The Batavia Township Democrats are fortunate to have a myriad of “changemakers” amongst our ranks. This is the first in a series of profiles about the fascinating ways our members have and continue to make positive change for their communities and beyond.
I’m from St Paul, Minnesota. I’m 79 years old. I started in High School, around 1964 or 1965. The Civil Rights push caught my attention. There were Sit-Ins at lunch counters, Freedom Riders, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus, little kids in the South wanted to go to all white schools. I wanted to be a Freedom Rider, but I was a junior in High School, living at home; my parents wouldn’t let me. So, I went to a local community center & volunteered. They were fundraising. I sold Brotherhood buttons (which featured black & white shaking hands). I think I raised around $50.00. I went to my first rally. I got to college, the University of Minnesota, and became a Hippie student activist. I was not alone.
When Dr King was assassinated, I went to my first march, from the University, to downtown Minneapolis. It was sad, but it felt good. This was also the period of the Vietnam Nam war. The guy who sat next to me in a high school class was killed. Thousands of kids were being drafted & used for cannon fodder. It was outrageous! The University became a hotbed of protests. The professor in one of my lectures urged us to do something. So, about 30 of us took over the University president’s office, including the professor. There was a march to downtown Minneapolis where we occupied the halls of the civic center and I got my picture in the paper. I was not alone there either.
Along came Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy running as an anti-war candidate for president. Paul Newman spoke at the University and urged us to join the campaign. I didn’t need much encouragement, even from Paul. Buses were chartered to go to Nebraska to work in the presidential primary. I was on a bus to Omaha, and I slept on a church floor. I learned how to canvass for votes, going door-to-door. I met fellow students who are still my friends. Some of us jumped in a car and went to South Dakota to canvass and send handwritten letters to voters. The guys slept at a funeral home owned by a local supporter and the girls got to stay at someone’s house. We set up a McCarthy Office back at the University for a push to the DNC in Chicago. By then I was volunteer staff with actual credentials. About five of us drove to Chicago and were sent to Park Forest to canvass, get petitions signed, hand out McCarthy pamphlets, and write letters. By this time we were staying in the homes of supporters – no more church floors! These perfect strangers housed us, fed us, transported us, took us to dinner.
Then came the 1968 Democratic Convention. Mayor Richard J. Daley set the cops lose on demonstrators. It was bloody and ruthless. I had been assigned to a message table down the hall from Senator McCarthy’s suite in the Conrad Hilton Hotel. When the cops charged into the crowd of demonstrators in Grant Park, all the staff stampeded to the windows. It was brutal. Later, some of us went out there and helped wounded kids to some makeshift first aid stations. The cops harassed everyone they could. They caused chaos. They caused injuries. It WAS a police riot. The convention nominated Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and the country elected Richard Nixon. I found a ride home with the president of the Minnesota Young Dems, of which I was a member. He had been pushed through the plate glass window of a Hilton hotel bar on Michigan Avenue and tear gassed.
I wasn’t done.
At the 1968 Minnesota State Democratic Convention, I met my future husband, Marv. He was an officer in the Sixth Ward Club, a politically active group of students, grad students, and former students located on the West Bank of the University, with a lot of off-campus old apartments (it had only recently been Skid Row and was still transitioning). I had been living there in an old house with three roommates for about a year. Marv lived just blocks away. So, we started on the same page and were married for 50 years. Some of the Sixth Ward Club members had also been in Chicago.
In June 1969, Marv and I got married and moved to Chicago since we couldn’t find jobs in the Twin Cities. I got work as a caseworker. At my entrance interview, I was given a choice of offices to work in. The week before there had been a march from the Madison District office to the Loop for union rights, and once again, the antiwar movement. I chose the Madison District office, at Madison and Damen. It included a Chicago Skid Row. My first day on the job, I joined the fledgling Independent Union of Public Aid Employees. It was about a year old.
Eventually, I moved on to another public aid office, the Welfare Rehabilitation Service. I became union steward at that office. Then I was talked into running for Secretary-Treasurer of the entire union. By then we were the Illinois Union of Social Service Employees. Now we could include all the support staff for public aid and work towards a career path, for example a clerk with several years of seniority could become a caseworker. Eventually we were able to accomplish this, but we still didn’t have a contract with the state which would have given us more rights and benefits. Along came the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, recruiting independent unions like us. We would gain more muscle, more folks with experience, a nationwide organization. We became Local 2000, and we did get that contract. During this time there were so many marches, rallies, meetings, trips to Springfield, trips to DC, for the umbrella of ‘liberal causes’ – I’ve lost track of all of them. I was Secretary-Treasurer for about four years.
Marv & I moved to Oak Park, a community on the edge of the West side of Chicago, with a liberal reputation and a movement to blend Western Chicago with Oak Park. We worked with some Oak Park folks to elect ‘our people’ and further our push to help the community. We also worked for several independent Democrats in Chicago who were running for Illinois State Legislature. It was during this time that I became a Poll Watcher, Election Judge, Voter Registration Person, stander on the corner to hand out election literature (often in freezing weather), canvasser, petition signature gatherer and probably every kind of campaign worker that exists. Then we bought a house in Oak Park so I could get a dog.
