Monday, August 25, 2014

REMEMBERING AUGUST 26, 1970

My son, Denis, now 61 years old, was visiting me recently. What a memory he has! It’s photographic so he talks about long ago events in detail, even minor ones that may have slipped my mind, like this one leading up to the August 26, 1970 strike in New York City.

Janine (his sister) and I were home for the summer. “You were constantly on the phone,” he recalled. “So much seemed to be going on and you had no time for us. So you sent us to Colombia to spend the summer with dad. A few weeks later in Bogota I picked up El Tiempo and the headlines were screaming…

Feministas Marchan En Nueva York.

with a huge photo of the women marching down Fifth Avenue. And it came to me… So that’s what you’d been so busy about!”


His story brought back vivid memories of that incredible summer, and I now share with everyone the story of the take-over of the Statue of Liberty, as that story has never been told.



I put an ad in the Village Voice asking for help and from then on NOW meetings were crowded with new women anxious to help.Two of them were young Pat Lawrence and Marion Gannet.
For starters…

Betty Friedan had been kicked upstairs at the national NOW conference in Chicago and Aileen Hernandez was our new president. As friends who were at the conference remember, the press was more interested in Betty than in the new officers. They zeroed in on her and she declared triumphantly that “This August 26th marks the 50th anniversary of the Equality Amendment, at last giving women the right to vote, and NOW will hold a nationwide strike to remember that great day and continue our fight for full equality.”

Betty wasn’t popular with many NOW and Women’s Liberation leaders at the time because of comments she’d made about the rising gay movement. As she later explained, she--and many others—had been fearful that the gay movement would hurt the Feminist Movement. At the time all feminist activists were being tagged as gay, a sure-fire method of minimalizing and destroying the Feminist Movement. Also, Betty was hardly diplomatic, and her personality turned many off.

So, back in NYC she called a meeting to plan the Strike. I immediately saw how important this was and was determined to make it a great day. Since NOW and radical feminist groups weren’t at first interested in Betty’s doings, I went to the new Women’s Center, a facility that radical feminists had managed to get the city to give our Movement. There I recruited Marjorie DeFazio and Ann Hazelwood Brady, who weren’t affiliated with any group.

I also brought in the Socialist Workers party women, who were unpopular with other feminists, as it was thought that they were pushing Socialism more than Feminism. But they were known to be great march organizers. I remember particularly Ruth Ann Miller, who later helped plan that very successful March down Fifth Avenue.

I also remember running around town with a young Jill Ward in her little car putting up signs about the March everywhere. I particularly remember stopping at a red light on Park Avenue and in the car next to us the male driver was yelling at his woman partner. Jill jumped out of her car and handed the woman one of our flyers, which said something like Don’t take it any more Women! March on Fifth Avenue onAugust 26, the 50th anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment, to continue the fight for equal rights for our sex. ?

Betty brought in women from the YWCA and other established women’s organizations. We met in a loft in the Village. Though it was Betty’s idea and her leadership, she was treated shamefully, even sent out to buy coffee for the group. Years later, at VFA’s event celebrating NOW’s 30thbirthday at Barnard in 1996, one of the women there remembered that Betty had been sent out for coffee and had returned carrying a tray of coffee mugs for the group. I said, “Ok, go tell Betty that.” She did. And Betty screamed

“NO way did that happen!”

But it did!

* Because of Betty’s statements about gays, NYNOW president Ivy Bottini would have nothing to do with the Strike.

“So, Ivy, named me head of the Strike committee,” I said.

And she did.


I was particularly interested in getting the word around so that we’d have a huge March, but how on earth would we get the word around?

“We’ll take over the Statue of Liberty!” Pat said.

“We can’t do that,” I declared.

“The Puerto Ricans took it over last year and they’re in jail, and the guard there has been increased.”

“We’ll find a way,” she insisted. “Marion is an artist so we’ll make banners in her studio. What should we put on them?”

Betty had coined the phrase, “Women of the World Unite,” and that was perfect for one of the signs.

“On the top banner put Women of the World Unite,” I said, “and on the one below, MARCH ON AUGUST 26TH.”

So she and Marion paid several visits to Ms. Liberty. They took measurements of the top balconies and Marion made the two 40-footers.

To be sure the press would record what we did I sent out a press release announcing that NOW members would take over the Statue of Liberty at 11 AM.

The weather the day of the “Takeover” was glorious. Truly the goddesses were with us. I arrived early in lower Manhattan and joined a crowd of seemingly strange tourists to await the boat to the Island. Pat and Marion, each carrying a banner under her blue jeans, were walking around as though lame. As we had planned, I pretended not to know them, or anyone else. We must not let the guards in on our plans. But then several men carrying huge cameras appeared. I rushed up to them.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “We told you to come at 11.”

“Ah, but we have sources,” they said… “We didn’t want to miss this.”

“But you’ll ruin our plans,” I answered. “They’ll never let us get on the Island now.”

“Don’t worry,” I was told. “We’ll take the guards aside to tell them we’re there to film the island, and while we’re distracting them, you gals run up the stairs.”

The plan was that some of the women would stay at the foot of the Statue, and once the banners were up, they’d begin to march and chant. I remember especially Carole De Saram, a young member of NOW and later a NYNOW president, and Mary Vasiliades, who filmed the event, the only one who has a record of it.

Just as planned, the cameramen took the guards aside, and up the stairs Pat, Marion, I and others scampered. But as we were attaching our “Women of the World Unite” banner the guards caught on and rushed upstairs. They were pushing the doors, as we on the balcony tried to keep them from reaching us, meanwhile yelling at the women to hurry up with tying on the banner. Soon the guards pushed us out of the way and were on the balcony ready to tear the banners down. But that very moment Mayor Lindsay called, bless his memory.

“Leave the women alone,” he ordered.

There were two helicopters flying about Ms. Liberty that had given our news to the world.

And so now the world knew that feminists had taken over Ms. Liberty and would hold a national strike on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment!

The rest of that beautiful day we greeted Bella Abzug, candidate for the U.S. Congress, and a 90-something woman from the last feminist movement who was there to cheer us on. At a press conference on the Island I read a telegram that I’d asked Betty Berry, a very active NYNOW member, to send.

“We came, we saw, we conquered, and we won’t leave until the ERA is passed.”

For we were fighting for the ERA at the time--as we still are--and there were NOW members in DC at the same time demonstrating for the ERA.

Beyond our expectations, news of our takeover of Ms. Liberty went around the world, and the repercussions were dramatic--one reason that two weeks later, on August 26th, the 50th anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment, thousands showed up to march down Fifth Avenue.

And, as Kate Millett later announced to the world:

“We are a Movement now!"

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