A Word on Words; 3427; Karenna Grace Schiff

the don johnson and the low once again welcome to world war i guess for an abortive welcome to world words thank you it's my pleasure to be here and what a great job lighting the way none women then when it changed modern american educated our when van was it a difficult process in some ways because there were so many women that i was interested in writing about that i had several criteria i wanted to write about those who are not as well known so that i can add some sad news now faces and voices to the to the pantheon and also were behind the major political movements of modern america because i just i've always been interested in politics than them grown up around dead end and especially interested in their

personal stories that influence ice huge political events so therefore my main criteria and downs and i ended up adding another which was just those who were colorful multifaceted personally resonated with me so in the end it felt like organizing a dinner party with kind of how many is too many and who can't be next to each other who is too much alike and i wound up with these nine well i i have openly and folk and went quickly to the introduction to see what you have to say about these nine women and has only about ten to one when a solemn and beautiful old picture of low balling the fungal were there and and you write about about following your grandmother my grandmother had a huge an inspiration to me and in a remarkable woman she was indeed and in so many ways a row and i remember when

germans used to say and you say she used the smartest politician the family journal a few physicians as one politician and the he had covered a wide waterfront let's talk about each of these women about you right because as you say so and not so well known my name's will when the names of some will ring the bells are viewers between those of my generation when you get the feeling like frances perkins but what about it well i had the book begins with it well soundbite of athens says she was called after she married she was born six months before the emancipation proclamation slave in mississippi an incredibly bright woman who became a journalist and she brought one of the first legal challenges to end segregation in eighteen at three which was not ultimately successful before the tennessee supreme court by down but she you devoted her life to fighting segregation and also

to exposing lynching and that's what she i'm really have left as her biggest legacy mother jones mother jones and an irish immigrant who lost her husband in all four of her children actually in a terrible yellow fever epidemic and in memphis where they had settled she wanted to reinvent herself as a labor leader organize coal miners and exposed to and thought child labor as hamilton with a physician and down really a pioneer in the field of public health what she did was at the height of the industrial revolution when there are all kinds of new chemicals and m machinery being used in these factories poisoning may mean killing sometimes workers at a pretty fast clip she made her mission to go in an hour and protect them francis ford frances perkins the first earthly know i cabinet secretary as un as many now a huge influence and fdr as administration behind such key and

let legislation as odd as the social security act and muttered region are yes virginia there and i'm a real fighter on the vanguard of the civil rights movement and down and really came to it in such an interesting way because she was born in india in a racist family in alabama and three a series of awakenings she and her own innate biases answer just as she came to believe and that segregation was wrong that racism was wrong she fought the poll tax and quite successfully among other things and set them up points of clark who's a mother so well sentiment point that gleick and i feel i feel silly actor i knew any of this i loved every man i love every one of them and i write to rebound from learned so much i never heard before about about the genome about while obama joe now and how much debt like to learn from you that in any

event sent to my point that clark was there really a mover and shaker behind the civil rights movement and born at black woman in south carolina a teacher and she developed am citizenship schools which basically i were about literacy and about registering black voters throughout the south and training civic leaders and sets many of them and notably rosa parks actually pastor her schools the lows richard dillard huerta and along with cesar chavez organized farm workers agricultural laborers and on one for them everything from i clean water available toilets to the right to collective bargaining and some regulation of old harmful pesticides being used on them still working today and obviously there are a lot of challenges left in that area but i'm an incredible woman you write in there about the reason robert kennedy made to

when after long fast the pieces of broken social justice as was seven and those sweaters with dolores huerta was there the day robert kennedy when i just happen to be there with them and how much he leaned on on her words were different you made you know when he was a powerhouse and noun and that really and was always so engaged in the electoral process and believed in candidates and fought for them and still does enjoy a fiery speaker and for the speaker but what about helen another doctor actually i'm she grew up between puerto rico and new york and really am was a pioneer in public health and particularly women's health her main cause was too and to end coerced sterilization at a terrible on social policy with with roots in the eugenics movement and an end basically a lot of black latino native american women were sterilized without their in

their knowledge sometimes and without their consent and so she thought that she was also an early voice on aids out and saying it should be on the political agenda well before most of politicians then and then finally gretchen an eighth grade soon it's a little bit of a departure on in offense that i know her well i worked for her part time and she's a child advocate she combines hands on and care for very vulnerable children in programs that have been replicated around the country day care on early childhood care and mental health treatment with and with advocacy end there is un is is working today than the book mean so much to me personally a close there are times when i think about my life as a journalist then and the ways that that that role intersected with incidents about which you write and

me is as good a beginning at septima clark goes i remember so well the hearing among the folks from this second though was the education director for the folks who come to this training ground for action and that hearing of both tennessee legislature went out that day and i'm from line split from easton the ceo yeah i found that they were in the library we've gotten you know the fbi was all over mountains unbelievable and then finally you know about what you talk about and talk about her first of all in that role you know people with that why was rosa parks not in this book and in the supreme court in a way was a mentor and you quote are in effect saying that very thing but talk about that well i think i am what what septima clark did an enlisted being began or eight

was centered firfer out for some time and in in middle tennessee at highlander folk school and down and what she was doing what she was she was holding workshops on where was it was integrated but it was about and thought it was about fighting segregation and about empowering people to work for social change and she would train people to go back to their own communities and open their own citizenship schools to help blacks register and to fight segregation on one of the one of the people who came through her school was john lewis i'm currently congressman jim jordan of course i you know him well on the ad says as a civil rights hero and down he has a beautiful passage in his memoir walking with the way of explaining that when he went to highland or he was there as the son of sharecroppers who stuttered who couldn't read particularly well and had been brushed aside by many and then it was septima clark who looked at him and said you can't be a leader and i am inspired him indicted him and down and really did that's it to

many others an end as taylor branch has written i'm hurt her classes are workshops became the head the payload of the movement really the people marching in voting in running for office in and down we decide how one other story i think that that and this illustrate for first a limited and rosa parks went to come to highland they're just months before she i made her brave protested that changed history and said that said dimon had inspired her she herself was before she went up fairly sophisticated political activist had been obviously treasure of the local and double a cpa but was feeling still so frustrated and she said she found the hope when it was when she was there was optimal hollander but the one story that i want to tell that is just about on because i think it illustrates the wheels turning slowly in in politics and is about a school that was set up i'm somewhere else because she had these are satellites that essentially schools

and one of the students you saw jenkins poor black man decided that he wanted to run for school board and chic layman everybody could win this was an exciting project for the class because they wanted to get extra incentive to try to register to vote which of course in those days men getting past the racist registrar and paying a poll tax and and i'm and was quite a challenge so the song didn't win but he got enough votes that the next election cycle there was a white judge who is in a tight race and came to him and saw his endorsement which she gave only a only with it with the promise that the white judge would change his attitude towards blacks in the courtroom what she ended up doing and i love that story because i think it just shows that how political movements have power and comes about often slowly from the ground up and you know that that's true of inflamed closed down because of love re

integration that defied the policy in rural tennessee authenticity and the close down for selling liquor for possessing records and you know and you tell us tour that you find to be with to on the sclc ended exception let's talk for a moment about how it's going to change a place different background as you say had been so much for health care for the poor the powerless on it's funny though that i think that in a way she and septima clark they're there they couldn't be more different terms of background and yet i think their personal style and temperament were quite similar they were both i'm very much saw the best in people never condescended to those that they were seeking too to help i'm could get along with people of different backgrounds and asked hamilton and did this in public health and die and workplace safety she was incidentally the first woman to be asked to join the harvard faculty

is was in nineteen nineteen and it was amended that wanted a woman away than a token woman thing in fact baby made two stipulations to her they said well you can never bridges abating commencement and you can't have any football tickets you know i'll say you know devastated her and of course that hasn't been so she was asked because she was such a pioneer in this field of industrial medicine and it really adds it's hard to believe that no one else was focused on this and she explained it as an she said i felt a responsibility to go in and study what was happening with the chemicals and these workers because a lot of qualified male scientists head out rejected this field as as tainted with socialism or feminine sentimentality is for the poor and i think that's so interesting because what she did really was to go in an interview she discovered early on lead poisoning mercury poisoning and was trying to put an end to that in an obviously that was having devastating effects on these very vulnerable people on and then in

when it was in the lead up in than world war one in the united states was making weapons that that was also something that was hurting a lot of people but what she did was call attention to this in a way that remove that sort of taint of feminine sentimentality or whatever and made it very clearly on the political agenda to arm to make sure that there was some accountability for for for the effects of those chemicals for those are you're just joining us our guest is granted gore shares author of lying away nine women who changed modern america and you know you use aloes almost as a segue into frances perkins arm and and as different as septa meyer an hour's work there are many similarities and that seems to me in the life of frances perkins as you say the first woman candidate also and in roosevelt's administration up i did not known to veto of that not roosevelt but now

smith really gave her a launch pad through with project leader and in the political sphere in a very meaningful way talk a little bit about frances perkins because she is one woman who's my generation an early icon of them on well that i discovered so much about her that i didn't know and one turning point in her life with him in nineteen eleven and she had as as also ours hamilton hadn't suddenly spent some time at a whole house with the great social reformer jane addams and was very much influenced by her an aunt was already focused on ways to help immigrants to help the poor to meet these horrible need that that were going on that at that time in nineteen eleven and she was in new york city and she was having tea with a friend down the street was the triangle shirtwaist factory and it was a sweatshop hundreds of other young women and girls were locked in there making clothing

and dad they were locked in part to keep labor agitators out and to keep them working longer hours as well and there was a terrible fire and over three hundred of them died either inside or jumping out the window into the pavement which is what frances and her friends saw when they our walk down the street to see what with the ruckus was this was an this event shocked the nation and it was very galvanizing to francis who had already been involved in an effort to make sure that there were fire escapes in factories in action triangle had been a company that fired anybody who was meeting with a labor organizer on or someone like francis who was agitated about this says she's opportunity here actually and she and to help others and she made it her mission to take legislators face to face with sweatshop workers she had them crawling through the makeshift fire escapes then and really seeing what was happening behind the scenes and al smith then assemblyman and called it the greatest education that he ever had ten went

on to work with her closely when you think about when you think about frances perkins crusading for a fifty four hour week tells you were an uphill struggle it was for a politician especially woman yes and fifty four hours only for those under eighteen and when women and their lender i at bentley with the age and women younger actually but it is an eighties i think one of the things that i found so interesting also kind of therapeutic about this book is that you can see how in the past there have been seemingly insurmountable political obstacles and an act and people like yourself i'll like the women in this book really i'm just did things every day to move to move the sport as a country and i think it's very important to read to remember what it was like then so it and make it bigger that is possibly go backward as well as forward then there

and so the analysis for today every year there is the convention called national association journal of and every year the premier board is given in the name of other b wells barnett that's one of i don't know that and and then and so with most journalists she has recruited know throughout the war and the interesting thing about you're opening a book with without world is that she was such coverage of characters she really didn't care much about whether she of all people are not right now like elephants at them and she was really abrasive and then when our way let you know all that she really didn't care whether you agree with or disagree with aaron talk about that person it seems to me that

as she was right on the issues with to be right on the issues instead of on a platform and the times isn't somebody or against your is she could alienate the audience and therefore lose the debate not going to withdraw the issue of growth it was that personality that got the word and still shoot it oh absolutely no that's very intriguing to me there's this question of her personality and personal style and in a way what she was doing and single black woman in the deep south going to the scene of a lynching and investigating it and writing about it aoun require just this extraordinary toughness and down and she had a bad i mean certainly her life was in danger constantly end and she really i think just first of all she was incredibly intelligent and she she realized that and so the idea of france the daily insults of being a black woman in the deep south and treated the way she was she took just absolutely tarred

but she was also someone her own father had been their son of his master and she grew up hearing knowing that fact in hearing about how i'm his mother had been whipped by the plantation mistress in and tortured i'm essentially by this whole situation and yet she started to see things around her where black women what were called harlot so i'm in awe yeah and she was and yet she was she was the model a proper woman and in many ways made a great effort to be a half a dozen references to the negative or friends in the new york times will place la cruz so right mullen them a lot of missionaries yeah that's it during troubled interesting i mean i'm sure you recall out when when you the newspapers just are just taking a while to catch up with their nose uses one of these cases where she was and she was completely maligned and actually meant is that an editorial basically calling for her murder and burned down the head the aptly named a free speech on her paper but i think that she

just she had this tough know so free speech in her life yeah that's a great man and that she had this other experience to actually there there there and parallels between ib was another jones because both were in memphis and both moved to chicago and both were affected by yellow fever in memphis and ida b wells was orphaned she was in she was sixteen so she wasn't really young but she had younger siblings that she was responsible for and that was another thing that happened to her that i think made her so tough but she agonized over her her difficulty with friendships and really wanted to be able to to be more social and warm and he did custer answer now as it they're each story involves courage a different sort of courage in some cases but but you know to stand up and fight against the power structure gets the business community for a fifty four hour work week

it took courage you know caught in the wells to go into those towns and personally investigate lynchings after the fact took real guts on the thing i really admire about the book is the way each story has its own exciting aspect i mean each story is a drama a separate drama and interested in how often overkill and what he stood for in a second the lives the number of these people about and that's for a shade shade them she's in more chapters than she's not an unsettling very presence and was raised in the introduction because polling nor volunteer fireman when she went my grandfather went in the new deal are two to congress in tennessee and down and she has inspired my grandmother and i think it's interesting cause hamilton was a real mentor to eleanor roosevelt who wrote to her good friend about how much she looked up to her about i look at the sweet gentle unassuming woman and

yet what she's accomplished endemic countries to see that i'm well allison looked up to jane addams that i've been eleanor roosevelt's looking up two hours hamilton i think and then aids are in on the story as someone who is a is a mentor i'm someone who believes in you is really important to you and what what drove all these women wish we had time has been on every one of them but i do so neumann the year williamson about your friend gretchen pritchard well the question really started her work in the eighties when there was a huge bloom in homelessness and she they were sued welfare hotels that and that were filled with drug dealers and prostitutes and permanent very crowded and crime ridden and a lot of young children there and it was also isn't actually at an expensive system because the hotels were being paid a lot of money by the government instead of working on low income housing and two to help more long term gretchen marched right in and said i'm gonna start a daycare center in here

and m was embattled every step of the way she ended up sneaking a crew from sixty minutes into the hotel's to arm to expose what was going on and that was really sort of a catalytic mom moment to change the system she recommended another model appeared to housing transitional homes for homeless families with early childhood education open and two children she's a big proponent of head start and un is somebody who i just admire great deal and i think is on the cutting edge of some of the things we're dealing with now we have a bomb in that your father and a lot of that been in a cheer for her mother photographer and also there's been a nefarious sister has been in a chair you've written lighting the way what is gonna be your next book i well i actually when it's an advisor i won an island new idea i think am i at wanna write something

else and it will be oriented towards american political history that is my interest i've actually thought about writing that a tennessean named dead davy crockett from know your character i'm in many ways but has just such an interesting story that i would love to explore on an m it different to write about a man and then just pick one topic though that may be it interesting life and death davy crockett at the alamo well i you know when you write it and i hope we do talk about in the process of your writing welcome comeback look forward to say has been so great to have you here and them oh i think all of you of watching medical abortion for is the author of lighting the way nine women changed modern america forward own words and john single or keep reading mm

hmm