People's History: Women, Prisoners, Indians 1960s-1970s (Chap 19)
People Have the Power, Patti SmithI Am Woman, Helen Reddy
Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash
Cherokee Nation, Paul Revere and the Raiders
Number 9 Dream, John Lennon
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Summary The sixties, human need against authority: the rights of women, long suppressed by industry; the plight of prisoners, society's debris; the sight of Indians consigned to history. Chapter The 1920s: women voting, but subordinate to men in politics and business. They were adequate for menial positions, said the men. But wage a war or start a social movement, and the sexists will implore the ladies to support the cause! The sixties: little changed, with earnings twice as much for men, and management arranged with tiers of golfing buddies. Friedan's "Feminine Mystique," a voice against the status quo, urged 'feminists' to seek creative freedom. Fannie Hamer organized, inspired the womenfolk: "I'm sick an' tired of bein' sick an' tired!" So Women's Liberation joined the cause of Civil Rights. More unions joined the cause as NOW was waging legal fights for wage equality. Abortion rights became the key demand: with women "lashed to bodies" their ability to grow was limited. Illegal operations hurt the poor. The Roe and Wade decision would at last assert a woman's right to choose. And E.R.A. -- it meant a lot at first, but progress came from protest and dissent. ~ The prisons saw rebellion in the sixties. Their 'reform' meant breaking spirits of defiant inmates. But a storm of riots ripped the fragile peace: San Quentin, Attica. The fine "correctional Valhallas" of America were under fire -- but occupied by blacks, whose average crime was burglary, a thousand dollars. They were doing time at many times the rate of the elite white-collar thief who swindled millions from society. It strains belief to call it fair. But protest led to more arrests. The rule of law for prison justice was a source of ridicule. ~ The "problem of the Indians" had never gone away: four-hundred treaties needed breaking to the present day. They couldn't fish their own ancestral creek in Washington. On Navajo and Hopi lands, decisions to begin strip mining devastated residents -- like waging war, they said. But protests rarely work, for either we ignore their pleas, or send the troops to Alcatraz or Wounded Knee to chase them out. We're brainwashed, rooting for the cavalry! And legal means don't work, denied in language crude and plain: "Your treaty was preempted due to eminent domain." |