Walkathon Speech:

by Ann Van Dyke

Reflections

Harrisburg Area Women's News

Page 8

EDITORS' NOTE: In the tradition of the New York Times, which always publishes the President's speeches, and the Washington Post, which always publishes Senator Kennedy's speeches, HAWN proudly reprints the following speech by Anne Van Dyke who, among other "ists," is a columnist for HAWN. Ms. Van Dyke delivered this keynote address at the finish of the ERA Walkathon held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on August 26. Personally, we think that the New York Times and the Washington Post would be much better papers if they followed in the tradition of HAWN and published speeches as good as Ms. Van Dyke's.

Along with figuring out what I was going to say to a group as diverse at this, I've had another concern these last couple weeks. Two Vietnamese refugees recently joined my family; and although we wanted them to get here as quickly as possible, I was actually hoping they wouldn't get here before today so I wouldn't have to explain what all this is about. Keep in mind that it was worth it to these people to risk being shot or drowned or starved to get to this nation of freedom and justice for all.. And keep in mind that these two know very little English. Then picture me saying, "Now folks, sometimes in America when you hear the word 'men' it doesn't mean 'men', it means 'people'. But in the United States Constitution when you read the word 'men', it means 'men' and when you read the word 'people', it means 'men'." And then the final clarifier, "You see, in America women aren't really citizens." If these folks could speak English really well, they would say, "This is nuts." And it is.

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We have to spend our time and our money and our energy and our fallen arches on getting women into the Constitution of a 200-year-old democracy? If being incredulous alone would ratify the ERA, we'd have it made.

But we are here today to celebrate. We celebrate that again at this year's Walkaton, we lost no one to terminal blisters. We celebrate the sense of empowerment we get . . . just being together. We usually stand alone and it feels so good to stand with folks who think our priorities are right on target.

We celebrate that we are not just sisters united; there are some marvelous brothers out there too. And while we are celebrating kinship, we celebrate the National Organization of Women's renewed commitment to. the elimination of racism. Again we say, nobody's equal till everybody's equal.

We celebrate the ever increasing numbers of organizations and individuals who are seeing the light and adding their support to our ranks. And in this group we particularly celebrate the more than 70 religious organizations, which by their support, are saying at their national levels, "That's right, justice is what God had in mind."

We celebrate that we no longer have 6 or 7 or 8 more states to

ratify, only 3. (Practice your positive thinking.)

We celebrate the fact that we know that social movements tend to be 20 years ahead of the attitudes of the general public; and since this most recent wave of feminism got started in the early 60's, all this stuff is about to make sense to a lot of people.

And we celebrate our past. Remembering our past is not only an act of honor, but it's also an act of education. And do I have an example for you. This winter I attended a church women's conference with 1200 uppity feminist church women--yes, they really are out there--and it was powerful. I had lunch one day at the conference with an out-to-save-the-world-18-year-old young woman, and we were commenting on the strong feminist perspective of the conference when she said, "Oh, I don't limit myself to feminism; I'm a humanist."

And on the verge of losing it in the middle of Howard Johnsons, I leaned across the table and between gritted teeth said, "Honey, don't you ever forget that we got where we are

LIBERTY EQUALITY

on the backs and the sweat and the blood of thousands of feminists who went before us & don't you ever think we would even be voting if Alice Paul, Lucy Stone & Susan B. Anthony had been humanists."

Why is it that we have to keep explaining that humanists don't always get around to women's issues?

So we celebrate our past, as an act of honor and of education.

We remember that the gaining of women's sufferage was the result of a 72-year struggle and we celebrate the 59th anniversary of that victory today.

We remember that Alice Paul-whom we commemorate on July 9--was a master of organization and that ...she did not tire. Dr. Paul went from the women's-right-to-vote battle, without pausing, into the ERA campaign. Did you ever think about how anxious our Congressmen must have been back in the days of the sufferage battle, how anxious they were to get rid of all those parading, picketing, chanting, chained-to-thefence feminists? Did you ever think about how relieved they must have been 59 years ago today to think. that they had finally gotten rid of Alice Paul and her crew, only to walk out the door of the Capitol into Alice Paul and her crew? The only difference was that their picket signs no longer said "Ratify women's sufferage" but "Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment". Can't you just picture those Congressmen turning to each other and saying, "Now these uppity women want to be citizens. What next?"

Now, about tiring. . . everytime you get tired of reminding people that you are not a girl; everytime you get tired of those commercials that insist all you really need is some exciting pantyhose and a truly smudge-proof mascara; everytime you get tired of hearing another women's libber joke and someone saying, "Oh, you feminists have no sense of humor, thank God Alice Paul did not tire.

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So we remember our past as an act of honor and of education. So that when we begin to tire we remember that we got here on their backs. There's something else we often forget about these early sufferagists and feminists. they were patriots. When I was a kid that word, "patriot", was beautiful and powerful. I wanted to be one. But as I grew up and experienced the war, the concept soured and just hearing the word gave me visions of that infamous bumper sticker, "America, love it or leave it." Well, if Alice Paul had put out bumper stickers they would have said, "America, love it or change it." So we study our past and are re-educated on how to be patriots.

Since this is a message of celebration, the one thing I can't really talk about is the opposition. But just let me say this about that. The anti-ERA forces are wearing a new button which says, "Vote for fairness." Which puts us in the

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