Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in the United States Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. <br /><br />Use the <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/moakley-papers/ms100_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=B12D6C6C7164568D0537E426483AB65CC5DFF80D" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a summary of the entire collection, including non-digitized materials. <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100_findingaid.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>
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<a href="https://dc.suffolk.edu/moakley-av/3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Digital Recording</a>
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00:29:40
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diAV-0022
Date
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circa 1974
Title
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Moakley with Representatives Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke and Ella Grasso [audio recording and transcript]
Description
An account of the resource
In the first segment Representative Joe Moakley interviews Representative Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke about federal regulations and ethical issues related to human sterilization and abortion. The second interview is with Representative Ella Grasso and focuses on current issues related to healthcare for the elderly. The discussion was broadcast on the Boston-based radio station WILD as part of a program featuring Moakley and other members of Congress.
Creator
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Burke, Yvonne Brathwaite
Grasso, Ella
Subject
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Burke, Yvonne Brathwaite
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Radio
Involuntary sterilization
Abortion
Source
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001 (MS100)
Series 09.01 Special Materials: Audio Recordings
Box 3 Item 27
Language
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English
Type
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Sound recording
1 reel (7")
Format
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MP3
PDF
Relation
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<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf">finding aid to the John Joseph Moakley Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
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Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Black history
Congressional Black Caucus
Joe Moakley
Radio
Women's History
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Dublin Core
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
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ms-0117
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Sisters in the Resistance: France Pejot, draft book section edited by Charlotte Rampling, undated
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Pejot, France
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, <em>Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.</em>
Source
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
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Text
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PDF
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tgn:1000070
Language
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English
Subject
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World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Interviews
Rights
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Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/a861106caebecaaddf983cbd042edb68.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=MsY18ixbPdp9XBCsJQruovpvSn%7EAO6Ll4WwOoQE9CNlxGE5lIC9X7cdWpisWoV46X6dBXcKc9ubNAWVzebs51q8FG7hyCnSso3t3vhLWWadNsrgJ0fF0zgqAfww0KgTwOqeBlB8mrIfr%7EZdoj4DDua7NG0zvno3TuUYZ72xpX7ebB-AxQyKrYLW-JiiCYnVivXBg0kh9M55qh-6v8Ed28gww6W1FxXUwfo1a8iBiRR9U0MWNDH6h5HBiurKO7%7EIHTL6TIgtvenO2wtwgNljFhtTZcXHbN1l3qH6Eooh2HPg4gXmtdIBDJ29p11uIf-qhFujgkWpEHLw5isoDuKl0wQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6ee1331ab538370a6d44698e31c18a7f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
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Dublin Core
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ms-0124
Title
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Sisters in the Resistance:transcript of interview with Hélène Renal (French)
Date
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08 July 1983
Creator
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Renal, Hélène
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
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Text
Documents
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PDF
Coverage
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tgn:1000070
Language
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French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/de5de564de34c0f8f7cc215e3a077836.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=phg17uz4HZnaxsrFfJeCNRDQwexf0R4YTjhYFJSeOXj65AN0ZFtjslgDN-3p72pGfbRgI034NlX%7Es2fDXgTuBiKgJ2EJvqeJNlqhNbcYnk2H58EBNLjIZVGTPj87%7Ek2Ib9CnnrMxznm3Sx5gj38BfjybRv3wgKZZz8LP-0rbqTEOPAVg%7EagxotuEhMwUfjE5Jra55BThztY7bPCNKIFWlozi4FSpaTgkh8l8lI4sP5Q3DWIEtjct-h3zKT%7ECQvO6UmHy3jVib9aq9bV6aVPXRPS97KWDlvJV5vqi6KQ%7EW1TLsIrtsPXhsfK6XTTVcNfWJMXzlJ3tqOVFjabopzz2ZA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1b99f4f6c9c75ba72d210e37fce93b54
PDF Text
Text
Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
Interview: An interview with Hélène Rénal by Margaret Collins Weitz, 7/08/1983
Interview Participants: Margaret Collins Weitz (interviewer) and Hélène Rénal (interviewee)
Date of Recording: 7/08/1983
Length of Recording: 59:54
Item Number: Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, MS109/03.01
Citation Number: An interview with Hélène Rénal by Margaret Collins Weitz.
(MS109/03.01/95). 1983. Transcripts (French and English) and audio recording available.
Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Interview Summary: This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted by Margaret Collins
Weitz for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945 (1995).
French résistante and journalist Hélène Rénal discusses her pre- and post-war life, focusing mainly on her
participation in the French Resistance during WWII. The interview starts with what it was like to grow up
in a bourgeois, Jewish background in 1930s Paris, France. Then Rénal describes her involvement in the
French Resistance in Savoie, including her early work distributing flyers and making false identity cards;
the challenges of coding and decoding telegrams in the “Transmission-Action” information network; how
her association with her husband, who was head of a Resistance network, resulted in her arrest; the story
of her interrogation and her husband’s interrogation by Klaus Barbie; her covert travels between Savoie
and Paris by train as secretary to the head of the network; her imprisonment at Ravensbrück, a
concentration camp in Germany; her time immediately after the war in the occupied territory of Tyrol,
Austria. She also discussed aspects of her post-war life including writing a book with a group of friends
from Ravensbrück; and how she became a journalist, working at Elle and Marie-Claire. She ends by
reflecting on the path of her life and the certain people that influenced her and gave her opportunities,
including Michel Lévy who worked at the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
Recording Transcript Begins
HÉLÉNE RÉNAL: So, I am Hélène Rénal. I am a journalist by profession, I no longer work a lot
because I am tired and I am no longer motivated to work. I am 60 years old. I am more or less from a
bourgeois background. I completed my secondary studies and I was a med student when I joined in the
resistance, which completely stopped my future in medicine and I never became a doctor. I (must??) stop
myself from time to time. All the same, ask me some questions.
MARGARET COLLINS WEITZ: So, how and why did you engage in the Resistance?
RÉNAL: Despite the fact that I was very young, I already had quite clear ideas on politics, on what was
going on in the world. In particular, my father took me to hear different conferences on what was
happening in Germany. From 1933 --I remember one conference which horrified me because I was very
young, where they were telling how the Germans were treating the Jews, how they would enter a
children’s nursery and they would throw the children through the window. That absolutely horrified me.
Let’s say that I was a little up to date [on the news] and I was very scared of the Germans. Something
important, I am Jewish, still. This is something important that I must tell you. So, all these issues
interested me, interested my family, most especially my father anyway. My mother, fearful, did not like
very much that we spoke to her about all that. So, very quickly, very early, as soon as the Germans
entered France, I looked … I was very--I wanted to do something. Unfortunately, I did things very late. I
did little things, let’s say. Early on, I distributed, under doors, some photos of De Gaulle that one of my
friends had received from London. We had to distribute the photos of De Gaulle under the doors. It was
an act of resistance and that happened in Savoie where this friend was a socialist, was camouflaged,
hidden, was … it was funny … he had an odd job … he was tax inspector. He dealt with taxes, so this
was not at all, at all in his field, but we had found this little hideout. So there, we did things like that …
MARGARET COLLINS WEITZ: So, you were in Savoie?
[END OF PAGE 1]
RÉNAL: During the summer, I found myself in Savoie. Otherwise, I stayed in Paris. No, I lived in Paris,
I studied in Paris, I had always lived in Paris. Good. I am a true Parisian and I care for it. I really, really
like Paris, I adore Paris, this does not prevent me from traveling around the world, but Paris is my life.
And there I found myself in Savoie and I met this guy who after became well-known because he
participated a lot in the Algerian War. Eventually he became an important politician, but my first act of
resistance, that was that-- to distribute the photos of De Gaulle, walking in the streets on July 14th with a
bouquet of blue, white, and red. And so, I had--this man--I was a writer, I really liked to copy
handwriting, so I also made my first false identity card at Thonon-les-Bains. I enjoyed this a lot and I was
making the fakes as they wanted me to. I dirtied them, I arranged them, they truly appeared to be
authentic and I did a really good forgery of the signature of the Prefect at the time whose name I don’t
know anymore. Eventually, I perfectly imitated his signature. So, I made identity cards as they wanted
2
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
and I found that I was doing things but in fact, this was not exactly what I wanted. And to truly say, I
could have entered in the Resistance, this, that I truly call the Resistance --in a Resistance movement,
only in ‘43 when I entered in a real network. I was with a boss of which I knew nothing but his name
which was an assumed name anyway. At the time, I did not know that this man was a doctor, of
Hungarian origin, that he left his wife and his children to join the Resistance. And that, that happened in
Lyon. I met him in Paris and he asked me to come to Lyon. I went [to Lyon], I left everything, I left like
that, and I became a network secretary which, when all said and done, was very important. This network
was called “Transmission-Action.” And in fact, it was like the largest post office of all the action
networks; that is to say of all the terrorists, of all the--those that we called at the time terrorists of all the
maquis, of all the people who fought, who truly fought. There were truly two very different movements :
there was one part, the information, where only the people who gathered information and gave pieces of
information on what was happening worked, and, on the other hand, there was the network of true
terrorists who would blow up trains, who placed bombs, who killed Germans, who did what we call
action work. Me, I worked in this network which was very very … big. Anyway, I did not report at all
when I was there, and our job consisted mostly of producing radios. There was also a radio school that we
had set up in Savoie, with … and we made [END OF PAGE 2] radios, because of the quantities that we
needed and it was us who would make the radios for all the smaller networks, for all who needed a radio,
it was us who they asked for it. We would send a radio, a man who knew, well, somewhat well to
received the messages than resend messages. This was a big deal, I know it now, I knew it after, I knew it
a little then, but I had a boss who was extremely prudent and who told me very little. Even though I lived
in the middle of a funny thing. I was slowly … In Lyon, I moved 32 times. That gives you an idea of
some of the places where we had to go with prudence, with precaution, because there was danger, because
of this, because of that. So, I was in 32 different places which I remember well and each time, I was
surrounded by a box of arms, submachine guns, revolvers, of all that one can dream. I died of fright in the
middle of all that.
WEITZ: You weren’t very scared?
RÉNAL:
My work consisted mostly of--yes, it is bizarre. My work consisted mostly of receiving telegrams
for the head of my network. I was his personal secretary, one could say. I never in my life typed on a
machine, but that did not mean anything. I typed on an English machine which was parachuted in, which
was broken and I typed on one finger, with one finger, and like that, finally I could—funny--and what’s
more, on an English machine that did not have the same keys as the French keyboard. No matter, I typed
on that. So, I had to--I received--someone brought me coded telegrams. Well, I learned to decode them
and this was somewhat complicated. I had a personal code that only I had, and even my boss did not have
it, there was only myself, who had it, and I also had a code to recode the telegrams that my boss wanted to
resend. Well, the telegrams were not very interesting because these were the practical telegrams. That is:
“We had received some document or some information or some …” All that, always was more or less
coded, so, this was not very fascinating but even so it was a very important job, I knew it afterwards and
so, I quickly became aware of it all the same because--And so, we would ask many things, we would ask
“Send us some devices like this, some devices like that.” And we would receive very different equipment,
radio sets of all types, of all categories, big, small, average, to send telegrams, to receive telegrams. [END
3
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
OF PAGE 3] And so also--so, the thing that I often did because eventually I was the only one who could
do it, that is that I would supply the radios themselves. I would go carry certain elements of the radio sets
that must, … so there were these little devices that we had called “sugar” because it was like a piece of
sugar but these were the components which we put in the sets and that had to be given a certain
wavelength. This was very, very settling like … technically, this was very to the point. This was very,
very well, yes. So, I would go to bring some things like that, often some supplies too because the
unfortunate had nothing, some tobacco because they had nothing to smoke. So that, I was also tasked by
my boss, because I was resourceful, to find on the black market, some chocolate, some things to sweeten
up life for all these guys. So, I went around France a lot with baskets full of … I would put vegetables and
then, in the bottom, I had all my things hidden, sometimes documents, sometimes I would bring … when
there was a break from liaison agents, it was necessary to replace them, so I would replace them, I would
bring things, I would report other things, and well, I would do--This was a very normal job in the
network, but difficult.
WEITZ: Anyway, (This was not ??) normal. But were you arrested?
RÉNAL: So we were. I was not arrested at all because of my network [involvement], but my husband
was head … I was married, let’s say, to a guy who was head of an information network. Actually, he was
a spy. The people in the intelligence networks, we were spies and the others, they were terrorists. And he
was head of an important network, and by the greatest of chances, I was with him. … I saw him very,
very little, and I was with him, and it was him that would get me arrested and I was arrested at the same
time as him, with him. And fortunately, I could, at least, finally almost completely, let’s say, not to say
that I did. And I played the complete fool, who did not know anything, who did not understand anything,
who did not know what the Resistance was. It worked more or less. But what helped me a lot is that I
spoke German, very fluently, I spoke and understood German. And during the interrogation which was
very, very difficult, … and I suffered a lot … fourteen, not bad … the Germans spoke amongst
themselves, and by an extraordinary chance, when they asked me questions about my identity, they asked
me if I spoke any foreign languages, I said : “Yes, English.” But I did not say German, which helped me
greatly because, during the interrogations, I understood everything that they [the officers/Germans] said
amongst themselves and I could tailor [END PAGE 4] my responses a little bit to what they were saying
amongst them. I do not absolutely know why I did not say : “German.” But it was like that. There were
things like that from Heaven which fell upon you. So, we were arrested, that was very serious because the
entire network was completely dismantled.
WEITZ: When was this?
RÉNAL: This was in May ‘44, at the end-- the 18th of May 1944. It was very sad to be arrested at this
moment, we knew, we felt the end coming, it was horrible. But we had--there was in this network a
double agent, who was the cousin of another guy, an Alsatian, who by conviction, truly believed in the
German victory, fool! And who sold out all the network and the thirty-two of us were arrested. And my
husband escaped [from] a hospital in Lyon where they had put him after having been horribly tortured,
and another boy, a little Alsatian, returned and for me, this was all. From thirty-two, there you go.
4
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
WEITZ: And the Hungarian doctor?
RÉNAL: So, he had nothing since I said absolutely nothing, they did not know that I worked in this
network. As a precaution --they knew quickly what had happened because eventually, we knew very well,
we had the contacts (or liaisons) and they knew my husband very well, they knew what had happened
very well, so, … as a precaution, he was quickly sent to London, he did not stay there. The network
continued to work very well. But me, anyway, I had little information on the network. I knew certain
places, but which changed, so, that was no longer valuable. And anyway, I said nothing, I must not have
talked at all, at all, at all. And they interrogated me on the network, on my husband, on if I truly knew
nothing. So, they could have fought me, they could have made me what they wanted, I knew nothing. But
moreover, what I would have said, that I knew nothing, that I knew nothing of the what was the
Resistance, that I was completely an idiot, that I understood nothing and that I played well the fool and I
believed, very, very long time that they were going to let me go because they promised me. And so,
eventually, in the end, I was interrogated all the time by an assistant of Barbie, the infamous Barbie. My
husband, he was tortured by Barbie, but me, I was not tortured. [END OF PAGE 5]
I was beaten, beaten, beaten, beaten, that, as long as they can but this was not the same thing, it was not
very serious. No, no. I attended the torturing of others and I found that to have received hits, it is nothing,
in comparison to the torture that they did to people. In any case, I was not seen by Barbie at all and I was
only seen by his assistant who was called Sohler (??) and who is still living now. He has a prosperous
carpet trade in Stuttgart. Because this was also an American agent. He was a double agent. There you go.
So, he was completely freed and voila.
WEITZ: And during this time that you traveled to fix radios, you were never arrested or stopped some
part … (???) on your bicycle?
RÉNAL: Yes, yes, yes. I was stopped one time on my way, on bicycle. So, this was a bit curious. I was
very, very lucky because I had documents in a little [piece of] luggage that was on the rack, on which
there really were, basically, on top, this that was imprudent, but I did not have the time, I took the time, I
fixed a maquis and I came back with the documents of this maquis, - there were basically … I still did not
see what was in my suitcase …”radio Alger”. I encountered a dumb German, a type from Wehrmacht,
thanks Heaven it was not the Gestapo, who read that “Radio Alguerr (sic) ? What is that?” I said : “I do
not know. Movie.” I said. “Ahh! Good.” He returned by suitcase and I left. I do not know how I could
continue on bicycle rolling straight. I should not have ridden straight but truly, I was very lucky. I took
myself like that. I was also stopped in a raid on a train. Also, an unheard of vein! I had … so, to take the
train, I had a very, very good thing. I had a kind of bag where I had opened the lining that I carefully put
back together and at the bottom of the bag, I put all the documents and on top, I always put vegetables. As
this was a time when there was not much to eat, everyone would walk around, looking for supplies
throughout the countryside. And surrounding Lyon, there were some. So, I always had carrots, turnips,
leeks, all that we want in a bag and I appeared to be a poor _______(gourde??) who went to look for
supplies. And so, I had also some very extraordinary things that I had received from London : gadgets,
but marvelously made gadgets in which I could hide documents. For example, a block of soap, a piece of
soap that was cut in two, but remarkably cut, where it opens and on the inside there was a little spot where
I could put the documents. [END PAGE 6]
5
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
I also had an umbrella where the handle unscrewed and where I could hide some documents. I had--so,
wonder of wonders, it was a tube of toothpaste, which you could open the tip and in which I could slide
also some documents. I had--I refound that and I still have it today, something extraordinary and in fact it
is there that I hid my codes. I had a little wallet, sent from London, a double back, and I put, … I had all
little codes, which were at the time a bit extraordinary because they were already … ah! how do you call
it? all little, miniature, like that...ah! there is a word for that … excuse me … (fibers?), the things that are
reduced, in reduction, all little … My codes, they were numbers. Well, I had row of numbers. It was on
the mini- … little cards … my God! There is a word for that ... little importance. The little cards. And I
had to … It was the codes that only worked one time. Each time that I used a row, I needed to shred it and
burn it. Cut it and burn it. So, I had my code in my little wallet and I refound by a miracle--my mother
refound it in there where I had been arrested, the little wallet with my code inside.
WEITZ: She knew?
RÉNAL: No, not at all. She did not know. But she knew that I had been arrested and when she came to
the place, she wanted to go see and she found there things that belonged to me ; a nightshirt and so this
little wallet.
WEITZ: that you had left…
RÉNAL: And well, yes. I had a compromising paper that I had succeeded to eat, well, that was … I asked
to go to the toilets and I swallowed my paper. But that, my code was in my wallet and I died of fear that
they found it. They did not find because it was very very well made.
WEITZ: That, that was when you were with your husband?
RÉNAL: Yes. This was the day where I was with my husband. I had my codes on me, this was normal. I
had to always guard them with me, this was important and I had them on me. [END PAGE 7]
WEITZ: Effectively, that, that was-RÉNAL: That was an extraordinary miracle.
WEITZ: But when were you arrested before, with the vegetables … you went back to your activities?
Each time?
RÉNAL: Ah well, yes. It was a shock. I had--I died of fear but good, I continued valiantly, cheerfully.
You know, I must tell you something, we were very little in number. There were not many résistantes. I
was searching on all sides. I went to recruit some friends. You know, people say: “Oh, me, I would, if I
could, I know, etc.” And we would say between us: “If everyone who did not have an elderly father, an
elderly mother, kids, who were not sick who did not have this who did not have that, all of France would
be in the Resistance.” In fact, we did not have anyone and everyone who I had contacted [said], “Ah, yes,
I would very much like to but my mother is sick, so I cannot do that.” Well. “Ah yes, I would like to but I
6
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
am too scared. “Ah yes, but my fiancé!” Ah yes, but…” And so, finally, we never found anyone. What
happened on the inside, we could not loosen up because we knew that it was very, very serious, we were
very little in number. You had to stay strong, you had to hold on, and so there were arrests. There were
people who were arrested. And yes, all the time that happened. Suddenly, we learned that in a corner,
there was a catastrophe. So, you had to replace, you had to refind, it had to be redone, it had to be
reconstructed and my boss was an extraordinary guy the type who was quite good at bringing it back
together. There were some quite remarkable people in the network, who are … there were many who
disappeared. My boss, himself, died many years ago, from cancer. But, he returned as a doctor. He was a
doctor, He became a doctor in the country like he was before, wonderful enough, so …
WEITZ: There were how many women?
RÉNAL: There were not many. In my network, we were three. There was myself, there was me during
Paris because the head of my network [END PAGE 8] was between the two zones … and Paris … and ….
finally, that carried some numbers, R1, R2, R3 … we were organized in a sort of small town, if you will,
and he was between the two, and, there was a girl who died also some years ago, Andrée. There was
another girl who was liaison agent, and that’s all. In all the network, we were three girls, that’s all, that’s
all. So, the other is living, happily … she is there, and then me.
WEITZ: Still, you were a secretary, that required patience--it was essential …
RÉNAL: No. I would say that I was secretary of the network. In fact, it was true because I was obliged
to--I was busy carrying mail for the boss, well, when I was there. Sometimes, when he was in Paris, he
asked me to come bring documents when he could not return quickly. So, I have some funny stories of
that; of taking the sleeper car with a German officer. At the time, there were not many trains and not
many sleeper cars. Well, we traveled in good condition for many reasons, first off precaution. In the
sleeper car, in theory, it is good. Well, since it does not bother you too much. And it happened that I
traveled from Paris to Lyon with a German officer below me, me above, and the telegram decoder that I
received from my boss that I had to bring arriving to Paris. So, this was, this was … I was there, like that
… one time this was awful. I had a lot of documents to bring to my boss. And I had them sewn into the
shoulder pads of my jacket. So, it made the sound of paper, it was frightening. Each time that I touched
the jacket, it was horrible, I had the impression that the entire train could hear me. But that went very
well, I did not have a problem. I did a lot of little trips like this, kind of funny, not always in a sleeper car
because that did not always happen. But, I transported some things. And so, in Paris, they willingly sent
me there because I was Parisian, and I knew Paris very well and I had many secrets for the Metro.
Because of all that, I knew very, very well how to get by, I knew to meet in easy places [and] not others.
And so, one day, a very funny story happened. I had a meeting with my boss in the Jardin des Plantes, it
is close to Place Jussieu, over there. So, I took the Metro and so, I saw on the platform … I don’t know
anymore where I took the metro, but I must have changed two times. There was a guy, a young guy who I
did not like very much. He made me terribly suspicious. I did not like him, this man. [END PAGE 9] So,
well. I took the Metro. He got on, I got on. I scanned him from the corner of my eye. He got off at the
same time as me. And that, I did not like that at all. So I needed to change. Finally, well, I thought of all
of the horrible things that could happen. Finally, he left the metro at the same time at the same place as
7
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
me. I was on the sidewalk and he was on the other. And he went in the same direction as me, and this was
funny, it was that we both had a meeting with the boss, and he was a liaison agent as I was. I knew him
very well after, this was Robert [last name inaudible]. Anyway, quickly my boss said to me : “Ah la la,
my God, I forgot ..”, because I told him : “Careful, there is a man who…”, so, he looked at him, he burst
out laughing, he said to me: “yes, yes, I see very well. Well, that’s ok, don’t be scared. This is nothing.
Give me what you have, tell me what you have to say and then quickly scoot but this guy is on our side,
don’t worry.” It was kind of comical, kind of funny.
WEITZ: Yes, indeed. Was it the fact, not only being Parisian but also being a young woman, that you
were given easier travel?
RÉNAL: Without doubt, without doubt. But one thing that did not make my life easy, that is that I died
of fear. I had a terrible fear, I never had this fear in my life. I was constantly, constantly, constantly
stressed, constantly convinced that I was going to be arrested, constantly, constantly, to such a point that,
when I was arrested, I was relieved. I was finished. There were other things that were beginning but there
was no longer this horrible gut-wrenching fear. And when people tell you that they were not scared, and
well, good for them, because I swear that I was scared. It was horrible.
WEITZ: It was all the time?
RÉNAL: From morning until night, from night until morning, I never had peace, I was scared all the
time, all the time, all the time, all the time from fear. At first, I lived in the happy places and then, very
often, I needed to type all night. So, I had to hide all of that. So, I put the piles of blankets on the table, I
placed the machine, I put a pile of other things, I typed quite softly, [END PAGE 10] very softly so that
they would not hear me, and I lived in some places where we were bursting with cold because we had
nothing to heat us. Sometimes, the guys of the network would bring me a little coal and I made a little fire
in the chimney, but I was cold! So, I had mittens, I made this type of glove that I had cut in two so I could
type on the machine because I had to, of course, do … to occupy myself with these telegrams but also to
type the reports which I understood nothing at all but I had to type them and I was alone to do it. So, I
must say that I would really like to see these documents again because that would be funny…
WEITZ: But to stay in such conditions, it is truly something extraordinary.
RÉNAL: Well, yes and no. Yes, because it was surprising and it was miraculous each time. It was a true
miracle to succeed in passing stuff, of what happened in England, of all that worked, of what happened to
have the liaisons, to this that some telegrams arrived, that other telegrams left, that we received some
messages by radio … all that was so miraculous, that worked and at the same time, that worked well,
finally, this was well organized. So, there were two things that were somewhat curious, that always made
me wonder. I said to myself: “This is so fantastic, all the same, that works, we receive some things.” I
received some papers, I could decipher well more or less but the people that picked up the telegrams by
radio were very, very clever and it could not hurt to recreate (or rebuild) the documents. It was
sometimes difficult and that was a job that I liked a lot, it was to rebuild the words which did not stick
very well, but it happened all the same. That, that was a side enough … from Heaven, like that, very, very
8
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
miraculous. But, otherwise, I was eventually, personally protected enough, by my head of network and for
all the guys of the network who guarded me like the apple of their eye because I was someone … You
had to pay very much attention. So, there were … they were very, very careful, at first, they did not come
where I was so much.There was a very, very small amount of people who knew the place where I was.
Sometimes, they were obligated to come to look for arms or to look for objects that were stored there. But
very, very few. They managed to come when I was not there. So, I was still protected.
WEITZ: But … to be surrounded by arms and all that, it was still an enormous risk. [END PAGE 11]
RÉNAL: And well, it was an enormous risk but I did not think of it, I would especially die of fear to
touch the things there. Truly, I would look at them from far, far away and one day, something funny
happened. It was in one of the apartments, with an assistant of my boss and someone rang. So, we said to
ourselves: “What do we do?” the guy said to me: “I will go there,” courageously. He took a revolver. He
did not know how to shoot, he never fired a shot in his life. He took a revolver, he placed it behind his
back and it was simply the man who came to turn up the gas, the gas meter. So, well, he turned up the gas
meter and the other, he turned green, with his revolver hanging like that. So, I said to him: “You know
how to shoot?” He said to me: “No.” “Have you ever shot in your life?” “No, never.” “So, how you would
have done what?” “Oh, I don’t know. I would have fired.” We were really poor, innocent soldiers. We did
not know how to serve us at all.
WEITZ: You were still soldiers who [inaudible]
RÉNAL: That is true but--one time also, I had a horrible scare. I was also in one of these apartments-and so in addition, you must see the apartments that we found, because there were some things that we
more or less lent … we did not know who, I did not know--Finally, they were appalling places,
throughout Lyon, which was a very dirty town. I was all the time--there were mice, I was shivering from
the cold, there were [inaudible], it was horrifying. I always cleaned because I could not stand all of the
filth. And one day, someone rang. So, I was scared to death, I was all alone and I … I only had one place
where I could see who rang, it was in the WC. I stood on the toilet. There was a little skylight and I could
see on the landing who had rang, and I saw a cop. So, I said to myself: “That, that is it, truly, I am fucked,
I am arrested, finally good.” This was not the case at all. So, well, he rang. I did not respond, I did not
move. I waited, he rang, rang, rang, then he left. And I was scared to death. And so my boss, someone
from the network arrived. I said: “There you go, this is what happened to me.” Ah, but don’t worry. It is a
man, it is a cop, this is his apartment, without doubt he comes to look for something for him.” But really
these are the things that you...that you…
WEITZ: So, after your return from Ravensbrück, you began to write this book, these memories, right
after? [END PAGE 12]
RÉNAL: No, no, not at all. At first, this was not me to write … I am incapable … I began, maybe I will
continue now … at first, I stayed 15 years without saying anything, I absolutely did not want to speak of
Ravensbrück and I did not want to hear about it. All the same, I did not want to hear talk of clubs,
associations, and all that, not of the deported, not of the deportation, and above all, I did not want to tell
9
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
my family. That, that did not come out, there is no way. And so, all the same, they came looking for me.
(They said to me???) “Listen, you must come, we did some things, finally, this is not possible that you
stay here like this on the sidelines. You absolutely must come.” Well, so I accepted to discuss most
notably the Amicale de Ravensbrück (Ravensbruck Group), and so after, I was at the (???), well, brought
also by some friends who brought me there. And so, we had decided to write this book. So, I am
responsible for a frightening thing that I have not been able to complete because it was too hard, we
solicited testimonies. We wrote in our--we have our little newspapers that we distribute to our members
and we haves asked for testimonies, asking each one to write some memories of the Resistance or of
deportations, finally what she would like. We received more than two thousand responses and I am tasked
with sorting through these responses, and to classify them. So well, I received very little and so, one day,
I could not continue because I fell sick. I had nightmares, finally this was horrifying, so I left the others to
continue a bit, and after, we put together the book, each writing a chapter. And so, for more reliability, as
guaranteed, when we wrote something, we passed it to all of the others so that they could correct, read
and eventually say what goes and what does not, etc. So, each of us had a specific subject but we re-read
all that we wrote. That is to say that it was done in a very, very scientific way with [inaudible] as director
of editing and I believe that it is a very, very good document because there, you will find a lot, a lot of
things. There are many testimonies.
WEITZ: That’s for sure but what I would like to say is this, that the book came shortly after the war …
to enter in a situation where you were … ????
RÉNAL: But not at all. I was there, I was sick, I was very, very-- I weighed 25 kilos [55lbs] when they
weighed me for the first time, I was not in shape. At first, it was at first necessary to get back on my feet
and so, I did something completely crazy, against the grain of everyone else. I said that I would like to go
to an occupied state for revenge. Poor creature! [END PAGE 13] So, I went with this guy who knew my
husband who was also head of a network, who went in the Occupied State of Tyrol, and I left with him
and his wife and I became a part of a group of French soldiers who occupied Tyrol. Eventually, I did very
good work there because I was with a quite extraordinary man which the job consisted … he was a
scientist … his job consisted of research, camouflaged amongst the Nazis, some guys who had did
interesting things in Germany. Like that, we had found some quite fantastic guys who participated in the
production of V-1, V-2, and I was tasked with interrogating them. So, this was quite extraordinary, this
was not too tiring and it was very, very interesting and it was not too terrifying. And so, we found
something absolutely extraordinary, a wind tunnel that everyone ignored, thanks to a man that my boss
found in Austria, who brought us to the place where this was. This was a wind tunnel that never worked,
and a wind tunnel, this is a huge device, this is an enormous hangars in which we study the capacity of
planes and notably their reliability depending on the wind, depending on … So, this wind tunnel, which
was quite modern, pattern, having been made in the underground caves in Tyrol, and it is us who found
this thing, with a man who explained to me that he knew. He was more or less a technician. But so, I had
much joy because it is me who went to bring the documents to France … so my boss told me: “It is you
who (will go?) and I had brought document to France to the Ministry of Air, where I brought all that, and
immediately, there was a great sensation because they sent all the engineers, all the technicians saw this
thing that was fantastic. Besides, it has been moved. This is in France, in (Aussoy???) and it continues to
10
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
work, this wind tunnel. It was moved piece by piece and she works in France. So, that was … a thing
very-WEITZ: (relax???)
RÉNAL: Yes, it was really something which I held as a very very good memory.
WEITZ: And yet, it was not difficult for you to be with those Germans who treated you so badly?
RÉNAL: At first in Tyrol, they were not Germans, they were worse but I did not know it.
[END PAGE 14] I did not know that the Austrians notably, and the Tyrolians in particular, were the worst
Nazis that were. I only knew that after. But already, it was … the German language that continued to
bother me … even now, but the idea to go looking for some things and to go … and we were also found
some Nazis … I was with a man whose job consisted of finding hidden Nazis. So, we found some people.
So, it was a kind of chase and it was still the Resistance, if we can say that, it was still the job of a
resistant, still. Well, I was at the time not very happy but I had the feeling to do something and to do
something in memory of all the people who I had seen disappear. Finally, there was a type of (take over
or redemption?), if you can say that. Finally, it was a little bit crazy. You know, before returning to a
normal state, that is that I returned, after a lot of time had passed, we are in a completely different world. I
had a lot of difficulty living in France, with “normal” people. I did not understand their language, I did
not have the same interests as them at all. I had a lot of problems, mostly with my mother who could not
bear to see me tired. I was horribly tired. For example, we went to the theatre to distract me and I was not
saying much and I was falling asleep because I was tired. My mother pinch me to say: How, a girl of your
age! Wake up!” She could not bear to see that I was not all the same as the others.
WEITZ: You did not (talk???)?
RÉNAL: No, it was very difficult. It was not possible.
WEITZ: It is maybe because you never spoke …
RÉNAL: It is because I did not talk and because I did not tell anything and I said nothing, and I could
not, eventually, that would not go, I could not, there was nothing to do … and so, to recount that, to
recount what I had lived … I had lived such terrible things … They found that I was at Ravensbrück and
that from Ravensbrück, I was in a little unit .. we were only seven hundred, so directly in the Germans,
with the Germans, in an ammunitions factory with very hard and terrible living conditions. And to
recount that … it is not possible, finally. Still now, there are some things that I never recounted … I can
not … which I still do not want to think of because it is too hard. [END PAGE 15]
WEITZ: (Did it help you???) to write this book?
RÉNAL: It helped me a lot, yes, enormously, it freed me of many things but what I really helped to free
me was that I had a good psychoanalysis for seven and a half years and this above all cleared me of alot, a
11
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
lot of things that I had to bear, well besides, because I returned, … I was eventually, compared to others,
overall well. At first, I looked good, which is quite extraordinary. I was very thin but, the last days, we
had worked in the forest because the factories were no longer functioning, so we were brought to the
forest to do silly things, along the tracks, pick up little pieces of wood that … the trains worked very, very
poorly, with very bad coal and the coal sent little … some sparks and these small pieces of wood were at
risk of catching fire and that made fires in the forest. So, we had to pick up all these little pieces of wood
to avoid forest fires. Why not that than other things? For 12 hours, picking up little bits of wood in the
forest like that, with the Germans, nothing seemed impossible. So, we were outside, there was sun, it was
quite nice, it was April and I found a way … I was a little tanned. And when I returned, my friends said to
me: “Listen, hide yourself behind us, because we look like a squeezed lemon and you look good. So
damn! They will think that we came back from winter sports, this is not possible.”
WEITZ: and this journalism? ???
RÉNAL: And well, this journalism, so there, this was completely crazy because I was a medical student
and I thought upon returning: “I can never be a doctor, I don’t have the strength. It is too hard.” This was
silly of me, oh well. And besides, I have not been helped by family who have entirely respected my
wishes. They did not guide me at all. They must have been elsewhere. They had to shake me up and said
to me: “Go, return to your studies and …” Not at all. They (m’a???) … Maybe that this is good, maybe
that this is bad. I don’t know anything. So, I had … I wanted to work … at first, it was because some
serious things happened in my family. My parents were not arrested, this was by an incredible stroke of
luck, but they were completely robbed. There was no longer anything, there wasn’t even a penny in the
family. [END PAGE 16] My father and my mother were no longer very young. Well, in my husband’s
family, there was also a lot of drama. His brother was arrested, and well, he did not have any more
money. So, very quickly, I said : “I must work.” So, already when I had left for the [occupied
territory???], I was working there. I was paid, and that, that was one thing which I really wanted; it is that
I was making money. Well, I always had this … this desire to be independent and to make a living. It’s a
little silly, it was like that. and … so … journalism … when I had ended my occupation period, I really
had had enough, I returned, I no longer wanted to continue this career and so, the man who brought me
committed some violent acts, he stole a pile of things, he misbehaved in Austria. Eventually, He was put
under close arrest. Eventually, all that took a nasty turn and so, the real military who have truly come to
occupy Austria, they really were not the people with whom I could … with all the craziness of the
resistance, it was still going, but with the true soldiers, that could not stick at all. So that what happened
when I returned, I did not want to stay in Austria. There was above all a certain General (Bedoit???) who
was obnoxious and who led all French troops in Austria, who was sort of a real soldier, real general, who
had not screwed up during the war and who had come there to lead the good life with his car, chauffeur,
and all the good life like us … this was not it at all. So, I returned, I did not want … I returned and so I
wanted … well, even so I wanted to continue my studies and I did not want to immediately return to
work, so, I did chemistry. Why chemistry? I have absolutely know idea, but I was not very mad about
chemistry, I did not like it much and so, all of a sudden, I said “No.” And so, I want to work, I want to
make money. So, I had a cousin who at the time was on of the managers of France-Soir. He brought me
to the paper. What did I do at this paper? So that, that is the question that I continue to ask myself so
many years later. And I stayed for 15 years at the paper where I was bored to death, to death, to do things
12
�Transcript of interview with Hélène Rénal (MS109/3.1)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/archive
archives@suffolk.edu
that terribly bored me. A women’s newspaper, I hated it. I hated dresses, well not hated but it bored me to
spend my time concerned with little dresses and pots and things like that. Finally I did … as I was very
conscientious, I did my job very well. And I stayed there 15 years almost crying all the time saying to
myself : “My God, what the hell am I doing here? But what am I doing in the middle of these fools for
whom only dresses count, only things and whatsits?” And I was watched all this [d’un oeil vague],
thinking of other things. And all my friends became doctors, while I , I was not. But, I took a very, very,
very long time to come back to earth, actually. [END PAGE 17] I don’t know if I had completely
returned. Not completely. I believe so, yes, anyway, but it took me a very, very, very long time. And so
after Elle that no longer stuck at all. So, I was arrested for a year and I gave myself a year sabbatical
where I did things that I enjoyed. I did editing. So, I leared to make books. So, that made me wildly
happy. I worked at Gallimard, I worked in the stacks of the publishing house, as an intern, and so, in the
printers where I learned to print. I really, really enjoyed all that during the year and so, at the end of the
year, I said to myself : “And so, you must work for something new, my darling.” So this time I went to
Marie-Claire which was still better than Elle. So, I was a specialist in women's journals. So, I went to
Marie-Claire where there I stayed four years and so, at the end of four years, I really could no longer and
so, I got so mad at my friends who said to me : “Listen, that’s enough, stop being a fool. Do something
intelligent and interesting.” So, I became a journalist anyway, because I had experience in editing, I knew
how to make books, and I knew how to do a lot of things that, in general, journalists did not know how to
do. So, I went to l’(INSEE), l’Institut National d’Etudes Statitistiques. ??? There were reasons for that,
that is first, I had two very good friends who worked there and also, that it was just across the street from
me, rue de l’Université. So, it was marvelous because I crossed the street and I went to work like that, it
was quite relaxing and overall, I had an incredible boss with whom I was very, very well understood and
we worked very, very well together, having a lot of fun, he was a charming man named Michel Lévy.
And the said Michel Lévy, in the end I don’t know how many years, was named (?????) where Jacqueline
(Hect??) worked. And this is like that that … so, he brought me with him, because he would not let me
go. “So, come with me, we will make books there.” So, I went with him to make books and that is how I
met Jacqueline. But it was a completely different environment. I had a lot of fun there. I did a lot of very,
very interesting things with passionate people. Eventually, I thought: “If I had been a doctor, I would not
do all that. So, after all, well, and so, it is like that and so there you go.” You must ..
WEITZ: [inaudible]
RÉNAL: Yes. But should I continue?
WEITZ: Yes yes.
[END PAGE 18]
[END OF TAPE A]
13
�
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
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<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
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ms-0125
Title
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Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Hélène Renal (English), 1983
Date
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08 July 1983
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Renal, Hélène
Weitz, Margaret Collins
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One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, <em>Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.</em>
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
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PDF
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tgn:1000070
Language
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English
Subject
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World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Interviews
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Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/a9c0f8ca8ad49b7d073eb97d6a7f5216.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=OGlc%7EwpOG2BGMBuXgLvzw8W6RHChNbFKdCpfA%7Ec907mGMehJBDC3w69BdwpTKhyQZrCqmVS4i0RQAbITMxv7uxmkpcAaaKm8wdX1P7htjylEfIosPTIw9MHA5p65JgscIcJMnnmGGG7HeB1ivNOWoi0QAYOqGH3rF1cHWg5-H-44qM7vtOwacMCLhPgCiIGIKnK7Ma5g8xNrUAWzG%7E6RH2a6sAglApAoWVzKmzkMNGvMD-VbzyOAdM6chNlkUCclHVsRyc5B7KER-rx0%7EB2EpEMzxBtULsoIxM4EBZBSRIkIC6wdiVlFzwF0s-Khd3h2nAqskcPCZYaDrXkl7-16xQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
276df4874a7537418a8d56ef6c767e3e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ms-0114
Title
A name given to the resource
Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Catherine Roux, part 1 (French)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
13 June 1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roux, Catherine
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Documents
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Roux, Catherine
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/1a76a26498e42477d0d67d4decb3a913.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=FkpBfImG1n%7E9bWgTYmdYeGd-v2fB0Q%7E0FaXphmwt0RaHpl%7EGkFPzqo-oHUPLZ7Juit9B4UxZuDfa5Tcb2uXGlFfhKNbppwTv0zQqON7ltX7TuUAJW7NH77Ov-EVZxAFAYxN02xSN6WqxYO8ya%7EaJS-bYPYu3-wkAJmHxIfAK8ZJ-pwa2DEVtq-jmSo4k8IAe-2wTau3GelPYp-VzLVNdQz7vZ47WWF7o%7E2bofI3S7dzVGbIxSzbUAHvjE5tZK6NhlBZmGeDUJK%7EFzxgDMaubwzgraBBW%7EEl3Gw0%7ER%7ExoSmw1TF9TuM1o6SDSd5H9cPluJhtfgcLLZpm-Xuq8WjzkOw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
f359a87c385cebea0fd52755fa837afd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ms-0115
Title
A name given to the resource
Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Catherine Roux, part 2 (French)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
13 June 1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roux, Catherine
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Documents
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Roux, Catherine
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/99440c75384f9d9416c7c298be3c4306.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=HugbDx8aaSx2hFi-ayZa3WoTIrat4K8KHmYGbvd%7Ee3XsoW0MYRbAmlOT5sA0IzQ%7E323VhwDZLTIQ6VOGHoabHmvJ2cLJ-wVCPMahbjsFzUVsd4VDLMcCUvR1BFw2OLeuE8nsLgBlrOp8xApTl47nvK%7EjfoXS6I0x46ptzC9Ps5brfpvGByr-Uktb8MS1Gsh1AFsu3DNFwsfn188eLNw6mmaRRdYki2sPfcl6w32SG0fj3by4MYF8ZCRrOAKONHgUfsWwi5tUocQ%7Ep7SMkMPa%7E-aH7brWIwFR-62hrTh6isA-vgn%7E6n3X6So4b2tl8y-AFW4NjZ7h0Itj-GaR4m7evQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
cf00bd5db731e518bd22a41e35971dd6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ms-0116
Title
A name given to the resource
Sisters in the Resistance: draft books section about Catherine Roux
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
13 June 1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roux, Catherine
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Documents
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Roux, Catherine
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/ffbec6f3bf402e95f8b42dc6ae1343a5.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=caZuJW-M6rC0ToINuIKnH4tRRUlKx4mkr6VgPO6TRaZcXz7CX09jG8w2brwvKt%7ErdreJhAOCbN7sSO98nbN370KoPQixIdCMt4iu8px150EbTj1OLSz3su1lKWS86MS9awcsmAeyM5%7EhH1vQe4%7Ec%7EAtNs-z22HXdmuuCxcVpkNUUl230YzSTdsYePPoZd2Yqu-VCHmHdQi%7EiJa9nn%7Erg8RMtb3IxUPpWemgjDIKerDjUDTAVASO4BM2kYCFpanjLjgQrqNOiIRm4y1co%7EvLlq8gGyw-ohzbZCxv0AYUbHECM6PLF7UQNNpp0i4o-3yZpJx30eS9VMthzva3UeiF2gw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
06379e44d0fd6bb3d9bb7fc2f7e46ec8
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001 (MS100)
Description
An account of the resource
The Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers document Joe Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in the United States Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. <br /><br />Use the <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/moakley-papers/ms100_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=B12D6C6C7164568D0537E426483AB65CC5DFF80D" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a summary of the entire collection, including non-digitized materials. <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100_findingaid.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DI-1126
Title
A name given to the resource
Statement by Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder acknowledging John Joseph Moakley's legislative activities in support of economic and social equality for women, 3 December 1973
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
3 December 1973
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Schroeder, Pat
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Description
An account of the resource
From the Congressional Record (Vol. 119, No. 188), Proceedings and debates of the 93rd Congress, first session.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001 (MS100)
Series 05 Campaign Files
Box 1 Folder 24
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Documents
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Subject
The topic of the resource
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
United States--Congress
Human rights
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf">finding aid to the John Joseph Moakley Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
Joe Moakley
Legislation
U.S. Congress
Women's History
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/1bba2fc74e8295c25635a8ea0412d073.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=jCNWMyTekYWMOp6m7n%7En3iGjNCCJzVjmGx3E-DCt7dbRleQ9qPErDZsxkiC5ChJhOZH1TZps0w3PtqQvT%7ENehhSe5TPxnguqd3By6cofgWJNZlbupCyz4BJfyJ5gTpun-j4Wp3O9c4qK2KcdbfCMgZjn8T7KneAOiw87qSSznAgTJJOqzX6cOFWA2rrfIAkvFyD2UjLhInmydPvHv-LnfZxCzQd%7Emn2pfh93ESeTBEO0ocLzSHAmZ8W9NMI82B%7EwsuPCC-qS4Ewr9wj39lLhVPD9c%7EReJmWYf7q1T8igQfOvidmLrOOx946LcMKYKqVngXQ3tCYUcTnChV9q0-N-lQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a391c4d75ae1b635c8032b4e6d3de0db
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ms-0168
Title
A name given to the resource
Sisters in the Resistance: interview with Anne-Marie Soucelier (French transcript)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
17 June 1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Soucelier, Anne-Marie
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, <em>Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.</em>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Documents
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Interviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/bd9375ade679f4d2877f0064fd48b2d2.jpg?Expires=1712793600&Signature=USremtXOGJVyUbR2hOXqRD0ro8ie9BN66ktbgq665FlI4q273gWTMpLRBVyixGImwkjLvCxkGDOQkRprHl5hXHTvcG9SrCzwR661hrBHxgInIJv-kdOp7g%7EUMaRqzAAqpezvbC3uzC%7EQ2fxu-Htwljy0lXQA2k3xtyGkmz3VtPvMtOD4GVPu8qtDcbgDL6CyiJXKYka8TTjEg2lxn8zLwXwGia81uOplJYpqSxCQRc3gH72WjtSUlAALLq1yGuxCiyGV%7EWZtRHg2Q5VYAI77D5pY31Qy-hUnmjTlYEC9DR6kWU4GEdLwO7Nl%7EJ6TDBaJ7ErdpRmzmPWfuFan3zpiKQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d3e4c69a75c18267e044e0cfad1cdd6f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Suffolk University Records
Description
An account of the resource
The Suffolk University Records collection covers all aspects of the university's history and development from 1906 to today. The materials include: Presidents' records, photographs, audio and video recordings, memorabilia, and university publications. Learn more about the <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/libraries/moakley-archive-and-institute/collections/records-of-suffolk-university" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">collection</a> at our web site.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SU-1616
Title
A name given to the resource
Suffolk University Professor Karen Blum (Law) sitting on a desk while teaching, 1970s
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1970s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Series SUJ-004.05 Special Materials: Photographs: People-Administration & Faculty, Box 1
Suffolk University Records
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stewart, Martha
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still image
Photographs
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
JPG
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blum, Karen M. (Karen Michele), 1946-
Suffolk University--Law School
College faculty
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>Find out more about our collections on <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/explore/24550.php">our website</a>.</p>
Faculty
Suffolk Law School
Suffolk University
Women's History
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/87241c6c469b86a4d09bbf0426216543.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=UKv0D7EcTXhBbvTSc9n4rAZQt%7EVpIPwP0jYuLy9CTc4otCT9zw-fKjWzA3eNf0kfO5CbZaQAK8JzWLyHJqvBOsYJ58F-L3KH0VQVT3mQjihCE-dYYoifdeK7SiYz2GZ2fJPaku1z0s%7EmyyNU9oW2-CXe4TPZC%7E5ZN%7EZTKDJtK-cJsQTIQOjRYJBtPN3SjprUa4h8pASS9zilpATdLyfpOiep66vEFf2cqcrKQR%7EBfNUmVWFCWkcDFobv7eWHk8FLacp7mzOcDiaMsInex-mBTIsawKfwtU6i7RhnbXK4drTJl6NNWOTZMZztleooLNK90OfobZ8O7sNPLVt2mLeMPg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1f4ee3366203b8cde624490a24558560
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Other related resources
Description
An account of the resource
This collection consists of item records that link to, and cite, resources outside of the Moakley Archive's collections that have been included here for use in Suffolk University student exhibits.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Report of the President's Committee on the Status of Women at Suffolk University
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
April 1975
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Suffolk University
Description
An account of the resource
Suffolk University Archives
Campus diversity
Suffolk Publications
Suffolk University
Women's History
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/11079/archive/files/cc36879934871ecc3641de68f4cd1734.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=HCjnXzLVs0uvOdqiy5ORye2rJgCh8W7LT4dWreXtSqgNLnRYmCr1mRWdJps513QGrQb7jdQ7kJO3PlWagiz3g5Rk9nR39hSQQljtskWpmHhGovcsiaVLyZNfGx67Na%7ESwTc8FgFTWdAj8q5E8UNnGlRvAjWHwoBHdMM72-OjiGR9RuR1oZlszQui9egXa676o5OE2FJ5cPBTtdsGrSDCEFPAgv1up8c-KKPyxd9oSGxz8cn-XSxOWe3013GuZEUVQbWsx15Fi6ChUZnuj1W489TliVx02y65Z%7EV-NrNsQYCEUsmOp%7Ejmu6zHIRykCPQx6Mtaom3k0Yq3E73TP0Dz0Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
155f24abedb8cd0099127216ec3bd36a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>The papers of Professor Emerita Margaret Collins Weitz of the Humanities and Modern Language Departments at Suffolk University relate to her research in the fields of women’s studies, French women, French culture and history, women in the French Resistance during World War II, and human rights. A portion of the collection details the overlap between her research interests and teaching career at Suffolk University and Harvard University. Her collection includes published articles and books, conference materials, interview recordings and transcripts, original research for publications, exhibitions, and class notebooks. <br /><br />Use the collection's <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/libraries/moakley-archive/research-tools/finding-aids/ms109_findingaid_pdftxt.pdf?la=en&hash=40629E8BCD3E0BA5902B8F85AE3AF1FD0C295DEB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finding aid</a> for a description of the entire collection -- including non-digitized materials.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ms-0106
Title
A name given to the resource
Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of an interview with Evelyne Sullerot (French)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
14 June 1983
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sullerot, Evelyne
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Description
An account of the resource
One of a series of interviews, conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz, of women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Many of the interviews were used as content for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
MS 109/3.1
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Documents
Format
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PDF
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
tgn:1000070
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, French
Weitz, Margaret Collins
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright is retained by the creators of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<p>View the <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/MS109_findingaid.pdf">finding aid to the Margaret Collins Weitz Papers</a> for more information (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
French Resistance
Women's History
World War II