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Harry Reid & Senate Democrats in the Newsroom

Nativegrl77 — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:20:33 +0000

August 18, 2010

Reid Statement Recognizing 90th Anniversary Of The Nineteenth Amendment To Ensure Women The Right To Vote

Washington, DC –Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today in recognition of the 90th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote. For more information, please see this DPC fact sheet released today on “Continuing the Fight for Women’s Equality”:

“Ninety years ago today, our country corrected a great injustice by guaranteeing women the right to vote. This progress would not have been possible without the courage, foresight and tenacity of those pioneers who risked everything to ensure that women had this fundamental, inalienable right.

“But the cause of women’s equality did not end with the progress made by pioneers like Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or even with the strides made by those who have continued to fight for women’s equality up to the present day in ways big and small, public and private. The struggle for full equality for women continues today, with women making only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In the past two years, Democrats have worked to rectify this continuing inequality by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that women are paid the same as men for the same work. Democrats also passed health care reform that bans insurance companies from charging women more than men for the same coverage on the basis of their gender, and that provides free preventative care for millions of women across America. And Democrats voted overwhelmingly to send Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, putting three female Justices on the Supreme Court for the first time in our nation’s history.

“Despite these advances and others, the struggle for gender equality continues. I believe we have a duty to end these inequities where they exist, and to honor the legacy of the pioneers who led this movement by continuing to work for full gender equality in America.”

August 19, 2010

Reid Statement On Final U.S. Brigade Combat Team Leaving Iraq

Washington, DC – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today after the final U.S. brigade combat team departed Iraq:

“Today is an important day for the people of Iraq and for the brave men and women who have defended American interests in Iraq for the last eight years. As our last U.S. brigade combat team leaves Iraq, we salute them for the heroism, courage and dignity that they have displayed since the beginning of this conflict. In Nevada, we lost 36 service members during the course of our involvement in Iraq, and we still grieve with their families every day. Our troops and security forces have done everything that has been asked of them and beyond, and now is the time for the people of Iraq to take the lead in defending their young democracy.

“We know that today’s developments do not end our involvement in Iraq completely. We still have tens of thousands of men and women on the ground that will support the Iraqi forces and we know they will continue to face serious threats on a daily basis. We will support these troops to ensure they are able to perform their duties and remain safe. We stand united behind our forces as they continue to defend our nation bravely and defeat terrorists around the globe.

“We are ever mindful of the challenges that lie ahead to complete our mission in Afghanistan. President Obama and his national security leadership team have put in place a plan that has already yielded some positive results in Afghanistan, and I will continue to work with the President to ensure that he has the necessary support to protect our nation and that our troops can be successful in their mission.”

August 12, 2010

Reid Statement Following Senate Passage Of Border Security Legislation

Washington, DC –Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement this morning following final Senate passage of border security legislation:

“Nevadans understand the challenges that exist because of our broken immigration system. We need comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, cracks down on unscrupulous employers, and requires those here illegally to get right with the law, learn English, pay taxes, pass criminal background checks, and go to the back of the line. This morning, the Senate passed a $600 million border security package that will help law enforcement officials in the fight against smuggling and other criminal activities in the border area. But I continue to believe that increased enforcement along our borders is only one part of a sound, comprehensive solution to fix our broken immigration system, and more work remains to achieve that ultimate goal.

“Democrats are open to working with Republicans toward a bipartisan solution on comprehensive immigration reform. And we are hopeful that Republicans will match our commitment to fix our broken system in a way that respects our laws and honors our values as a nation.”

August 13, 2010

Reid Statement Recognizing 75th Anniversary Of Social Security

Washington, DC –Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today to recognize the 75th anniversary of Social Security on Saturday:

“Since its creation 75 years ago, Social Security has allowed tens of thousands of Nevadans to retire with grace and dignity. Throughout my career, I have fought to strengthen and preserve Social Security, and I will continue to fight to make sure that our parents, grandparents and loved ones can enjoy their golden years with well-deserved peace of mind.

“We must always remember what is at stake for the millions of American seniors who depend on this earned benefit. If my Republican colleagues had their way, Social Security benefits would be eliminated, phased out or risked on the stock market, leaving millions of Americans’ retirement security hostage to the up and down fluctuations of Wall Street. I believe that retirement security for Main Street should be guaranteed, not trusted to Wall Street. And that is why I will continue to fight to make sure we do not jeopardize the future of Social Security with risky schemes that leave our seniors vulnerable.

“I understand how critical Social Security is for Nevada’s seniors, and I will always fight to protect this program so that it continues to provide them with the retirement security they deserve.”

Happy 19th Amendment Day!

Becky — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:37:59 +0000

On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, making today the 90^th anniversary of women winning the right to vote.

Here’s the abbreviated history lesson.

This part made me laugh.

“Opposed by a well-organized and well-funded anti-suffrage movement which argued that most women really didn’t want the vote, and they were probably not qualified to exercise it anyway, women also used humor as a tactic. In 1915, writer Alice Duer Miller wrote,

Why We Don’t Want Men to Vote

* Because man’s place is in the army.

* Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

* Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

* Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms, and drums.

* Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government.”

In honor of all these glorious women (okay, and some men too), a couple of years ago during election season I posted Why Women Should Vote .

Now, go watch “Iron Jawed Angels” and always — ALWAYS — choose to vote.

Happy 19^th Amendment Day!

Do you always vote?

Where Are All the Women?

hollykearl — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:39:43 +0000

As a history and women’s studies double major in college, I was thrilled to work at the National Wom

July 19, 2010

rachelbirds — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:56:23 +0000

The first Women’s
Rights Convention was held this
date in history.

January 3 in history

homepaddock — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:12:36 +0000

On January 3:

106 BC Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher, was born.

1431 Joan of Arc was handed over to the Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

1496 Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying machine.

A design for a flying machine.

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicatesdMartin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1793 Lucretia Mott, American women’s rights activist (, was born.

1823 Stephen F. Austin received a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.

1831 Savitribai Phule, Female social activist, first female teacher in India, and first female poet in Marathi language, was born.

1840 Surveyors arrived in Port Nicholson to lay out plans for the proposed New Zealand Company settlement of Britannia at Pito-one (Petone). When this original site proved unsuitable, the decision was made to relocate across the harbour in a settlement they called Wellington.

1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts was sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia.

1870 Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began.

1883 Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1887 Helen Parkhurst, American educator, was born.

1888 The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, was used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.

1892 J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer (, was born.

1899 – The first known use of the word automobile, was seen in an editorial in The New York Times.

1909 Victor Borge, Danish entertainer, was born.

1916 Maxene Andrews, American singer (The Andrews Sisters), was born.

1922 Bill Travers, British actor and director, was born.

1923 Charles Tingwell, Australian actor, was born.

1924 British explorer Howard Carter discovered the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt.

1933 Minnie D. Craig became the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.

1942 John Thaw, British actor, was born.

1945 Stephen Stills, American musician (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) was born.

1946 John Paul Jones, British musician (Led Zeppelin), was born.

1950 Victoria Principal, American actress, was born.

1953 Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, became the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

1956 A fire damaged the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

1956 Mel Gibson, Australian actor and director, was born.

1957 The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

1958 The West Indies Federation was formed.

1961 The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.

1962 Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro.

1977 Apple Computer was incorporated.

1988 Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century.

1990 Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrendered to American forces.

1993 George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

1994 – More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, received South African citizenship.

1999 The Mars Polar Lander was launched.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint -- Kurt Vonnegut

jay babcock — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:27:56 +0000

NOVEMBER 11 — KURT VONNEGUT
Beloved American novelist, sardonic social critic.

NOVEMBER 11 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
U.S.: VETERAN’S DAY. MARTINMAS, one of four “quarter days” in Old
England when rents were paid. As celebration and consolation there
was feasting and drinking. Was also called “TEAR-STOMACH DAY.”Martin
was the patron of beggars, tavern keepers and wine growers, proba-
bly because his day coincides with the ancient “FEAST OF DIONYSUS.”
Netherlands: ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN DAY.Tradition says
eleven is the number of fools. On the 11th day of the 11th month a
council of 11 begins organizing the next year’s carnival, “so anyone
can be as foolish as he or she cares to be for those three days.”

ALSO ON NOVEMBER 11 IN HISTORY
1647 — First American compulsory school law passed, Massachusetts.
1821 — Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky born, Moscow, Russia.
1831 — American slave rebellion leader Nat Turner hanged, Jerusalem, Virginia.
1880 — American feminist Lucretia Mott dies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1887 — Haymarket martyrs executed, Chicago, Illinois.
1922 — American novelist Kurt Vonnegut born, Indianapolis, Indiana.
1942 — Jimi Hendrix, rock guitar wizard, born, Seattle, Washington.
1989 — Civil Rights Memorial dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.
2004 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies; succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

Better Late Than Never

Meg G. — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:37:09 +0000

Last week, on Monday July 20 I tweeted that on the same date in 1848, the first women’s convention was held in the United States. While six days late, this is the accompanying blog. Better late than never, right? In fact, this might be a sentiment shared by nineteenth century women regarding their convention and by twentieth century women once suffrage was attained.

At the time of the convention, known as the Seneca Falls Convention, women enjoyed few rights. They were denied access to most jobs, with the exception of those positions that perpetuated the traditional gender roles. While they could participate in politics by attending meetings and giving speeches, they were denied the right to vote. They had limited access to education. They were wards of their husbands and fathers, lacking the autonomy to govern their own lives. Some women compared their lives to those of slaves.

The women who claimed their lives mirrored those of the slaves, the women who participated in the Seneca Falls Convention, understood the comparison they were making. These women were veterans of the anti-slavery cause. The founders of the convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, had traveled to London in 1840 to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. However, they were barred from participating due to their gender. Eight years later, inspired by the scorn felt in London, they held the first women’s convention.

The Seneca Falls Convention gathered women together in upstate New York to raise the issue of women’s rights for the first time. Hundreds of supporters attended. The convention called for laws that would allow women to own their own property, to have access to jobs and education, to have legal equality, and they wanted to repeal laws that gave fathers custody of children in the event of a divorce. However, it was suffrage that was the convention’s most controversial issue. In fact, it was the only resolution that did not pass the unanimously. The convention also produced a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled by Stanton on Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The document added women to the statement that all men are created equal. It condemned the injuries and usurpations of men against women.

While it would take over seventy years for women to achieve that controversial issue of the convention, other points were taken from the convention. Several states granted women greater control in property, some made divorce easier to obtain, and finally in some places women received the right to sue in court. While it was quite a small step for women’s rights, it legitimized the movement. It gave women a voice that was not focused on the domestic sphere but instead on her status as a equal human being.

Reflection 108: Integrity I

Steve Perrin — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:45:34 +0000

Stop in your tracks and watch those around you striding purposefully about their business. It always amazes me how driven we have become, how earnestly we push on without glancing right or left. We drive the kids to school, to violin practice, to soccer, to ballet, to rehearsals. And then pick them up and drive home. Busyness is our business, the exact opposite of the broad margin Thoreau sought around his life.

Having read most of his writings, including the Journals, I have long admired Thoreau for the evident integrity backing up every word. Whatever he did, he did wholeheartedly, his own way. Uniqueness and integrity go together because no two of us are the same. But being busy cuts through our uniqueness, as if routines were more important than personal passions and judgments. What would happen if we stopped and smelled the flowers along the way? We’d be late, and everybody knows it is a sin to be late. Bosses know it, teachers know it, sergeants know it, theatergoers know it, entire corporate hierarchies know it. Lateness can lower your grade, your pay, your IQ, and probably your sex drive.

Adopting cultural mores and routines means you have donated part of your brain to your culture for the sake of being accepted. That’s a tough bargain because you are no longer fully yourself. You’ve become a political animal, living part of your life for the effect it might have on others. Wanting to please is one thing, doing it for personal gain is another. Selling your personal integrity is a form of prostitution (from Latin prostituere, expose publically, offer for sale). In our culture, it is an obvious good to watch TV, invest, buy, patronize advisers, consume, and generally go along with the crowd. How do we know? Because that’s the gist of many of the messages beamed at us in modern life.

But to take a stand against the onslaught takes integrity—being whole, entire, intact, untouched, or undamaged. Thoreau had that quality, as did Emerson and Walt Whitman. They were their own men, out to be true, not to please. Giving them the biting edge of independent thought, a quality shared with Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott, to name but three exemplars from each sex.

The competitiveness of our culture is meant to fracture the integrity of those who oppose it. Backed by wealth and the power of law, corporations will do their best to beat you into a pose of submission, to have you bend at the knees, throw up your hands and cry, “Enough, I’ll go along!” Dominance is claimed to be a synonym for masculinity, submission for femininity—obvious myths in a world requiring both men and women to be strong to survive. But for political and commercial purposes, the claim has a certain weight among those who please by doing what they’re told.

For myself, I believe the function of consciousness is to teach us integrity so that whether male or female, we can be wholly ourselves. In the Mind page at the head of this blog, I list various aspects of consciousness that might bear in varying combinations upon any given situation in awareness. These include: attention, feelings, various kinds of memories, motivation, sensory and bodily phenomena, understanding, imagination, intuition, judgment, planning, expectancy, and action (including language).

Integrity, to me, means these various aspects complement one another in contributing to any given episode of personal consciousness. They add to a whole greater than their individual shares taken separately. When we get it together, it feels good because it’s all of a piece. When our minds are at sixes and sevens, we know what that feels like—we can’t concentrate on action because we aren’t ready yet to decide what to do. But when the parts work in synchrony with one another, we are ready to make our move without hesitation.

Integrity is a sign that the famous binding problem has been solved in a given instance of consciousness. The problem “arises from the brain’s architecture, in which the outside world is represented by nervous activity in a hundred or more distinct regions” (Christof Koch, The Quest for Consciousness, p. 167). Yet consciousness creates the illusion that the mind is of one piece. Which is what integrity feels like.

My finest moments are those in which I am of one mind—not because my thought is so simple—but precisely because it is hard-won from so many sources yet presents itself as a self-made unity. Perhaps contributions from various brain assemblies are in synchrony with one another, which is what it feels like to me. Everything adds up without argument or discord, freeing my actions to be skillful, passionate, and wholehearted. I have served on a great many committees, so I know what it feels like to rub different parts smooth in order to come up with a compromise, always with a feeling of “it’s the best we can do.”

Today, a colleague sent an e-mail concerning the possibility of minds meeting in agreement when coming from different perspectives, I sent back this response:

Regarding two minds getting together. I agree with you, part way, but come up against the roadblock of personal integrity. I feel I am finally in a situation where much of my consciousness works cooperatively so that I feel wholly integrated as I write. I treasure that feeling because it has been so rare in my life. I threw out my TV in 1986 because it was such a distraction. I defend my turf, now living practically as a hermit (except for weekends). Now that I’ve got myself more or less together, I don’t want to give that up. It is exciting to think of meeting someone concerned with the same issues on the same level—but daunting, too. At least my mistakes are my own. My belief [is] that one life contains all the stimulation required in order to do good work and make a contribution. Am I wrong? Probably. But it feels great doing what I can with what I have. Still, I’m willing to consider—if not fully explore—the options. What happens if my well runs dry? That’s when I’d need help. So far, it hasn’t happened. In the meantime, I pick and choose in the light of my personal judgment. So keep writing and being your own person. Integrity, once achieved, is a priceless possession.

Yes, dialogue is possible between persons of integrity. I find it a waste of time between those whose opinions are threatened by dissent because they aren’t fully supported by every aspect of consciousness. That to me seems to be the state in which most of us conduct our everyday affairs. We generally wing it, doing the best we can under the circumstances, often unfavorable.

Which is why we play so many games. Governed by rules, they impose integrity upon us from the outside, and by simplifying the number of options we have in making legal moves. If we cheat, it’s too much like work to be fun anymore.

Society places so many pressures upon us to do this and do that, it’s a wonder we ever find quiet time for getting ourselves together. I know women who write poetry at the kitchen table during the fifteen minutes the kids take their afternoon nap. Every four days that adds to an hour of integrity, twenty-four hours of integrity every 96 days—almost four days of integrity a year. That kind of serial project may be the best we can manage during our working, childrearing years. In the interests of full disclosure, I am technically retired, but I’ve never been busier in my life. The difference is I do what I choose to do, not what I am assigned. The tradeoff is I’m not always informed about many of the things that other people talk about and seem to take seriously.

The juncture (we now say interface) between people of integrity is always the hard part. What good is integrity if you keep it to yourself? Which is the situation my colleague was asking about in his e-mail. Can integrities be shared so they add to more than the sum of their parts? I gotta believe. When we all achieve integrity in our consciousness, then we will act on the best advice obtainable internally and socially, and the world is bound to be a better place.

For now, I offer integrity as something to strive for. After that, we’ll have the dialogue that will save the world. Hopefully, some are having that discussion already, so we’re not as far behind as the nightly news would suggest.

How Facebook and Twitter could save the world

thezenafile — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:01:22 +0000

I’m writing this blog on Memorial Day – the day we celebrate the sacrifices made by those who fought for our ideals and the way of life we say we want and deserve. It’s kind of ironic, though, because as I look at our society and our country I see us giving our rights away and it seems kind of rude to celebrate those who fought for us on one hand and disrespect their work on the other.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself – “Self, what is she talking about? We’re at war for our freedom now and everyone on TV but Keith Olbermann is saying we’re winning, so seriously, WTF?”

It’s not the enemy without that’s devouring us, though, it’s the enemy within. I started noticing it when the Patriot Act was passed after 9/11.

This act was sold to us as the government’s way of going above and beyond in the fight against terrorism. In a culture that is always being sold something it’s important for us to learn to look beyond the advertising. They say the act protects us but it does so by stripping us of our right to privacy and some of the liberties our forefathers fought for and are being celebrated for on this Memorial Day.

The Patriot Act was supposed to be temporary and we all (some of grudgingly) accepted it that way. In 2006 it became permanent and I don’t recall that making the news. I don’t recall any voices being raised in concern. I’ve long wondered where the Woodward and Bernstein of our times are. For that matter, I wonder where the actual Woodward and Bernstein are. Where are all the idealistic journalists eager to report the actual news, not just relate stories fed to them by publicists and political machines? Are those reporters unable to get jobs? With the world wide web at our fingertips, why aren’t more of us demanding the maintenance of our rights? Why aren’t those the viral videos we pass around via email? Have we become so apathetic that we no longer care enough to protest the loss of our rights?

That brings me to the problem that’s irking me today: corporate greed, Hollywood style.

You may have heard that a union I belong to, the Screen Actors Guild (or SAG) has been in the midst of contentious negotiations with the Producers (AMPTP) over a contract to define how, what and when we actors get paid for our work and what we have to do to earn the paycheck. The contract has been agreed to by the union and the producers and is now before us for a vote. Unfortunately, our union has sold our rights and protections for the sake of getting this deal over with because the producers want to be able to show maximum profits to their share holders.

They hold the threat of work stoppage over us. They think we will have no choice but to strike if we don’t accept the deal and that means millions of working men and women being sidelined during a recession. It’s true – no one wants that. But we do have an alternative: we can band together and boycott their product. If advertisers aren’t getting eyeballs they won’t pay the networks for their product and the producers will eventually have to cave. This is easy and convenient for us, the consumers and performers – all we have to do is not tune in. That means we’ll have to find fun the old fashioned way – facebooking, reading blogs or even books!, going outside and playing with our friends.

They’re so sure they have such a strong stranglehold on our tiny little attention spans that we won’t leave our couches or comfy movie theater chairs, that we won’t peel our eyeballs from our screens to stand up for something we supposedly believe in, like fair pay and safe working conditions. Are they right? Well, are they? If they are right then, truly, we deserve what we will get. And so do they. While they make a dollar standing on our broken backs today they will fall down as we collapse tomorrow.

In order to bring change to this type of behavior we have to stop rewarding it. And we can do that, quite easily. Imagine organizing a boycott of national magnitude via facebook and twitter. We tech savvy users of these media are the target audiences for all of the corporations out there trying to make a buck. We can turn the country on it’s ear, take back our rights, freedoms and restore fairness. That is absolute power. We deserve to have some of it too.

That’s a tea party that will get some attention.

Much as I have respect and admiration for the producers and production companies that make the films and TV shows that I love to watch and be a part of, I hate that they are trying to screw the creative people who provide them with the content that makes them hugely wealthy.

We actors now have a contract in front of us that takes far more from us than it gives. Without the creative people there would be no art but the corporations that bring it to the audiences have bottom lines and to them those are more important than the art that’s being created. It’s capitalism in a nutshell but its not something you can sustain long term.

Our country has spent the last few years believing that we can indefinitely satisfy our short term wants and needs and ignore the future. We are now seeing the consequences of that kind of action in our deepening recession and disappearing future security – the loss of medicaid, social security and the American Dream. Corporations and our government are continuing on this path of living for the moment and it’s going to continue costing us exponentially more as time goes on. All of these bail outs have consequences, not letting natural selection take place in the corporate world has consequences and if you think that Obama is going to take care of everything and you can sit back and relax you are going to be pretty surprised when the life the Joads led in The Grapes of Wrath is looking pretty cushy to you in a few years.

Rather, we should all stand up and use these voices we have been given by the internet and our social networks to spread the word about what’s really going on in our world. We should organize protests – even armchair protests and boycotts and we should start standing up for our rights. It may be okay with you if your job lays you off so that they can show a quarterly profit while you struggle to put food on the table but that’s not what I want for my family.

If Woodward and Bernstein aren’t coming to open our eyes and minds to what’s going on and spur the country into taking action that makes life better for us then let’s do it ourselves. We all have the tools and the opportunity, we just have to quit waiting to be saved and use them.

Here’s something the actors are doing to get the word out on the unfair issues in our proposed union contract and why we should vote no on it.

What if we spend as much time making videos and twitter posts that enlighten and inspire our fellow Americans and humans as we do making videos about cute kitten tricks and fat kids reenacting Star Wars battles? Then you’ll have something great to post in your status update.

Here are some brave people who stood up for what they believe in:

Ghandi

American Civil Rights:

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

- Rosa Parks

Women’s Suffrage Movement

- Susan B. Anthony

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

If you let history happen to you and you never stand up for what you think is right you will never make your mark on history and you will certainly not be remembered.

What Every Woman Should Know About the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848

Anna Belle — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:30:00 +0000

This statue honoring Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony was given to the U.S. by sculptor Adelaide Johnson in 1921; it was relegated to the basement of Congress until 1997.

Picture, if you will, an auditorium in London in 1840. In your mind’s eye, picture the rich wood of the banisters, the rows of curved, cushioned seats, a great clamor happening on the stage and the floor. Men from all over the world, dressed in their Victorian best, are debating how to end slavery. Above this din, on the balcony, sit a smattering of women in long skirts and bonnets; among them, two women sit whispering to each other as they watch the action below. One of the women is young, a blushing bride, in fact, on her honeymoon; the other is a middle aged woman, and well-known abolitionist in the United States. These two American women, incensed at their banishment to the balcony (a custom to which they are unfamiliar), are plotting a Convention of their own.

I often like to fantasize about that conversation between Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the blushing bride) and Lucretia Mott (the well-known abolitionist). I’m sure it was a fiery and learned conversation, considering these were two very smart very passionate women. It would take eight more years before they could realize their promise to each other to unite and hold a Women’s Rights conference in the United States, but they did, in Seneca Falls New York, 1848.

It is so hard for us to imagine sometimes what this world would have looked like because it is so foreign to us. We are accustomed to our technological advances, and think nothing of zipping across the state, the nation, or the world at a moment’s notice, in record time. Stanton and Mott would have spent about a month making the voyage to London. When they met 8 years later, it was at a tea party at Jane Hunt’s house in Waterloo, NY, which, at just 4 miles down the road took considerably less time. We could drive it in five minutes today, but it would have taken more than an hour via horse and buggy on dirt roads for Stanton to get there from her house in neighboring Seneca Falls.

July 1848

Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880)

Though the Seneca Falls Convention on Women’s Rights kicked off the first wave of American women’s rights activism, it was nearly an impossible feat. Stanton and Mott only reconnected around July 10th, and they staged the convention at local Wesleyan Chapel little more than a week later, on July 19th & 20th. They announced their intentions via the Seneca County Courier on July 16th as a “convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Because they thought the move was bold enough to warrant attack, they scheduled the first day for women only, inviting men to participate on the second day. However, many men did show up on that first day and they were not turned away, nor did they heckle or try to disrupt. Most were supportive of the effort, and many were among the 100 signers of the document issued by the convention, The Declaration of Sentiments.

Declaration of Sentiments

Some of the words had already been written 72 years earlier in the Declaration of Independence. Those words were so powerful and true that they almost begged to be employed to a larger end than designed. The first paragraph differs because the aim is different. Rather than trying to disentangle from a distant tyranny, the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments sought to join a group with others in a show of unity that was the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. To that most famous of lines, a single word was added–women.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

And as the Declaration of Independence ends with a long list of wrongs to be righted, so did the Declaration of Sentiments have its resolutions. While all of them are of note in the context of the time, I point to these two as my personal favorites:

Resolved, That woman is man’s equal–was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.

The first was not the reality then, and is not even the reality now, though we have come a long way since 1848. That it’s still not true is part of what drives this movement. The second is the truth and heart of the matter–it did take women working together toward a single end, for many women to the exclusion of all else, as well as another 72 years to bring the second resolution to fruition.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and her daughter, Harriot, who would later go on to continue her mother's fight.

That women are the equal of men seems so obvious today that it hardly needs to be stated, but in 1848 this was a radical notion. At that time, women had no rights unless they were unmarried, and even then they had precious few. Marriage was practically compulsory, and as soon as she married, a woman became the property of her husband, as did any children created by the union. She was expected to surrender herself body and soul to her husband and family, was denied working opportunity unless her husband was a deadbeat or her family was so poor her work was required. Her options were limited generally to domestic work like cleaning, sewing, and cooking for others. Even teaching was at that time a male-dominated field. It was this world that these women and men gathered together in order to change. Women in America today enjoy so many of the freedoms that they do, including the right to vote for any candidate they choose, because of the long fight born at this historic event.

Neither Elizabeth Cady Stanton nor Lucretia Mott lived to see the 19^th Amendment passed. They never got the chance to vote, a fact worth remembering next time you find yourself in the voting booth. Only one woman in attendance at Seneca Falls in 1848, one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments, Charlotte Woodward (Pierce), lived to see the 19th Amendment ratified.

***

When I get tired or frustrated, I remember these ladies and the men who joined them. I think of that tiny town in New York, with its colonial houses and dirt roads, the river just a stones throw from the Chapel itself. I think of those streets on those hot July days, the women wrapped in the fashions of the time, sweating under so many layers, speaking loudly and solemnly before the gathering crowd. I think of the men in their short pants with tights, the shirts and jackets, the cufflinks and high collars and shoes they would wear. I imagine the stench of horses and sweat, of food wilting in the July heat. I picture the face of young Charlotte Woodward, just 18 years old and earnest, an instant and life-long convert to the cause.

The constraints these women and men faced were enormous. What they accomplished on these two July days was tremendous, and the freedoms we women have today, to vote, to choose our destinies, to have an education and rights to our children, all of this we owe to Stanton and Mott and the women and men who attended those two days and were transformed by the experience. These women worked tirelessly during the 19^th century to make the rights we have today possible. They had no rights, and had precious few choices themselves. While most would not live to see women granted the ultimate right, the right to vote, they are responsible for it nevertheless.

When we meet next week, you will read the incredible tale of the final push for the right for women to vote. It is the most compelling tale we have in American women’s history, and it started with this event, the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848.

Sources:

Lucretia Mott @ Historic La Mott, PA
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women’s Rights Historic Park
Jane Hunt
Martha Wright
Mary Ann M’Clintock

What Every Woman Should Know is a bi-weekly series on American Women’s History. The series is weekly in March, which is Women’s History Month. Cross posted to The New Agenda.

Seneca Falls, a Brief History of Voting in the U.S. and Reminder to Vote!

Finger Lakes Travel Maven — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:36:19 +0000

Did you know that when George Washington was elected President, only 6% of the population had the right to vote? Because voting was reserved exclusively to landowners - mostly causcasian male Protestants over the age of 21 – precious few voted in our first Presidential Election.

Tribute to Women's Rights Activists in Seneca Falls, NY

In 1848, a group of women and men, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and her husband James, Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth McClintock and Frederick Douglass gathered together in Seneca Falls, NY in the Wesleyan Chapel to discuss the social, civil and religious conditions of women. Out of that First Women’s Rights Convention came the Declaration of Sentiments which held that “all men and women are created equal” and calling for universal voting rights.

Women's Rights National Historial Park in Seneca Falls, NY

By 1868 and 1870, the 14th and 15th Amendments gave former slaves the right to vote and prohibited the denial of voting to males on the basis of race, but many states used voting taxes and literacy to restrict voting rights.

In 1872, Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, NY for attempting to vote in the election, in the same year as Sojournor Truth, a former slave, was turned away from the polls in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1890, Wyoming became a state and was the first state making it a constitutional right for women to vote. During these years, Native American People and people of Asian and other ethnic heritage were still denied the right to vote.

In the early 1960′s, African Americans were still discouraged from voting through the use of voting taxes, literacy and intimidation tactics. Civil Rights Leaders such as James Meredith, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael worked to create social change and to ensure voting rights for African Americans. Finally, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, as a result of a grassroots movement which included protests and marches. This act prohibited states from imposing discriminatory restrictions on who was allowed to vote.

In 1971, the voting age was lowered to 18, largely as a result of pressure from Vietnam War Protesters demanding that anyone old enough to fight be given the right to vote.

Voting is a right and a privilege guaranteed to all U.S. Citizens, and no matter what your political allegiance, please VOTE TODAY. The polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. CLICK HERE to find your voting location. If you have no transportation to your voting location, call your local Republican or Democratic party office. Most have arranged transportation to the polls for voters unable to get there without assistance.

For more on the history of voting, visit U.S. Voting Rights Timeline.

Turtle Island Project: President's lack of knowledge about Native American tribal sovereignty is sad and scary

yoopernewsman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:37:37 +0000

President George W. Bush’s apparent lack of understanding on tribal sovereignty is examined by Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, executive director and co-founder of the non-profit Turtle Island Project in Munising, Michigan.

Bliptv:

youtube:

This video was made as Hubbard made two presentations on September 24, 2008 during the third annual UNITED Conference at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan.

This video is about infamous comments about Native American Tribal Sovereignty made by President George W. Bush on August 6, 2004 at the UNITY conference in Washington D.C.

President Bush was asked the tribal sovereignty question by Mark Trahant, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Page Editor, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe in Idaho and former president of the Native American Journalists Association.

Bush answered the question but that answer was so bizarre it caused journalists to laugh:
“Tribal sovereignty means that. It’s sovereign,” President Bush said. “You’ve been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity.”

The conference involved about 7,500 journalists of color from the Native American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Asian-American Journalists Association.

Hubbard said it’s funny, scary and sad that President George W. Bush doesn’t understand the important issue of Native American tribal sovereignty.

The Turtle Island Project thanks Democracy Now for the use of their video of President Bush’s remarks on tribal sovereignty.
Democracy Now
——-

Turtle Island Project: Silencing Native Americans & author hails American Indian genocide over the rainbow

yoopernewsman — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:22:15 +0000

Silencing Indigenous People and Cultures: Wizard of Oz author celebrates death of Native American culture in Sitting Bull obit

This is the second in a series of videos from two talks that Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard – the Turtle Island Project Director and Co-Founder – gave on Sept. 23 during the 2008 UNITED Conference at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

Zoologist and philosopher Neil Evernden wrote that vivisectionists cut animal vocal cords so they did not have to hear the tortured animal cry as they conducted experiments.

The vivisectionists silenced the animal and therefore did not acknowledge it was a tortured being.

The right of passage into the scientific (way of being) centers on the ability to apply the knife to the vocal cords – not just of the dog on the table – but to life itself.

It was about silencing voice then – and reflects the silencing of voices today.

Wizard of Oz versus today’s sneaky politicians and the way we treat the environment and one another.

Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, Turtle Island Project Director and Co-Founder:

We are on the tip of an iceberg and the iceberg runs deep and the ship is running right into it.

Industrial civilization is not sustainable. We all know that. It cannot be sustainable.

Any technology that relies on the use of non-renewables is by definition not sustainable.

We could have solved these problems 50 years ago, but we are not going to solve these problems in the next 20 years. We can start, maybe. But I think we are in for a very, very difficult time.

Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore. And Dorothy is not coming back to Kansas.

This is not going to be easy.

And like that Great Oz asked Dorothy and her friends – so are the politicians of our day – they ask us.

Pay no attention the Great Oz says to the man behind the curtain. Because the great deception is alive and well.

Hubbard compared the yellow brick road to gold and the Emerald City to the green of money where Dorothy though shed find her salvation.

The Great Wizard of Oz is this old white guy doing his thing, pulling his levers, lying to the people to maintain is power.

This is what we have been doing as a culture for how many years ignoring the man behind the curtain.

And now the chickens are going to come home to roost.

Hubbard reminded the audience of how we all look forward to the Wizard of Oz because it was shown only once a year.

Wizard of Oz was written by L. Frank Bauman (Born May 15, 1856)

Originally author Bauman was a failed businessman as a store owner – then edited the local newspaper the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer.

After the (first) Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, Native Americans were the targets of his editorials in his paper.

He explained that the safety of Euro-Americans depends upon the extermination of Indians.

Upon hearing of the death of the Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, Baum wrote an editorial for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer:

Sitting Bull, the most renown Sioux of modern history, is dead. He was a chief but without kingly lineage – he arose from a lowly position to the great medicine man of his time by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce bloody wars for their possession lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull.

With his fall the nobility of the redskin is extinguished.

And what few that are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them.

The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.

Why not annihilation?

Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are.

After reading the editorial, Hubbard then told the audience:

That was act one the great Wizard silencing nature.
—
Native American Genocide Advocate L. Frank Baum – ironically married kin of a civil rights activist.

Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women’s suffrage and radical feminist activist who learned much from American Indian women.

Native Americans were the target of Baum’s editorials after the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Miniconjou Chief Big Foot lies dead in the snow following Wounded Knee Massacre on Dec. 29, 1890.

Big Foot was the half-brother of famous Lakota Chief Sitting Bull. Two weeks earlier on December 15, Chief Sitting Bull was killed at his cabin on the Standing Rock.

Baum wrote that the safety of Euro-Americans requires the “extermination of Indians.”

Baum written attacks on American Indians are evident in his obituary of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer.

L Frank Baum – the author of Wizard of Oz – promoted the genocide of Native Americans:

Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead. He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

He was an Indian with a white man’s spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his.

In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites.

And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery.

What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt?

What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull.

With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them.

Why not annihilation?

Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are.

After the massacre, Baums second editorial on Jan. 3, 1891 said Americans should exterminate Native American Indians because having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization … and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.

Baum wrote:

The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at best, is a disgrace to the war department.

There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.

The PIONEER has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians.

Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one or more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.

In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands.

Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that ‘when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre.”
—
Related Links:
—

Zoologist and philosopher Neil Evernden:

http://www.derrickjensen.org/essay.html

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/168159.php

http://haydon4.tripod.com/id20.htm

Neil Evernden books: The Fragile Division; Nature and the Ultrahuman; The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment:

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Alien-Humankind-Environment/dp/0802077854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223868003&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Neil%20Evernden

http://www.derrickjensen.org/comm.html

http://www.derrickjensen.org/books01.html

—

Anti-Vivisectionists – cutting of animal vocal chords:

http://www.adaptt.org/animalrights.html

http://www.samizdat.com/micah/animal_rights.html

http://pharyngula.org/index/science/comments/good_for_doug_bjerregaard

http://www.infonature.org/english/world_news/eng-nature_news_animal_torture.htm

http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org/Letter_Ban_Vivisection.htm

Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum celebrated the death of Sitting Bull:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Frank_Baum

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Baum,+L.+Frank

http://www.put.com/oz/ozdi/199712.TXT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz

Apology by fans of Baum and others – plus public comments:
APOLOGY AND PLEDGE: From Planners and Anticipated Participants in the L. Frank Baum Conference for Aberdeen, South Dakota Planned in 1997

http://www.dickshovel.com/roeschbaum.html

http://www.dickshovel.com/TwistedFootnote.html

http://www.dickshovel.com/baumcom.html

Provide comments on apology website:

http://www.dickshovel.com/com.html

Photo credits:

Oz photos/video:

http://battellemedia.com/images/wizard-behind-curtain.jpg

http://www.milfordtheatreguilde.org/WOCastHome.html

http://oblivio.com/archives/02011701.html

http://www.mulholland-drive.net/pics/reference/wizard_shot.jpg

http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Wizoz/wizoz.htm

http://ayearofoz.blogspot.com/

http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/?p=3361

http://ozproject.egtech.net/book.php?book_ID=676

http://www.moviejustice.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3038

L. Frank Baum circa 1901 – Wikipedia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/L_frank_baum.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:L_frank_baum.jpg

L Frank Baum Poster from Wikipedia (unknown artist):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Baum_poster_1b.jpg

Baum photo from Looking Glass Review website:

http://www.lookingglassreview.com/html/l_frank_baum.html

Baum photo from Pixie Palace website:

http://www.pixiepalace.com/2007/06

Baum photo from Literary Traveler website:

http://www.literarytraveler.com/literary_articles/l_frank_baum.aspx

Baum with Green outline from oz.org website:

http://wizardoz.home.att.net/index.html

Wizard of Oz Poster of Tin Man from Wikipedia (The Tin Man).

Poster for Fred R. Hamlin’s musical extravaganza was created by “The U.S. Lithograph Co., Russell-Morgan Print, Cincinnati & New York.” – 1903 U.S. Lithograph Co.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Tin-Man-poster-Hamlin.jpeg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tin-Man-poster-Hamlin.jpeg
—

Vivisection photos from Ocean Drop website:

http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org/Letter_Ban_Vivisection.htm

http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org

White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc. (WBCWS)
PO Box 227
Mission, S.D.
57555

For more info on the WBCWS:

Javier H. Alegree
Public Relations Specialist
Media and Education

(605) 856-2317
(605) 856-2494 (fax)
——-
Official website of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe – Sicangu Lakota

——-
Northern Michigan University (NMU)

NMU on Wikipedia
——-
NMU Center for Native American Studies:

Center for Native American Studies

Northern Michigan University

112F Whitman Hall

Marquette, MI

49855

(906) 227-1397
(906) 227-1396 (fax)
e-mail:
nasa@nmu.edu

April Lindala, Director
Center for Native American Studies

(906) 227-1397
(906) 227-1396 (fax)
—

Grace Chaillier

NMU Adjunct Assistant Professor

Sicangu Lakota band of the Rosebud Sioux

112G Whitman Hall

UNITED Organizers:

Dr. Judith Puncochar

NMU Professor

906-227-1366
——-

Turtle Island Project

Munising, Michigan

Turtle island Project Co-founders:

Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard

Rev. Dr. George Cairns
—
Turtle Island TV (blipTV)

Turtle Island TV (youtube)

Turtle Island (myspace)

email the non-profit Turtle Island Project:

TurtleIslandProject@charter.net

——-

Book “Pagans in the Promised Land” by Steven T. Newcomb (2008):

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9781555916428&ourl=Pagans-in-the-Promised-Land%2FNewcomb
——-
Anishinaabe News:

NMU Native American student-run newspaper

——-

Lakota Domestic Violence Fighter Tillie Black Bear: Indigenous men must respect all women even in thought

yoopernewsman — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:26:13 +0000

This is a transcript of the second in a series of videos about Tillie Black Bear – the executive director and one of the founders of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society (WBCWS).

For 31 years, the WBCWS has served the Lakota Sioux Rosebud Reservation in Mission, SD.

Black Bear spoke to the Northern Michigan University 2008 Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED) Conference on September 23, 2008.

This is the second of several videos about her talk in the Great Lakes Room of the NMU University center and informal discussion that followed.

Tillie Black Bear:

"When we look at who we are as woman. We really have to look at where we come from as woman."

I always encourage women from other tribes to take a look at where they were before – pre-European contact. What belonged to women

Tribal women, we had rights. We owned property. We had our children with us. Our children belonged to the women.

With the impact of colonization, those rights were skewed.
Because we had our white sisters coming from Europe who were the property of the men. And the children were the property of men, as well.

So you had this group of people coming and interfacing with tribal women all across Turtle I sland. Whether it was the eastern coast or the western coast. And what they found there was (tribal) women who owned property.

What was written about tribal women by the explorers, the priests, by the churches was they depicted this image of – if you close you eyes and imagine whats your image of an Indian woman – we were portrayed as we had this thing on our back and we were towing something. We had like wood or we were towing something somewhere. Or else either that we were standing by a big black pot cooking."

"If you could do a paradigm shift to that idea – that the woman who had that stuff on her back – that was her property. It was what she owned. And she was carrying it somewhere.
That big black pot belonged to her.

In our culture as Lakota Sioux women – the teepee that we had was the womens domain. It was our teepee. And what went on inside that teepee was our responsibility.

Today we are real fortunate as tribal women that we dont have to set up those big 16-foot teepees anymore. Our brothers, our male relatives are the ones who learn how to set up for us the three poles and then bringing in the next poles until you have 12 poles that are standing up.

Our brothers do that today so we have been ind of spoiled as women because we dont have to do this anymore. In our tribe, can you imagine women – they would have contests to see how fast women could put up these teepees.

Within our tribe there might be two or three sets of women who could do it (now). I certainly couldnt do it and not have my brothers there, my males relatives, to come and help me.

Tribal women were responsible for that task. She owned that. It belonged to her.

If you look at who you are today as a women, what are the rights that you have, especially our white sisters, where did that come from?

About 20 years ago feminist historians began to have the eyes to see where suffrages like Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony – where they got their ideas from about womens equality. It was from the Iroquois nation because a majority of those suffrages women have been adopted by the clan mothers.

"So they began to get their ideas about womens rights and they adopted many of their ideas about womens equality from those clan sisters from the Iroquois Nation.

So when we work today for equality for women, I work for tribal women to reclaim that equality that existed for us prior to colonization.

For our white sisters, I work for equality for them.

In todays world for tribal women, its pretty confusing because many of our male relatives have adopted those ways of our white male relatives in how they beat women – how they beat women today.

So I always encourage women, especially tribal women, to go back to the day that we were before that contact – pre-colonization.
How was it for Turtle Island women and all over Canada and Mexico.
We find that women definitely had rights.

Sociologist Susan Fletcher wrote a lot about what was happening to the Indian people in the 1860s there especially in South Dakota.

Fletcher went to Fort Randall where Chief Sitting Bull was being held and incarcerated.

One of his wives came in with wood and she was stoking up this fire, warming up the fire, in the tent where he was held

Fletcher said:

Is there anything youth think I could help you with and he (Sitting Bull) looked at her and said.

By me signing the treaties our Indian womens lives are going to change.
I want you to look out and write about our Indian women.

Sitting Bull took off a ring and gave it to her to do that.

This Chief Sitting Bull from Standing Rock knew what was going to happen to us as tribal women when he signed those treaties. The treaty of Fort Laramie was signed in 1868

Sister of man doing Crazy Horse monument came to Crow Creek on their honeymoon.
She was standing there with a group of tribal women and one of them gave a horse away.

She said: Shouldnt you ask your husband?

And the tribal woman said: My husband why? The horse belongs to me

The woman said: I forgot who I was talking to.

Property belonged to us and it was ours to give or to keep.

The many of the treaties between the U.S. and American Indian tribes were written by men not used to women with power or rights.

They came from a background where only men were in positions of power.
Only men signed treaties. Only men were in Congress.

They only wanted men in leadership positions.

If you look at the Irquois Nation. The clam mothers picked who would represent their clan. They had a process of nurturing a male to get to that point. There were things that this man could not do in order for him to be in a leadership position for the Iroquois Nation.

Black Bears visit was coordinated by the NMU Center for Native American Studies and the non-profit Turtle Island Project in Munising, Michigan.

The Turtle Island Project (TIP) has held several concerts and other events to raises funds for the WBCWS. TIP Director Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard travels several times a year to the Rosebud Reservation.

Black Bear was greeted by Dr. Judith Puncochar, an NMU Professor and an organizer of the annual UNITED Conference.

Tillie Black Bear was introduced by Grace Chaillier, an NMU Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Native American Studies and a registered member of the Sicangu Lakota band of the Rosebud Sioux – the same tribe as Black Bear.

Please watch the other Turtle Island Project videos on Tillie Black Bear’s talk in northern Michigan.

Black Bear addresses the Lakota teen suicide crisis, domestic violence, people respecting people and many other important issues.

The Turtle Island Project thanks Tillie Black Bear, NMU Center for Native American Studies, Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED) and White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc.
—
Great womens quotes by nations:

http://www.shannonthunderbird.com/indigenous_women_rights.htm
—
Rosebud Indian Reservation map Wikipedia graphic by Karl Musser

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Rosebudreservationmap.png
—
Native Americans and European settlers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_states#Native_Americans_and_European_settlers

http://www.webconnections.com/MES5th/ColonialWomen_B4.htm

Iroquois clan sisters and suffrages women:

http://www.now.org/nnt/summer-99/iroquois.html

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/gage/features/untold.html

http://www.awakenedwoman.com/iroquois_women.htm

Cartoon on Iroquois clan sister and suffrages women drawn by Joseph Keppler
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/chp11.html

Photo of suffrages women and Iroquois sister: Iroquois clan sister and suffrages women courtesy Syracuse Peace Council website and author Sally Roesch Wagner
http://www.peacecouncil.net/pnl/06/751/751haud.htm
—
Native American & Indigenous and White Women’s Rights:

http://www.shannonthunderbird.com/indigenous_women_rights.htm

http://www.historians.org/pubs/global_gender.cfm

http://www.academicleadership.org/uploads/1/Review-Conquest-final.pdf

http://www.academicleadership.org/literary_review/conquest_sexual_violence_and_american_indian_genocide.shtml

http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm

http://www.hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/AmericanWomen/colony-country/index.html
—
Colonial women gather quilting website:

http://virtual.yosemite.cc.ca.us/mkehoe/weekly%20assignments%20history_116.htm
—
Sitting Bull Photo & Info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sitting_Bull_-_edit2.jpg

Sitting Bull photo by D. F. Barry, 1885 via the Library of Congress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting_Bull

Sitting Bull Photo #2 & 3 – unknown photographer:
http://sittingbull.org/
http://www.nativeusa.org/sitting_bull.htm

Sitting Bull disrespected and insulted in death by the author who wrote Wizard of Oz:
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/sitbull.html

—
Native American and Tribal women graphics:

Photo of Rosebud Reservation:
http://www.manyponies.com/indianponies.htm

Lakota Grandmothers:
http://ladyhawkesite.tripod.com/grandmothers.htm

White Buffalo Calf Woman Legend:
http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/White-Buffalo-Calf-Woman-Sioux.html

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) with Susan B. Anthony (standing) photo on Wikipedia courtesy the Library of Congress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Anthony

Suffrage Parade photo from The New York Times photo archive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Suffragists_Parade_Down_Fifth_Avenue,_1917.JPG
—

Lakota Tipi

Courtesy: National Park Service
—
Tipi

Courtesy: Alpha

Tipi Tatanka Camp

Photo by Wanaunsapi Tiyospaye
—

1868 Sicangu Women and Children

1893 Arapaho two women and child

Lakota Woman works with dog on Rosebud Reservation
Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota) – all courtesy:

First People website.
http://www.firstpeople.us

—

Colonial women and Native women
http://www.snowwowl.com/histswritnawomen.html

——-
Tillie Black Bear. Executive Director
White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc.

October is Domestic Violence Month

Tillie Black Bear is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation/Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

She is presently the Executive Director of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc., which operates the oldest shelter for women who have been battered or raped on Indian reservations; and is the first shelter for women of color in the U.S. (1978).

Tillie Black Bear is recognized throughout the state, nationally, and in Indian Country as one of the leading experts on violence against women and children.

She is a founding mother of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) and a founder of the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SDCADVSA) both in 1978.

She was the first woman of color to chair NCADV and continues to sit on the Board of Director for the SDCADVSA

Black Bear presently serves on the advisory board of National Sexual Assault Resource Center, Pennsylvania and is past member of the professional advisory board of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Austin, TX.

Tillie Black Bear is pictured on Sept. 23, 2008 in Marquette, MI with Dr. José Cuellar of La Raza Studies at San Francisco State University, who spoke on "The Four Enemies of Diversity."

Black Bear and Dr. Cuellar were both featured speakers at the 2008 UNITED Conference at Northern Michigan University.

—

Black Bear is currently a council member for Clan Star a technical resources for tribal grantees through Department of Justice.

Tillie Black Bear was the recipient of an award from the U.S. Department of Justice for her work with victims of crime in April,1988; and in 1989 was one of President Bush’s “Point of Light”.

In 1999 at the Millennium Conference on Domestic Violence in Chicago, IL, Black Bear was one of 10 individuals recognized as one of the founders of the domestic violence movement in the United States.

She was awarded an Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in December, 2000 by President Clinton.

In May, 2003 Black Bear was a recipient of the first annual LifeTime Achievement Award from LifeTime Television.

Black Bear was selected as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century award by Women’s eNews in 2004.

In 2005, she received an award from NOW.

She is retired from Sinte Gleska University as a part-time instructor in Human Services; Casey Foundation as a licensed foster parent.

Currently, Black Bear works as a teacher of 13 years teaching students taking a course on cross-cultural ministry at Catholic Theological Union through Shalom Ministries out of Chicago, IL.

Black Bear and colleague Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D. have completed a poster series on Dakota and Lakota women elders on each of the nine Dakota and Lakota Nations in South Dakota entitled: “Dakota and Lakota Women – Keepers of the Nation”.

Another collaborative work is workshops on issues of Racism and Cultural Diversity, which has taken them to South Dakota, Vermont, New York, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Black Bear has worked as a therapist, certified school counselor, administrator, college instructor and comptroller.

She holds a Master of Art (1974) from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD; Bachelor of Science (1971), Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD.

She has served on the St. Francis Indian School Board of Directors, St. Francis, SD; and Sinte Gleska University Board of Regents, Mission, SD.

Black Bear is single mother of 3 girls, grandmother of thirteen and survivor of domestic violence.
——-
Related Links:

NMU Center for Native American Studies

Center for Native American Studies
Northern Michigan University
1401 Presque Isle Avenue
Marquette, MI
49855

(906) 227-1397
(906) 227-1396 (fax)
e-mail:
nasa@nmu.edu

April Lindala, Director
112F Whitman Hall

(906) 227-1397
(906) 227-1396 (fax)
e-mail:
alindala@nmu.edu
—
Grace Chaillier
NMU Adjunct Assistant Professor
Sicangu Lakota band of the Rosebud Sioux
112G Whitman Hall

(906) 227-1390
e-mail:
grachail@nmu.edu
——-

White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc. (WBCWS)

PO Box 227
Mission, S.D.
57555

For more info on the WBCWS:

Javier H. Alegree
Public Relations Specialist
Media and Education

(605) 856-2317
(605) 856-2494 (fax)

——-
Official website of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe – Sicangu Lakota
——-
Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED):
Northern Michigan University
September 21-23, 2008
Other UNITED links:

http://webb.nmu.edu/UNITED/SiteSections/2008Schedule.shtml
http://webb.nmu.edu/Webb/PDFs/UNITED/UNITED_2008.pdf
http://webb.nmu.edu/UNITED/SiteSections/GD989.shtml

Organizers:
Dr. Judith Puncochar
NMU Professor
906-227-1366
e-mail:
jpuncoch @nmu
(close above gap to email Dr. Puncochar)
——-

Turtle Island Project
137 East Onota Street
Munising, MI.
49862

Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, TIP Co-founder, Director

Rev. Dr. George Cairns, TIP Co-Founder, Board President

Turtle Island Project Director Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard of Munising, MI was a guest speaker at the 2007 and 2008 UNITED Conference at NMU. Rev. Hubbard is pastor of the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising, MI.

Please see the videos on his talks on TIP TV.

For more information on the TIP call 906-202-0590 or 906-401-0109.

—
Turtle Island TV (blipTV)

Turtle Island TV (youtube)

Turtle Island (myspace)

email:
TurtleIslandProject@charter.net

In recent years, the Turtle Island Project has held several free concerts and other events to raise money for the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society. This concert was held in Munising Michigan in Dec. 2007

——-
Anishinaabe News:
NMU Native American student-run newspaper
——-
Lakota Sioux & Rosebud Reservation:
http://www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosebud_Indian_Reservation
http://www.tradecorridor.com/rosebud/spirit.htm
http://www.sicangufund.org/rosebud/index.html
http://www.travelsd.com/ourhistory/sioux/tribes/rosebud.asp
http://pie.midco.net/lmrose/sicangu.htm
http://www.tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=4571
http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/LewisClark2/TheJourney/NativeAmericans/LakotaSioux.htm

from Discourse on Women by Lucretia Coffin Mott Dec 17, 1849 | Thoughts from the great, great, great, great grandaughter of an outspoken woman

Marianna Mott Newirth — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:34:20 +0000

For some time now I have been reading the letters and speeches delivered by Lucretia Mott, best know

Seneca Falls … Casino?

christyjones — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:55:01 +0000

The last time I went Internet researching, I found what became the title of a blog (“Married b

Just the Facts Ma'am (& Sir)

Anna Belle — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:52:42 +0000

Okay, it’s Saturday, and I have a lot planned with the move today, so I won’t be around much. BUT!

I’ve got a little surprise for you tonight. Watch for it here and across the Pumasphere* tonight around 8 PM. And I think you are going to LOVE it. I know I do already. UPDATE!! I’m late. They went LIVE with announcement I alluded to earlier. The revised Declaration is going NATIONAL! Be a part! More info here.

Pumasphere is still a cool term though.

All that said, because of my time constraints today, and in preparation for the big announcement tonight, I’ve decided to cross post the factual twin to yesterday’s post. Originally posted at dKos to celebrate Women’s History Month in March, this is the story of the birth of the First Wave. What happened in its wake is just as interesting, and I may take the opportunity of these anniversaries to share with you over the next six weeks some of what fills my head. I have all the stories there, cataloged and numbered like a miniature American Women’s History library. So, without further ado:

Backstory: The Birth of the First Wave

The 19th Century is widely considered a tumultuous period of political involvement and change. It seems in hindsight as if that drive our forefathers had to couch their rebellion in the concept of equality had everyone wanting a piece of that pie. In addition to abolition movements in the North and South, the concept of women’s equality began to emerge in the 19th century as well.

The idea of Seneca Falls was actually hatched at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention, held in London. While abolition was, by this time, a world-wide movement, apparently the American movement was a bit more enlightened than the European version, as the convention refused to seat female representatives duly elected in the States. They were consigned to a balcony, and given no opportunity to participate in either discussion or decisions. Two of those women were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who met at this convention. Stanton was also on her honeymoon (now THAT’S dedication to a cause). The two women commiserated in the balcony, and vowed that one day women would have a convention to fight for equality themselves. Eight years later, at a tea party at the home of Jane and Richard Hunt, they would renewed their friendship, and take up their vow.

Elizabeth Cady and Harriot Stanton (Yes, the one who gave us our opening quote for the 19th Amendment post.)

Lucretia Mott

July 1848

Though the Seneca Falls Convention on Women’s Rights kicked off the first wave of American feminism, it was nearly an impossible feat. Stanton and Mott only reconnected around July 10th, and they staged the convention at local Wesleyan Chapel little more than a week later, July 19th & 20th. They announced their intentions via the Seneca County Courier on July 16th as a “convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Because they thought the move was bold enough to warrant attack, they scheduled the first day for women only, inviting men to participate on the second day. However, many men did show up on that first day and they were not turned away, nor did they heckle or try to disrupt. Most were supportive of the effort, and many were among the 100 signers of the document issued by the convention, The Declaration of Sentiments.

Wesleyan Chapel today, on the site of the Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls

Declaration of Sentiments

Some of the words had already been written 72 years earlier in the Declaration of Independence. Those words were so powerful and true that they almost begged to be employed to a larger end than designed. The first paragraph differs because the aim is different. Rather than trying to disentangle from a distant tyranny, the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments sought to join a group with others in a show of that equality that was the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. To that most famous of lines, a single word was added—-women.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

***

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.

The first was not the reality then, and is not even the reality now, though we have come a long way since 1848. That it’s still not true is part of what drives this movement–the continued fight for equality, true equality. The second is the truth and heart of the matter-—it did take women working together, as they had in the Seneca Falls Convention, to a single end, for many women to the exclusion of all else, as well as another 72 years to bring the second resolution to fruition. Women in America today enjoy so many of the freedoms that they do, including the right to vote for any candidate they choose, because of the long fight born at this historic event.

***

Only one woman in attendance at Seneca Falls in 1848, one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments, Charlotte Woodward (Pierce), lived to see the 19th Amendment ratified.

*Yes, I did just coin that phrase. Feel free to use it.

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions Woman's Rights Convention

angelolopez — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:21:44 +0000

From the website http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html:

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Woman’s Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, 19-20 July 1848

On the morning of the 19th, the Convention assembled at 11 o’clock. . . . The Declaration of Sentiments, offered for the acceptance of the Convention, was then read by E. C. Stanton. A proposition was made to have it re-read by paragraph, and after much consideration, some changes were suggested and adopted. The propriety of obtaining the signatures of men to the Declaration was discussed in an animated manner: a vote in favor was given; but concluding that the final decision would be the legitimate business of the next day, it was referred.

[In the afternoon] The reading of the Declaration was called for, an addition having been inserted since the morning session. A vote taken upon the amendment was carried, and papers circulated to obtain signatures. The following resolutions were then read:

Whereas, the great precept of nature is conceded to be, “that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness,” Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other.1 It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; Therefore,

Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and of no validity; for this is “superior in obligation to any other.

Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.

Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same tranegressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.

Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in the feats of the circus.

Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.2

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.3

Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.

Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause, by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as self-evident falsehood, and at war with the interests of mankind.

Thursday Morning.

The Convention assembled at the hour appointed, James Mott, of Philadelphia, in the Chair. The minutes of the previous day having been read, E. C. Stanton again read the Declaration of Sentiments, which was freely discussed . . . and was unanimously adopted, as follows:

Declaration of Sentiments.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.4

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.5

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.6

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf.We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

At the appointed hour the meeting convened. The minutes having been read, the resolutions of the day before were read and taken up separately. Some, from their self-evident truth, elicited but little remark; others, after some criticism, much debate, and some slight alterations, were finally passed by a large majority.7

[At an evening session] Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

The Resolution was adopted.

Report of the Woman’s Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848 (Rochester, 1848).

The Golden Age of FreeThought

Skeptigator — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:42:11 +0000

In my continuing series on the history of freethought and secularism in America I would like to spend a little time focusing on the “Golden Age of FreeThought”. It’s called by the author of Freethinkers, A History of American Secularism, Susan Jacoby, the Golden Age for good reason. During the period following the Civil War it was perhaps the most open period in American history to disagree with religious authority and even mock the more irrational aspects of religion. This openness wasn’t nearly as utopian as it may sound.

Unbelief during the Civil War

Perhaps the most telling comments about the status of secular thought during the 19th century comes from the following passage of Susan Jacoby’s book,

Today’s Christian conservatives frequently use the slogan “let’s put God back into the Constitution,” thereby implying that “secular humanists” have managed to overturn what was originally intended to be a marriage of church and state. Nineteenth-century clerics knew better and were honest about their desire to reverse what they regarded as the founders’ erroneous decision to separate church and state.

The late nineteenth-century was merely a foreshadowing of the kinds of vitriol that would be poured out on our elected leaders in recent decades. “In God We Trust” was first engraved onto our currency during the end of the Civil War and was soon made the butt of a number of jokes, such as “In gold we trust” during the debates surrounding the removal of U.S. currency from the gold standard.

Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most devout Christians ever to be elected president, attempted in 1907 to dispense with the motto precisely because of the sacrilegious puns. He succeeded only in arousing a storm of criticism from ministers who had previously been among his strongest supporters. Roosevelt, who had dubbed Paine a “filthy little atheist,” was himself called an infidel for his attempt to remove God from American money.”

Ah, the irony is overwhelming.

The Great Agnostic

Much as Thomas Paine was perhaps the most reviled infidel of his time, Robert Green Ingersoll was much admired and called the Great Agnostic. Ingersoll wrote many pamphlets during his time (c. 1870-1899), including the Gods and Other Lectures and Some mistakes of Moses.

Unlike today, the American people often went to see speakers give lectures. In fact, you could make quite a living going on the lecture circuit. Ingersoll was an extremely popular speaker with many connections to the Republican party of the day. In many of his talks he did not pull any punches in his ridicule of religious belief and social issues such as slavery and women’s rights.

From the Gods and other lectures, after quoting Deuteronomy chapter 20 from the Old Testament detailing the slaughter of men and the… uh… acquisition of the women,

Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the word was to spare none – not even the prattling, dimpled babe.

And we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love.

…

The book, called the bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!

Reading Ingersoll is like reading Dawkins or particularly Hitchens. In fact, I dare say The God Delusion and god is not great are modern day versions of the very lectures that Ingersoll was so famously recognized for and the Four Horseman are so roundly criticized for.

FreeThought Activism

I don’t want to make it sound like the late-nineteenth century was a free and unfettered time to be a freethinker. In fact, the roots of what would ultimately become the “red scare” and much of the McCarthy-ist persecution was beginning to take root at this time particularly during the turn of the century. I will wait to delve into those issues with the next post, FreeThought in the 20th Century.

Among perhaps one of the most astounding things of the mid to late-1800′s was the prevalence of Freethought literature, newspapers and pamphlet printing organizations. Throughout the 1800′s FreeThought periodicals began popping up everywhere, the most famous of the bunch would be D.M. and Mary Bennett’s Truth Seeker. Some of the other periodicals were the Boston Investigator, the Blue Grass Blade, the Free-Thought Ideal and Free-Thought Vindicator, and my personal favorite the Lucifer, the Light-Bearer. Of course, like all “movements” they are rarely centralized and cooridinated as evidenced by the Iconoclast of Austin, Texas run by William Cowper Brann, a strident racist who was ultimately shot in the back by an enraged Baptist. The diversity of thought among those who wore the FreeThought banner was loosely held together by the almost universal opposition to organized religion and their support for a clear separation of church and state.

During this time period the roots of feminism were planted beginning with attempts to gain women the right to vote and the dissemination of information regarding contraception. There are so many famous figures from the women’s rights movement who came to fame during this time period, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Ernestine L. Rose.

There are so many things that happened during this time period that I have only barely scratched the surface. I only glossed over Ingersoll’s life and almost the entirety of the women’s suffrage movement and spoke nothing about the emancipation of the slaves and Abraham Lincoln’s beliefs. I guess you’ll just have to read the book