We're here to educate ourselves about our legal rights rights that we have one those that we are on the verge of losing and some that we have recently lost and those that we are still fighting for. And the meeting here in Boston today is certainly not unique all over the country recently conferences have been held on women's legal rights much like this one this thrust this particular thrust of the movement for the liberation of women the know your rights campaign's of which this conference is so much apart are critically important to the efforts to concretizing to give practical and real life meaning to the abstract concept of sex equality. It serves both the empowerment of women both individually and collectively the empowerment is in that clearly Advanced by a knowledge of one's legal rights and obligations responsibilities and particularly in time such as we live in now when hostile court and legislative decisions are repeatedly threatening so many of the advances that women have struggled for and one particularly at times like these is it really important to know where we stand and the eyes of the law? But while we study about and learn today about custody laws about labor laws about wills about real estate. I think it's also important to understand that there are certain dangers and limitations which face a Liberation movement which has an exclusive almost exclusive focus on the struggle for legal rights. I think we ought to leave here certainly knowing more about all right, but we ought to also learn something and say something in our workshops about the social context out of which these rights were one and born and about the forces which now threaten the elimination of these rights. And then let the struggle for legal rights take its shape from a broader Focus. I say this because I believe that if it is to have any meaning for the masses of women women all over the country and these days of economic crisis the struggle for legal and political equality of women must be a part of and must grow out of and grow with and emerge out of the struggles of today against racism and for economic equality. The right to sexual equality can neither be secured nor enjoyed by women in isolation. I think that the history of the women's movement the past history and the present history really tells us that this is so and before I go on to talk about the crisis which phases today. I want to call on that history to illustrate my point. The historical antecedent to the current women's movement for political equality was the original women's movement for the suffrage. and its Beginnings the suffrage movement had very strong and longstanding ties with the Abolitionist Movement from which it had emerged from which it was born. But as the suffragists gain support all over the country as the movement grew it became more and more one goal oriented. The vote was viewed as a Panacea. It was viewed as a be-all and end-all for it for the movement. It was this shift in Direction, which led the movement to unfortunately for the movement itself to isolate itself from the other vibrant and equal the Urgent movements for social change of that day the black Freedom Movement of the day and the movement the growing and burgeoning labor movement, which included in its ranks thousands of militant workers all over the country and most especially here in Massachusetts. It was an isolation which ultimately weaken the suffrage movement and which delayed the victory for which suffragists had sought so fought so single-mindedly delayed the vote for women. at the turn of the century they were even those suffragettes suffragist who had been most vigorous Advocates of the rights of black people and evolution like the Susan B Anthony who began to turn their backs upon the black women among them who sought recognition and support for the civil rights of blacks in 1899 at the convention of the National American suffrage national American women's suffrage association an issue arose, which Just demonstrated which Illustrated how far a distance the suffragists had put between themselves their own cause and the cause of the then newly liberated slaves. A black delegate to the convention. Mrs. Lonnie Wilson Jackson had travel to Michigan where the convention was held in a segregated train and she was made to sit for a her entire ride in the smoking-car of the train when she arrived at the convention she offered a resolution on this point. She said a resolution was that Colored Women ought not to be compelled to ride and smoking cars and that's suitable accommodations should be provided for them. The resolution was hotly debated among the delegates the delegates from the south protested that the resolution was unfair that they had come to discuss the question of women's suffrage and not the question of black rights. And finally the resolution was overwhelmingly defeated when Susan B Anthony who was for good reason much admired and held much sway among the delegates spoke out against it. She said we women are a help with this franchise class. Our hands are tied. And while we are in this condition it is not for us to go passing resolutions against the railroad corporations or anybody else. And it was the defeat of this resolution which served for the first time officially to put the suffragists on record as regarding the two causes as completely unrelated one delegate to the 1899 convention summed it up a bit more food Lee then had Susan B Anthony. She said it does make me so cross to think that they are always quoting the darkie to us. The colored question is no more. The question is suffragist, then it is the man who already has the right to vote. It isn't half as much. Things got much worse than the following years. It was not simply a question of ignoring what the delegate that I previously quoted referred to as the quote College question the suffragists or at least many of them and most particularly those from the southern states went further to embrace white supremacy in pursuance of their own the 1903 convention recognized the principle of states rights, which was merely to give license to give freedom in permission for the southern suffragists to advance whatever racist arguments they felt necessary to pursue the boat in their own States. Any argument that was used had two aspects to branches to deny white women the vote to suffer just said put them in an incongruous position racism being what it was and what it is put them in the position of being a political in Furious of black man in this certainly would not do and secondly women's suffrage. They said wouldn't sure white supremacy in the south. In other words the addition in addition to all of the violent and brutal methods of disfranchisement of the black freedmen which were increasingly used in the southern states. These suffragettes suffer just said I left white women vote and then there will be no need to fear black participation in government. So that it was this single-minded and narrow focus of the suffragists on winning the legal right to vote. No matter what that led to self-defeating tactics and I say all this because I think that it is an inherent tendency of an exclusively legal rights movement, which certainly all of us must avoid today. I want to say something about the problems that we face today, but I first want to dip once again into the history of our struggle for women's emancipation. Well, the suffragists took a wrong turn very at the latter stage of the long life of the suffrage movement. the movement itself as I have said grew out of the feminist and anti-racist activities of women abolitionists in the North and these women who were the grandmothers and the mothers of the suffragist lent their strong voices and new voices to the Abolitionist cause at a time in the 19th century when it was absolutely unheard of for women to speak out on any public issue. and I think it might be interesting for us here and Boston to take note of the many early steps that women abolitionists right here in our city participated in in October of 1835 and issue of the Boston newspaper their commercial Gazette describe the reaction which the Abolitionist women received one attempted to hold a meeting hold a public meeting in this town the newspaper reported that a mob of 2,000 white men whom it described as quote and assemblage of gentlemen of property and standing from all parts of the city. Set these men had gathered to attack the meeting Hall of the female anti-slavery Society here in Boston. The members of the society both black women and white women had gathered to hear the Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison speak. in her book her important book A Century of struggle one historian described what happened even before the women could begin their meeting Eleanor flexner tells us a mom swarmed into the building and stormed up the steps to the door of the Very Room in which the women were meeting Garrison was whisked out a back door key later dragged himself through the street. He laid it was dragged through the streets at the end of a rope. And the mayor of Boston himself came to beg the women to leave in order to avoid physical harm at the direction of Maria Weston Chapman who was the president of the society each white lady present took a colored Sisters by the hand and two by two they walked calmly down the stairs and out of the building their hands folded in their cotton gloves and their eyes busily identifying the genteel. leaders of the mob the more violence which these women face was really nothing new to the Abolitionist Movement in Boston. 2 months earlier the leading white citizens of the Town gathered at Faneuil Hall here to denounce the ablution abolitionist as Traders and among the speakers on that occasion wear a former mayor of the city of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts James T Austin and a judge of the Boston Municipal Court. honorable Peter old Sachar in spite of the violent and brutal and insulting animosity which they faced the women black and white women of Boston during this. Continue to organize against slavery and against the oppression of women. The first woman to speak publicly here in the United States was a black woman Maria W Stewart who spoke here in Boston at the African Masonic Hall in 1833 and 1834. She urged the abolition of slavery and equality for women. And then of course after her head in the Grimke sisters, it was a woman here in Massachusetts Elizabeth Freeman who successfully challenged slavery in the states through the courts in 1780. And they were women black women and white women who here in Massachusetts and more particularly in Boston launch day long campaign for the repeal of the Massachusetts State marriage laws. The laws were passed in 1705 and 17 1786 and they prohibited marriage between blacks and whites and provided extremely severe penalties for violators of the laws the women who sought the repeal of these statutes work used as one newspaper put it quote of a desire to marry black men of a lack of modesty for venturing into public affairs, and if I want the virtue for interfering in so delicate in Arena as sexual relations, But the women again persisted in their campaign, they canvassed from door-to-door for signatures on petitions to be presented to the legislature urging repeal of the laws in 1839. The Boston women presented the legislator legislation legislature a petition which contain the names of 1300 women from Boston from Lynn from Dorchester and from Plymouth. The legislators at that time declined to do anything about the laws and the women went out and collected more signatures. They returned in 1840 with 9,000 signatures again thousands and thousands of signatures of women and they continue to collect signatures and to deliver them up to the state house until in 1843 the noxious marriage and racist marriage laws were repealed. The encouragement which the Abolitionist gave to participating women eventually gave it didn't come easily and it didn't come immediately. But the encouragement which was eventually given to women to participate in this movement greatly affected the radical character of the movement itself because after all these women were by their very presence within the ranks of the movement challenging the long accepted Norms of sexual conduct which had existed for until up until that time in the 19th century. Furthermore the women's participation in the public struggle for abolition in bald and the women to go ahead and to continue and to organize for the rights of women as well. So the Boston women who were mobbed at the female anti-slavery society meeting in 1835 to my mind really exemplify and approach to the struggle for human Liberation, which I think or to continue to guide us today. All its history brings me to the subject of today's conference in the question of what rights there are that women can rely on and how far beyond the right just to cast The Ballot be on the right not to exist as chattel slaves how far have we come in the struggle for sexual equality and what are the Battlegrounds that still lies ahead of us? I realize that neither pessimism their optimism are political terms. As I see it things look at present time at the same time both better than ever before and worse than ever before. Better I said because more and more people more and more women all kinds of women are being drawn into the struggle one aspect or another of the struggle for women's equality. No longer can it be said that the movement is the province of anyone class of American women or have anyone race of American women? In fact, the ideologies Eeyore certain aspects of the ideologies of the movement have seeped into All parts of the country all across the country have seeped into the country towns and Villages and Body Rolls and ghettos all over. Women by the thousands are meeting today in large groups such as we saw in Houston not too long ago and in smaller Gatherings like the one here today so that the movement is alive and well and growing. But I think that there is a price clearly that we have to pay for the success. I think that now we are also seeing on a scale which is unprecedented in recent times the organized opposition of certain forces to the demands for equal treatment for women. Like the black liberation movement, which is a primary target of these forces. The women's movement has become a target of the burgeoning and growing extremely right wing. I think the backlash the anti rights movement has always had its voice in the courts and has always had its voice unfortunately in the legislators. But I think that there's something new that we see today and something that is more dangerous. And that is that we are now threatened with a populist Revival of the extreme, right? And the movement that we Face expresses itself in some of the anti era campaigns that we've seen such as we saw in Houston such as we saw here in Massachusetts and in other states when they iwy conventions took place. We see it also in the attacks on affirmative action and then all the clamor for so-called reverse discrimination. We see it in the anti-abortion campaigns which are part of the same Trend in the anti-homosexual groupings, which is grown and spread all over the country. We see it on National and international issues. For example question of the Panama Canal the same rightist forces sought and one adherents on that issue two policies of imperialism and colonialism, which even though they are still practiced by our country has certainly long-lost respectability as an expressed justification for international conduct. And we see it in the Revival of the clan and not see violence and activity and in the open displays of racism and anti-Semitism which these groups foment and all this too. I think is part of the definite. March and push to the right I think it a closer look at all these campaigns will reveal that they share certain basic characteristics in the first place. All of these movements are and that are are are white movement. They are all all white movements. All of the probe Aki groups the anti-abortion forces all of them rely on the exploitation of racism in their appeal to maintain the status quo. And then in the second place much of the mobilization that we see today to defeat the era to defeat gay rights abortion rights much of it takes the shape takes form under the banner The Faults Banner of save our families and so that it exploit the genuine and real fears of well-meaning women and men who find it increasingly difficult to maintain their families to maintain stable families in times of economic crisis and deprivation. In fact gay people not posed. No threat to the family if economic pressures, which threaten the family the era the daycare programs. We so badly need the affirmative action programs. None of these will break up the family. All these problems will merely be a first step in the long struggle of women to get both of their feet solidly within the labor force rather than remaining on the fringes of the 4th of the labor force in an easily exploitable class of reserve and surplus labor. The right-wing forces that we see then I think would perpetuate the economic dependence and exploitation of women. And would perpetuate racism and it must be on this basis on the basis of these two aspects these two faces of the movement that the movement must be challenged at every turn in all areas of its work. Then I think the women's movement must appreciate the necessity to deal with not only male Supremacy, but also with the racism in the economic exploitation which compliment and strengthen male Supremacy. Surely this is true in the fight for affirmative action programs for anti-discrimination programs on the jobs and then the schools and so on. In fact people are competing for jobs. They're competing for educational opportunities. They competing today in a ever naura market for jobs in four places in schools. And because this is so there's really no easy way to deal with a tight job market then to push some people out of that market all together and I think that that's why we see black people and minority people and women being blamed for claiming places that they say we're unqualified or unsuited for or that we don't deserve. I think that's the real explanation for the crime reverse discrimination. That's a real explanation for that cry when we fight for jobs, which white men feel that it is there historical privilege and the historical Destiny to hold. We're told that we need to be at home with told that we don't need daycare that we don't need pregnancy disability and we're told that precisely because there aren't enough jobs to go around and precisely because if we are to have full employment in this country, somebody will have to move out of the way. Don't want the affirmative action remedy which was employed by the Davis Medical School program. And which is attacked in the Bakke case is not entirely Apple applicable to most white women who don't face the risks the same risks that Minority applicants to professional schools do face the struggle around Baki is yet and still critically important in the area of employment. It's in the area of employment that both black people all minorities and women here exactly the Same Song & Dance that we rejected because we're not one of the boys because as One employer of the New York telephone company put it as he expressed it in the course of the title 7 litigation around that company's policies. He said certain applicants. Don't meet the quote total person concept. It all of us know that it's sex which helps determine the total person concept. So that is women. I think that we one of our priorities is to continue to give our wholehearted support to to defeating the the Rocky and Bucky and its ilk. Fit in the area of abortion-rights again, we perceive clearly that it is the rights of poor women who are most vulnerable and that it is they who are the first line of attack we've seen that in Texas. For example, if women without money for safe abortions who died in the back alleys back alley hospitals makeshift hospital again the first to suffer a poor women of colour she kind of cyst in Texas and here I go again, then if we are as women to secure the rights of all of us to Safe abortions, then we must first and most fervently defend the claim with poor and minority women to that, right? Here in Massachusetts, that means I believe immediately organizing thousands of women against the doyle Flynn attempts to attach the anti-abortion amendment to the Medicaid appropriation section of our budget here in the state. Sterilization abuse is the other side of the abortion cord for poor women. And again, it's a pervasive and Insidious form of violence against poor women in particular Tina women Native American women and black women and Insidious form of violence, which has to be seen as a threat to the most basic right of all women to control their their lives of all women to their personal and physical integrity and control On the question of repression of gay women again the forces who oppose social change for all women will most readily begin their attack on the path in which they feel they will get the least resistance. And for that reason we will never Advance the interests of all of us and less at the same time. We defend the Democratic rights of those of us who were just as white women suffer from the racism which afflicts and provides all of our communities and our workplaces. So straight women to suffer will suffer if the rights of gay women are diminished. I think I could go on I think there are a number of other priorities to cover their the inequities in the discriminations with your faced by women on welfare. The fate of women who were caught up in an ever-expanding Criminal Justice System. There's a question of the protection and the organization and the needs of women who were battered. But I'm looking at the clock and my time is up. As we move on I want to Simply leave you with the perception with which I began these remarks and that is that the struggle for legal rights in a vacuum won't leave us know where I struggle for such rights that takes place that takes account of it takes place in the vital life line between anti-racism and anti sexism and between anti sexism and economic equality such a struggle has great possibilities for victory. It's been said before but I think it's important to repeat it the treatment of black women in Puerto Rican sisters their treatment in factories really sets the standard for the treatment of all women if the employer if the boss can get away with speed up and unsafe conditions working conditions, like lack of safety features among one group of women, then he will inevitably try to extend to all of us the stereotypes of black women and of brown women that we see in the media all around us really undermined the Dignity of all women in the mood treatment that poor women receive when they walk into the welfare office the unemployment office and often times the courtroom that treatment sets the tone for the treatment of all women. If white women fail to oppose the unheated schoolrooms, which badyal and ghetto children face, then it's why children who will freeze next I think that these are the dangers of racism and sexism dangerous about which we should be aware as we continue our progress today neither racism or sexism to my mind will fall unless and until the other one does.