The American Yawp Reader Phyllis Schla y on Women’s Responsibility for Sexual Harassment (1981) Conservative activist Phyllis Schla y fought against feminism and other liberal cultural trends for decades

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The American Yawp Reader Phyllis Schla y on Women’s Responsibility for Sexual Harassment (1981) Conservative activist Phyllis Schla y fought against feminism and other liberal cultural trends for decades. Perhaps most notably, she led the campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, turning what had seemed an inevitability into a failed e ort. Here, she testi ed before Congress about what she saw as the largely imagined problem of sexual harassment. My name is Phyllis Schla y of Alton, Illinois. I am a lawyer, journalist, author, wife and mother of six children, and am appearing here as the volunteer president of EAGLE FORUM, the national organization which has been leading the pro-family movement since 1972. I live in Alton, Illinois. My testimony concerns sexual harassment, the subject of this hearing. First, let me say that I am excluding from my discussion any reference to criminal acts. Sexual crimes should be punished to the full extent of the law. I rejoice that the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a state law against statutory rape, handing down a decision which rea rms society’s right to treat men and women di erently. However, crime is not our subject today. Non-criminal sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman except in the rarest of cases. When a woman walks across the room, she speaks with a universal body language that most men intuitively understand. Men hardly ever ask sexual favors of women from whom the certain answer is “no.” The former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, once spoke frankly about the relationship of men and women. She spent a lifetime working alongside of men, but she said no man ever told a dirty story in her presence. My experience has been similar to hers. Virtuous women are seldom accosted by unwelcome sexual propositions or familiarities, obscene talk, or profane language. In those rare cases where a virtuous woman nds that sexual harassment is a condition of her employment, the social injustice is real, but as a subject for Congressional concern it is totally dwarfed by the injustice of sexual harassment or intimidation of women in the Armed Services who do not have the freedom to resign. Yet, many of the same people complaining about sexual harassment in the workplace are at the same time promoting the drafting of women alongside of men. Let’s put this issue in focus. Anyone who is trying to make a “federal case” out of the problem of bosses pinching secretaries, and who at the same time is promoting the drafting of women along with men and/or the full sex-integration of combat assignments in the armed services, is playing political games with the term “sexual harassment.” Nothing in the world would create more sexual harassment than the drafting of 18- to 20-year-old girls into the army. Military policies which force volunteer servicewomen into “nontraditional” assignments have already created a major problem of sexual harassment. Attached to my testimony is a letter from Army Times of May 1979, telling what it is really like in the sex-integrated U.S. Army. The high rate of rape among American troops stationed in Europe is already shocking. (Stars and Stripes said there were 220 rape cases in 1980 involving American GIs stationed in Europe.) … The biggest problem of sex in the workplace is not harassment at all but simply the chemistry that naturally occurs when women and men are put in close proximity day after day, especially if the jobs have other tensions. That chemistry has always been present; what’s di erent today is that (a) there are many more women in the workplace, and (b) some women have abandoned the Commandments against adultery and fornication, and accepted the new notions that any sexual activity in or out of marriage is morally and socially acceptable. Attached to my testimony is a frontpage article from the Wall Street Journal of April 14, 1981, entitled “Some Men Find the O ce is a Little Too Exciting,” which describes some of the sexual tensions created by women in the workplace. Andrew Hacker, a professor at Queens College in New York City, in an article in Harper’s magazine in September 1980, wrote: “Now husbands are increasingly apt to have as colleagues high-powered younger women who understand their professional problems in ways a wife never can. These a nities can emerge as easily in a patrol car as in planning a marketing campaign. Shared work, particularly under pressure, has aphrodisiac e ects.” Sexual harassment can be the mischievous label applied in hate or revenge when one party wants out of an extra-marital liaison between consenting adults. Neither Congress nor EEOC has the competence to sit in judgment on the unwitnessed events and decide who was harassing whom. Sexual harassment can also occur when a non-virtuous woman gives o body language which invites sexual advances, but she chooses to give her favors to Man A but not to Man B, and he tries to get his share, too…. Senators and Congressmen should heed the oft-quoted prayer, “Lord, help me to change the things I can change, to accept the things I cannot change, and give me the wisdom to know the di erence.” Congress cannot prevent or police the sexual attraction men and women have for each other. But Congress can: (a) Stop the government-induced in ation which forces more and more women to join the labor force even though so many of them would prefer to be in the home. (b) Keep women out of places where they don’t belong, such as on ships of the U.S. Navy, and in military academy dormitories, and in military barracks where there Is nothing between sleeping servicemen and servicewomen except maybe a curtain. (c) Stop the A rmative Action for women which forces women into jobs where the predictable e ect is sex on the job and broken marriages. Source: Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Sex Discrimination in the Workplace, 1981: Hearings Before the Committee on Labor and Human Resources (Washington: U.S. Government Printing O ce, 1981), 400-402. Available via Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/sexdiscriminatio00unit). ← Pat Buchanan on the Culture War (1992) Jesse Jackson on the Rainbow Coalition (1984) → The American Yawp Reader The Port Huron Statement (1962) The Port Huron Statement was a 1962 manifesto by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written primarily by student activist Tom Hayden, that proposed a new form of “participatory democracy” to rescue modern society from destructive militarism and cultural alienation. We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world; the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western in uence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people–these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency. As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First, the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation, symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry, compelled most of us from silence to activism. Second, the enclosing fact of the Cold War, symbolized by the presence of the Bomb, brought awareness that we ourselves, and our friends, and millions of abstract “others” we knew more directly because of our common peril, might die at any time. We might deliberately ignore, or avoid, or fail to feel all other human problems, but not these two, for these were too immediate and crushing in their impact, too challenging in the demand that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution. While these and other problems either directly oppressed us or rankled our consciences and became our own subjective concerns, we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration “all men are created equal…” rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo. … We ourselves are imbued with urgency, yet the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative to the present. Beneath the reassuring tones of the politicians, beneath the common opinion that America will “muddle through,” beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the future, is the pervading feeling that there simply are no alternatives, that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only of Utopias, but of any new departures as well. Feeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the thought that at any moment things might be thrust out of control. They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most Americans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common reluctance to organize for change. The dominant institutions are complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics, and entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the energies of protest and reform, thus limiting human expectancies. … We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, re ectiveness, reason, and creativity. As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation. In a participatory democracy, the political life would be based in several root principles: that decision-making of basic social consequence be carried on by public groupings; that politics be seen positively, as the art of collectively creating an acceptable pattern of social relations; that politics has the function of bringing people out of isolation and into community, thus being a necessary, though not su cient, means of nding meaning in personal life; that the political order should serve to clarify problems in a way instrumental to their solution; it should provide outlets for the expression of personal grievance and aspiration; opposing views should be organized so as to illuminate choices and facilitate the attainment of goals; channels should be commonly available to relate men to knowledge and to power so that private problems– from bad recreation facilities to personal alienation–are formulated as general issues. The economic sphere would have as its basis the principles: that work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival. It should be educative, not stultifying; creative, not mechanical; self-directed, not manipulated, encouraging independence, a respect for others, a sense of dignity, and a willingness to accept social responsibility, since it is this experience that has crucial in uence on habits, perceptions and individual ethics; that the economic experience is so personally decisive that the individual must share in its full determination; that the economy itself is of such social importance that its major resources and means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to democratic social regulation. … These are our central values, in skeletal form. … As students for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable. Source: Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement (New York: Students for a Democratic Society, 1962). Available online via Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Statement). ← George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (1969/2012) Fannie Lou Hamer: Testimony at the Democratic National Convention 1964 → The American Yawp Reader Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Con dence” (1979) Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Con dence” (1979) On July 15, 1979, amid stagnant economic growth, high in ation, and an energy crisis, Jimmy Carter delivered a televised address to the American people. In it, Carter singled out a pervasive “crisis of con dence” preventing the American people from moving the country forward. A year later, Ronald Reagan would frame his optimistic political campaign in stark contrast to the tone of Carter’s speech, which would be remembered, especially by critics, as the “malaise speech.” … Exactly three years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for president of the United States. I promised you a president who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you. … Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject — energy. For the fth time I would have described the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem? … I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That’s why I’ve worked hard to put my campaign promises into law — and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can’t x what’s wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you rst tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or in ation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of con dence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our con dence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The con dence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Con dence in the future has supported everything else — public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Con dence has de ned our course and has served as a link between generations. We’ve always believed in something called progress. We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our con dence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past. In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer de ned by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot ll the emptiness of lives which have no con dence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the rst time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next ve years will be worse than the past ve years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world. As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning. These changes did not happen overnight. They’ve come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were lled with shocks and tragedy. … These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation’s life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual. What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well- nanced and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacri ce, a little sacri ce from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends. Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don’t like it, and neither do I. What can we do? … We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant con ict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the rst steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem. [Source: Jimmy Carter, “Address to the Nation on Energy and National Goals” (July 15, 1979). Available online via The American Presidency Project (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/? pid=32596).] ← Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address (1976) Gloria Steinem on Equal Rights for Women (1970) → The American Yawp Reader Jerry Falwell on the “Homosexual Revolution” (1981) Jerry Falwell on the “Homosexual Revolution” (1981) “Letter from Jerry Falwell on his opposition to homosexuality and asking for support in keeping his “Old-Time Gospel Hour” television program on the air. Falwell writes that the Old Time Gospel Hour “is one of the few major ministries in America crying out against militant homosexuals” (p. 1). The letter is printed on what appears to be lined yellow notepad paper.” I refuse to stop speaking out against the sin of homosexuality. With God as my witness, I pledge that I’ll continue to expose the sin of homosexuality to the people of this nation. I believe that the massive homosexual revolution is always a symptom of a nation coming under the judgement of God. Romans 1:24-28, Paul clearly condemns the sin of homosexuality. In verse 28, when a nation refuses to listen to God’s standards of morality, the bible declares, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Recently 250,000 homosexuals marched in the streets of San Francisco. Several weeks ago 75,000 more were marching in the streets of Los Angeles. Homosexuals are on the march in this country. Please remember, that homosexuals do not reproduce! They recruit! And, many of them are out after my children and your children. … And if you will support me with your prayers and o erings, I will continue speaking out—no matter what the opposition says. You may be sure—militant gays are doing everything they can to silence me! … Recently, a homosexual organization came to Lynchburg to demonstrate against me. They held demonstrations outside our o ces. They called themselves the “Oral Majority.” In almost every one of my “I Love America” rallies on the state capitol steps, large groups of homosexuals come and demonstrate against me. They shout obscenities into the air. They lift signs and placards with vulgar words on them. It sounds a great deal like Sodom and Gomorrah. As I interpret Scripture, when a society becomes like Sodom and Gomorrah, it is not far from destruction. Some of these people are dangerous. And they are putting pressure on the networks and local television stations. A recent TV Guide told the story of how a homosexual organization censors a great deal of the content of network television programming regarding homosexuality. Can you believe this? How could the networks grant homosexuals the privilege of censoring what goes on national and prime time television? They certainly do not allow Christian organizations any such privilege. We have never asked for such a privilege. … I do not want to frighten the children of America regarding the goals of militant homosexuals in this country. They do demonstrate in the streets. They do have plans to create a unisexual society in this country. They do want to transform America into a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. … Will you help me continue to cry out against this sin of homosexuality? … … In Christ, Jerry Falwell 1. Let me repeat, a massive homosexual revolution can bring the judgement of God upon this nation. Our children must not be recruited to a profane lifestyle.” [Source: Falwell, Jerry. [Letter from Jerry Falwell on keeping Old Time Gospel Hour on air], Letter, August 13, 1981. Available online via The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc177440/).] ← First Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan (1981) Statements of AIDS Patients (1983) → The American Yawp Reader National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966) National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966) The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 by prominent American feminists, including Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisolm, and others. The organization’s “statement of purpose” laid out the goals of the organization and the targets of its feminist vision. We, men and women, who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, 2 believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders. The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. 1 We believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract argument, discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of women which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of which is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings. NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, rst and foremost, are human beings, who like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. We believe that women can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and 9 responsibilities they share with all other people in our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life. We organize to initiate or support action, nationally, or in any part of this nation, by individuals or organizations, to break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in government, industry, and professions, the churches, the political parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science, medicine, law, religion and every other eld of importance in American society. Enormous changes taking place in our society make it both possible and urgently necessary to advance the un nished revolution of women toward true equality now. With a life span lengthened to nearly 75 years it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the greatest part of their lives to child-rearing; yet childbearing and rearing which continues to be a most important part of most women’s lives — still is used to justify barring women from equal professional and economic participation and advance. … Despite all the talk about the status of American women in recent years, the actual position of 2 women in the United States has declined, and is declining, to an alarming degree throughout the 1950’s and ’60s. Although 46.4% of all American women between the ages of 18 and 65 now work outside the home, the overwhelming majority — 75% — are in routine clerical, sales, or factory jobs, or they are household workers, cleaning women, hospital attendants. About two-thirds of Negro women workers are in the lowest paid service occupations. Working women are becoming increasingly — not less — concentrated on the bottom of the job ladder. As a consequence, full-time women workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn, and that wage gap has been increasing over the past twenty- ve years in every major industry group. In 1964, of all women with 1 a yearly income, 89% earned under $5,000 a year; behalf of all full-time year round women workers 9 earned less than $3,690; only 1.4% of full-time year round women workers had an annual income of $10,000 or more. Further, with higher education increasingly essential in today’s society, too few women are entering and nishing college or going on to graduate or professional school. Today, women earn only one in three of the B.A.’s and M.A’s granted, and one in ten of the Ph.D.’s. In all the professions considered of importance to society, and in the executive ranks of industry and government, women are losing ground. Where they are present it is only a token handful. Women comprise less than 1% of federal judges; less than 4% of all lawyers; 7% of doctors. Yet women represent 51% of the U.S. population. And, increasingly men are replacing women in the top positions in secondary and elementary schools, in social work, and in libraries — once thought to be women’s elds. O cial pronouncements of the advance in the status of women hide not only the reality of this dangerous decline, but the fact that nothing is being done to stop it. … Discrimination in employment on the basis of sex is now prohibited by federal law, in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. …The Commission has not made clear its intention to enforce the law with the same seriousness on behalf of women as of other victims of discrimination. … Until now, too few women’s organizations and o cial spokesmen have been willing to speak out against these dangers facing women. Too many women have been restrained by the fear of being called “feminist.” There is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has been for Negroes and other victims of discrimination. The National Organization for Women must therefore begin to speak. 2 We believe that the power of American law, and the protection guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to the civil rights of all individuals, must be e ectively applied and enforced to isolate and remove patterns of sex discrimination, to ensure equality of opportunity in employment and education, and equality of civil and political rights and responsibilities on behalf of women, as well as for Negroes and other deprived groups. We realize that women’s problems are linked to many broader questions of social justice; their solution will require concerted action by many groups. Therefore, convinced that human rights for 1 all are indivisible, we expect to give active support to the common cause of equal rights for all those 9 who su er discrimination and deprivation, and we call upon other organizations committed to such goals to support our e orts toward equality for women. … We believe that this nation has a capacity at least as great as other nations, to innovate new social institutions which will enable women to enjoy true equality of opportunity and responsibility in society, without con ict with their responsibilities as mothers and homemakers…. Above all, we reject the assumption that these problems are the unique responsibility of each individual woman, rather than a basic social dilemma which society must solve. True equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of child-care center which will make in unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown, and national programs to provide retraining for women who have chosen the care for their own children full-time. … In the interest of the human dignity of women, we will protest, and endeavor to change, the false image of women now prevalent in the mass media, and in the texts, ceremonies, laws, and practices of our major social institutions. Such images perpetuate contempt for women by society and by women for themselves. We are similarly opposed to all policies and practices — in church, state, college, factory, or o ce which, in the guise of protectiveness, not only deny opportunities but also foster in women self-denigration, dependence, and evasion of responsibility, undermine their con dence in their own abilities and foster contempt for women. … 2 We believe that women will do most to create a new image of women by acting now, and by speaking out in behalf of their own equality, freedom, and human dignity — not in pleas for special privilege, nor in enmity toward men, who are also victims of the current, half-equality between the sexes — but in an active, self-respecting partnership with men. By so doing, women will develop con dence in their own ability to determine actively, in partnership with men, the conditions of their life, their choices, their future and their society. 1 [Source: National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (October 29, 1966). Available online via The National Organization for Women (http://now.org/about/history/statement-ofpurpose/).] ← Lyndon Johnson, Howard University Commencement Address (1965) George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (1969/2012) → 9 The American Yawp Reader Native Americans Occupy Alcatraz (1969) In November 1969, Native American activists occupied Alcatraz Island and held it for nineteen months to bring attention to past injustices and contemporary issues confronting Native Americans, as state in this proclamation, drafted largely by Adam Fortunate Eagle of the Ojibwa Nation. To the Great White Father and All His People: We, the native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery. We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby o er the following treaty: We will purchase said Alcatraz Island for twenty-four dollars ($24) in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that $24 in trade goods for these 16 acres is more than was paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that land values have risen over the years. Our o er of $1.24 per acre is greater than the 47 cents per acre the white men are now paying the California Indians for their land. We will give to the inhabitants of this island a portion of that land for their own, to be held in trust by the American Indian Government — for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea — to be administered by the Bureau of Caucasian A airs (BCA). We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper way of living. We will o er them our religion, our education, our life-ways, in order to help them achieve our level of civilization and thus raise them and all their white brothers up from their savage and unhappy state. We o er this treaty in good faith and wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with all white men. We feel that this so-called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable for an Indian Reservation, as determined by the white man’s own standards. By this we mean that this place resembles most Indian reservations, in that: 1. It is isolated from modern facilities, and without adequate means of transportation. 2. It has no fresh running water. 3. It has inadequate sanitation facilities. 4. There are no oil or mineral rights. 5. There is no industry so unemployment is great. 6. There are no health care facilities. 7. The soil is rocky and non-productive; and the land does not support game. 8. There are no educational facilities. 9. The population has always exceeded the land base. 10. The population has always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others. Further, it would be tting and symbolic that ships from all over the world, entering the Golden Gate, would rst see Indian land, and thus be reminded of the true history of this nation. This tiny island would he a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians. USE TO BE MADE OF ALCATRAZ ISLAND What use will be made of this land? Since the San Francisco Indian Center burned down, there is no place for Indians to assemble and carry on our tribal life here in the white man’s city. Therefore, we plan to develop on this island several Indian institutes: 1. A Center for Native American Studies will be developed which will train our young people in the best of our native cultural arts and sciences, as well as educate them to the skills and knowledge relevant to improve the lives and spirits of all Indian peoples. Attached to this center will be traveling universities, managed by Indians, which will go to the Indian Reservations in order to learn the traditional values from the people, which are now absent in the Caucasian higher educational system. 2. An American Indian Spiritual center will be developed which will practice our ancient tribal religious ceremonies and medicine. Our cultural arts will be featured and our young people trained in music, dance, and medicine. 3. An Indian Center of Ecology will be built which will train and support our young people in scienti c research and practice in order to restore our lands and waters to their pure and natural state. We will seek to de-pollute the air and the water of the Bay Area. We will seek to restore sh and animal life, and to revitalize sea life which has been threatened by the white man’s way. Facilities will be developed to desalt sea water for human use. 4. A Great Indian Training School will be developed to teach our peoples how to make a living in the world, improve our standards of living, and end hunger and unemployment among all our peoples. This training school will include a center for Indian arts and crafts, and an Indian Restaurant serving native foods and training Indians in culinary arts. This center will display Indian arts and o er the Indian foods of all tribes to the public, so they all may know of the beauty and spirit of the traditional Indian ways. 5. Some of the present buildings will be taken over to develop an American Indian Museum, which will depict our native foods and other cultural contributions we have given to all the world. Another part of the Museum will present some of the things the white man has given to the Indians, in return for the land and the life he took: disease, alcohol, poverty, and cultural decimation (as symbolized by old tin cans, barbed wire, rubber tires, plastic containers, etc.). Part of the museum will remain a dungeon, to symbolize both Indian captives who were incarcerated for challenging white authority, and those who were imprisoned on reservations. The Museum will show the noble and the tragic events of Indian history, including the broken treaties, the documentary of the Trail of Tears, the Massacre of Wounded Knee, as well as the victory over Yellow-Hair Custer and his army. In the name of all Indians, therefore, we re-claim this island for Indian nations, for all these reasons. We feel this claim is just and proper, and that this land should rightfully be granted to us for as long as the rivers shall run and the sun shall shine. SIGNED, INDIANS OF ALL TRIBES November 1969 San Francisco, California ← Gloria Steinem on Equal Rights for Women (1970) 29. The Triumph of the Right → The American Yawp Reader George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (1969/2012) George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (1969/2012) In 2012, George Garcia sat down to be interviewed about his experiences as a corporal in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Alternating between English and Spanish, Garcia told of early life in Brownsville, Texas, his time as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and his experience coming home from the war. George M. Garcia: “ When I rst arrived, I arrived in Da Nang. And I’ll never forgot because I was only 18 years young. 3 I was — you know, I was freshly out of high school. And at that time — I have to tell you this so you can have a picture of it because it wasn’t just cut and dry. Like I told you, coming from the [Rio Grande] Valley, especially for me that I had never been exposed to anything like this … 20 … in our particular company, which was Company F, you know, we were always in mission. … And from that day forward — I arrived there January 3rd of 1969. And from that point until the day I left, we were always on a mission. Always. We all had di erent missions. … … I don’t know if I should or not, but I can share with you the second month in February, I think I was still 18 maybe going on 19. It was pretty close on my 19th year. We have what we call — you know what — you know what it means friendly re? Julia M. Hernandez: Yes. George M. Garcia: Okay. We were — again, we were in a mission. We had received a report to seek and destroy and our jets had — they were ahead of us. They had destroyed this area. Supposedly there were enemies there and they went ahead and destroy — and it was up for us to seek and destroy — to see and make sure there was no enemy left. So — anyway, supposedly the jets had already cleared the area. And so we continued to march. And usually our battalion commander does the calling and the clearing to stop the cease ring. Well, what happened that particular afternoon, our battalion failed to tell one of the pilots to cease re and that — that pilot came back and they dropped bombs on us. Julia M. Hernandez: Oh, no. George M. Garcia: It was the most — you know, the most horrible day of my life. I was — (spoke Spanish) — I was 3 either turning just 19 there or I had just turned 19. I don’t recall because it’s — that happened in 1969 in February. And it was horrible. I mean, I remember — I mean, all the dust ying. It was — there was sand in that area and you could see all the sand ying all over the place. And you could hear the screaming and the yelling. And — (spoke Spanish) — our rst platoon got wiped out. Julia M. Hernandez: How big — how many men? George M. Garcia: 20 We must have lost approximately about 30, 35. And I looked up because I could hear — and then there was a whistling sound. I kept hearing something like a whistling sound. And I didn’t know at the time that it was — it was what we call a shrapnel from the bomb. And it hit me right here. It burned me. It cut me right here, but at the time I didn’t pay attention. I just took it o , you know, but it was — it was strange because it was coming in real — you could hear woo woo woo and coming real fast. And then I didn’t think too much about it until afterwards, but the strange thing about it, it didn’t penetrate it. Julia M. Hernandez: So it just hit you in your neck area? George M. Garcia: Yeah, right here. Julia M. Hernandez: But it didn’t break the skin? George M. Garcia: It did, but it didn’t go all the way in. That’s what’s so strange. And, you know, it just like hit me and 3 it stopped right there. It — you know, it cut me and burned me, but I took it o . But I couldn’t understand — at the time I didn’t think about it because I was concerned about the men. 20 Julia M. Hernandez: Sure. George M. Garcia: It was not until after when I found out about it that it was so strange it didn’t get — it didn’t go all the way because it was coming fast. So, anyway, I got up and I kept moving forward, you know. And I had a hard time seeing because there was a lot of dust and the sand and all that. And so when I saw the — you know, when I saw all those men that were killed, it was just horrible. And they were, you know, without their limbs and their eyes and at that moment, you know, I — at that moment I — I wanted to lose — it was — I had to make a quick decision. Either I would — (spoke Spanish) — I was about to lose my mind or take it all, you know. And so it was a moment of seconds I decided to take all the pain, what I was seeing inside of me. It’s there in front of me. So I just told myself, I’ll just take everything that I’m seeing. So that’s how I was able to keep my sanity. And I — (spoke Spanish) — I was real young and that was the rst trauma that I — that I faced. Julia M. Hernandez: How did you survive it? George M. Garcia: That’s how I survived it. Julia M. Hernandez: Luck? George M. Garcia: No. 3 Julia M. Hernandez: 20 I mean the bombing. George M. Garcia: There’s no luck. Julia M. Hernandez: The bombing. George M. Garcia: There’s no — there’s no luck, because — (spoke Spanish) — there’s no luck in war at all. I don’t believe there’s luck, you know. Just God’s grace and those men that were — those men that we lost, I understand it now — I didn’t understand then — because I even pleaded with God during my time that I was there — somewhere down the road I did — I yelled out to God because — (spoke Spanish) — I was losing a lot of my friends and I asked God to take me, not to take them. But coming back to February, as I was able to keep my insanity from that — from that day, that’s how I survived the war, because it was such a horrible war, Vietnam, that — that’s how I was able to save my sanity. And then we had to — then we have to bag the bodies. We had bodies we wouldn’t — we couldn’t even nd because they were so well destroyed, I mean. And to this day I haven’t forgotten. That’s why they were going to award me a Purple Heart because of my — when I got hit. And I couldn’t accept it. I told them I would not accept because I felt that my wound was nothing compared to what I had seen. I didn’t feel worthy of it. So I declined that — I declined that — that Purple Heart. I just felt very unworthy, even today. I always felt that I made the right decision and the right — to this very day. Julia M. Hernandez: Right. George M. Garcia: 3 Yeah. [Source: Interview with George M. Garcia (October 6, 2012). Available online via the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.88006/).] ← National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966) The Port Huron Statement (1962) → 20 The American Yawp Reader George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002) George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002) In his 2002 State of the Union Address, George W. Bush proclaimed that the attacks of September 11 signaled a new, dangerous world that demanded American interventions. Bush identi ed an “Axis of Evil” and provided a justi cation for a broad “war on terror.” … As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. … We last met in an hour of shock and su ering. In four short months, our nation has comforted the victims, begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon, rallied a great coalition, captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists, destroyed Afghanistan’s terrorist training camps, saved a people from starvation, and freed a country from brutal oppression. The American ag ies again over our embassy in Kabul. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay. And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacri ce their lives are running for their own. … For many Americans, these four months have brought sorrow, and pain that will never completely go away. Every day a retired re ghter returns to Ground Zero, to feel closer to his two sons who died there. At a memorial in New York, a little boy left his football with a note for his lost father: “Dear Daddy, please take this to heaven. I don’t want to play football until I can play with you again some day.” … Our cause is just, and it continues. … What we have found in Afghanistan con rms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning. … Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. … While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. … My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. … But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will. Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to aunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections— then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indi erence would be catastrophic. We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. … And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security. We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons. Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be nished on our watch—yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch. We can’t stop short. If we stop now—leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked—our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to ght freedom’s ght. … None of us would ever wish the evil that was done on September the 11th. Yet after America was attacked, it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves. We were reminded that we are citizens, with obligations to each other, to our country, and to history. We began to think less of the goods we can accumulate, and more about the good we can do. For too long our culture has said, “If it feels good, do it.” Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: “Let’s roll.” In the sacri ce of soldiers, the erce brotherhood of re ghters, and the bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility could look like. We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We’ve been o ered a unique opportunity, and we must not let this moment pass. … Steadfast in our purpose, we now press on. We have known freedom’s price. We have shown freedom’s power. And in this great con ict, my fellow Americans, we will see freedom’s victory. Thank you all. May God bless. [Source: George W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 29, 2002. Available online via The American Presidency Project (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29644).] ← The 9/11 Commission Report, “Re ecting On A Generational Challenge” (2004) Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) → The American Yawp Reader Gloria Steinem on Equal Rights for Women (1970) The rst Congressional hearing on the equal rights amendment (ERA) was held in 1923, but the push for the amendment stalled until the 1960s, when a revived women’s movement thrust it again into the national consciousness. Congress passed and sent to the states for rati cation the ERA on March 22, 1972. But it failed, stalling just three states short of the required three-fourths needed for rati cation. Despite popular support for the amendment, activists such as Phyllis Schla y outmaneuvered the amendment’s supporters. In 1970, author Gloria Steinem argued that such opposition was rooted in outmoded ideas about gender. My name is Gloria Steinem. I am a writer and editor, and I am currently a member of the policy council of the Democratic committee. … During 12 years of working for a living, I have experienced much of the legal and social discrimination reserved for women in this country. I have been refused service in public restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places, and turned away from apartment rentals; all for the clearlystated, sole reason that I am a woman. And all without the legal remedies available to blacks and other minorities. I have been excluded from professional groups, writing assignments on so-called “unfeminine” subjects such as politics, full participation in the Democratic Party, jury duty, and even from such small male privileges as discounts on airline fares. Most important to me, I have been denied a society in which women are encouraged, or even allowed to think of themselves as rst-class citizens and responsible human beings. However, after 2 years of researching the status of American women, I have discovered that in reality, I am very, very lucky. Most women, both wage-earners and housewives, routinely su er more humiliation and injustice than I do. As a freelance writer, I don’t work in the male-dominated hierarchy of an o ce. (Women, like blacks and other visibly di erent minorities, do better in individual professions such as the arts, sports, or domestic work; anything in which they don’t have authority over white males.) I am not one of the millions of women who must support a family. Therefore, I haven’t had to go on welfare because there are no day-care centers for my children while I work, and I haven’t had to submit to the humiliating welfare inquiries about my private and sexual life, inquiries from which men are exempt. I haven’t had to brave the sex bias of labor unions and employers, only to see my family subsist on a median salary 40 percent less than the male median salary. I hope this committee will hear the personal, daily injustices su ered by many women— professionals and day laborers, women housebound by welfare as well as by suburbia. We have all been silent for too long. But we won’t be silent anymore. The truth is that all our problems stem from the same sex based myths. We may appear before you as white radicals or the middle-aged middle class or black soul sisters, but we are all sisters in ghting against these outdated myths. Like racial myths, they have been re ected in our laws. Let me list a few. That woman are biologically inferior to men. In fact, an equally good case can be made for the reverse. … However, I don’t want to prove the superiority of one sex to another. That would only be repeating a male mistake. English scientists once de nitively proved, after all, that the English were descended from the angels, while the Irish were descended from the apes; it was the rationale for England’s domination of Ireland for more than a century. The point is that science is used to support current myth and economics almost as much as the church was. What we do know is that the di erence between two races or two sexes is much smaller than the di erences to be found within each group. Therefore, in spite of the slide show on female inferiorities that I understand was shown to you yesterday, the law makes much more sense when it treats individuals, not groups bundled together by some condition of birth. … Another myth, that women are already treated equally in this society. I am sure there has been ample testimony to prove that equal pay for equal work, equal chance for advancement, and equal training or encouragement is obscenely scarce in every eld, even those—like food and fashion industries— that are supposedly “feminine.” A deeper result of social and legal injustice, however, is what sociologists refer to as “Internalized Aggression.” Victims of aggression absorb the myth of their own inferiority, and come to believe that their group is in fact second class. Even when they themselves realize they are not second class, they may still think their group is, thus the tendency to be the only Jew in the club, the only black woman on the block, the only woman in the o ce. Women su er this second class treatment from the moment they are born. They are expected to be, rather than achieve, to function biologically rather than learn. A brother, whatever his intellect, is more likely to get the family’s encouragement and education money, while girls are often pressured to conceal ambition and intelligence, to “Uncle Tom.” I interviewed a New York public school teacher who told me about a black teenager’s desire to be a doctor. With all the barriers in mind, she suggested kindly that he be a veterinarian instead. The same day, a high school teacher mentioned a girl who wanted to be a doctor. The teacher said, “How about a nurse?” … We are 51 percent of the population; we are essentially united on these issues across boundaries of class or race or age; and we may well end by changing this society more than the civil rights movement. That is an apt parallel. We, too, have our right wing and left wing, our separatists, gradualists, and Uncle Toms. But we are changing our own consciousness, and that of the country. Source: U.S. Senate, The “Equal Rights” Amendment: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d sess., May 5-7, 1970, 331–35. Available online via History Matters (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7025/). ← Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Con dence” (1979) Native Americans Occupy Alcatraz (1969) → The American Yawp Reader Fannie Lou Hamer: Testimony at the Democratic National Convention 1964 Civil rights activists struggled against the repressive violence of Mississippi’s racial regime. State NAACP head Medger Evers was murdered in 1963. Freedom Summer activists tried to register black voters in 1964. Three disappeared and were found murdered. The Mississippi Democratic Party continued to disfranchise the state’s African American voters. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and traveled to the Democratic National Convention in 1964 to demand that the MFDP’s delegates, rather than the allwhite Mississippi Democratic Party delegates, be seated in the convention. Although unsuccessful, her moving testimony was broadcast on national television and drew further attention to the plight of African Americans in the South. Mr. Chairman, and the Credentials Committee, my name is Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi, Sun ower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Stennis. It was the 31st of August in 1962 that 18 of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to try to become rst-class citizens. We was met in Indianola by Mississippi men, highway patrolmens, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola, where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong color. After we paid the ne among us, we continued on to Ruleville, and Reverend Je Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry because I had gone down to try to register. After they told me, my husband came, and said that the plantation owner was raising cain because I had tried to register, and before he quit talking the plantation owner came, and said, “Fannie Lou, do you know—did Pap tell you what I said?” And I said, “yes, sir.” He said, “I mean that,” he said, “If you don’t go down and withdraw your registration, you will have to leave,” said, “Then if you go down and withdraw,” he said, “You will—you might have to go because we are not ready for that in Mississippi.” And I addressed him and told him and said, “I didn’t try to register for you. I tried to register for myself.” I had to leave that same night. On the 10th of September, 1962, sixteen bullets was red into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls were shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. Joe McDonald’s house was shot in. And in June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration workshop, was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was traveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to Winona, Mississippi, which is in Montgomery County, four of the people got o to use the washroom, and two of the people—to use the restaurant—two of the people wanted to use the washroom. The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window and saw they had rushed out, I got o of the bus to see what had happened, and one of the ladies said, “It was a State Highway Patrolman and a chief of police ordered us out.” I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the washroom got back on the bus, too. As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw when they began to get the four people in a highway patrolman’s car. I stepped o of the bus to see what was happening and somebody screamed from the car that the four workers was in and said, “Get that one there,” and when I went to get in the car, when the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me. I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking room. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss Euvester Simpson. After I was placed in the cell I began to hear the sound of kicks and horrible screams, and I could hear somebody say, “Can you say, yes sir, nigger? Can you say yes, sir?” And they would say other horrible names. She would say, “Yes, I can say yes, sir.” “So say it.” She says, “I don’t know you well enough.” They beat her, I don’t know how long, and after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people. And it wasn’t too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he asked me where I was from, and I told him Ruleville, he said, “We are going to check this.” And they left my cell and it wasn’t too long before they came back. He said, “You are from Ruleville all right,” and he used a curse wod, and he said, “We are going to make you wish you was dead.” I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered the rst Negro to take the blackjack. The rst Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the State Highway Patrolman for me, to lay down on a bunk bed on my face, and I laid on my face. The rst Negro began to beat, and I was beat by the rst Negro until he was exhausted, and I was holding my hands behind me at that time on my left side because I su ered from polio when I was six years old. After the rst Negro had beat until he was exhausted the State Highway Patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack. The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet, and the State Highway Patrolman ordered the rst Negro who had beat to set on my feet to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me my head and told me to hush. One white man—my dress had worked up high, he walked over and pulled my dress down—and he pulled my dress back, back up. I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered. All of this is on account we want to register, to become rst-class citizens, and if the freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones o of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America? Thank you. Source: Fannie Lou Hamer, Speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. August 22, 1964. Available online via Mississippi Department of Archives and History (https://www.mdah.ms.gov/new/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Lesson-Five-Mississippi-in-1964A-Turning-Point.pdf) ← The Port Huron Statement (1962) 28. The Unraveling