Archived Radio Show

Original Radio Show  ID:
WSA210308

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Featuring

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1. Commentary by host Elaine B. Holtz on the celebrating International Women's Day; the passing of Joanna Shapanus, KBBF volunteer; on black women influencing the suffrage movement; and highlighting the life of Frances Harper, abolitionist and suffragist.

2. Deborah McKay, former President, Women's League of Voters (LWV) - Sonoma County Chapter, on Carrie Chapman Catt founding the LWV.

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1. Commentary by host Elaine B. Holtz.

Today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. This year, the theme for International Women's Day is: Women in  leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world. We celebrate the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future, recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and recognize the gaps that remain.

Joanna Shapanus, KBBF volunteer since the founding of Radio KBBF, first aired in 1973, was laid to rest today. She was in her early 70s. To learn Spanish she volunteered for the Peace Corps and spent two years in Ecuador. She loved to say that she was one of the first gringas (white person) to volunteer for KBBF in the early years of KBBF.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Black women played an active role in the struggle for universal suffrage. They participated in pol itical meetings and organized political societies. African American women attended political conventions at their local churches where they planned strategies to gain the right to vote. In the late 1800s, more Black women worked for churches, newspapers, secondary schools, and colleges, which gave them a larger platform to promote their ideas. But in spite of their hard work, many people did not listen to them. Black men and white women usually led civil rights organizations and set the agenda. They often excluded Black women from their organizations and activities. For example, the National American Woman Suffrage
Association prevented Black women from attending their conventions. Black women often had to march separately from white women in suffrage parades. In addition when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony wrote the History of Woman Suffrage in the 1880s, they featured white suffragists while largely ignoring the contributions of African American suffragists. Black women found themselves pul led in two directions. Black men wanted their support in fighting racial discrimination and prejudice, while white women wanted
them to help change the inferior status of women in American society. Both groups ignored the unique challenges that African American women faced. Black reformers like Mary Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Harriet Tubman understood that both the ir race and their sex affected their rights and opportunities. For this show and the next two shows I will honor one of these woman, for this show. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a reformer in the abolition movement, in the women's rights movement, in the temperance movement, and in the civil rights movement. In addition, her poetry and essays are significant because she used them as vehicles to comment upon the experiences of African Americans. Harper was born to free Black parents in Baltimore, Maryland in 1825. At age twenty-six, she moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she taught domestic science at Union Seminary. Shortly after her departure, Maryland enacted a law forbidding free blacks living in the North to immigrate into that state. The penalty was imprisonment and sale into slavery. Harper decided to dedicate her efforts to the anti-slavery crusade. She spent the next eight years traveling around the United States, delivering anti-slavery lectures and writing essays and poems about what she observed in the States. Her essays and poems were widely circulated in Black journals and she published a variety of novels, short stories, and poetry collections, most of which focused on the quality of life of African Americans. In addition to her abolitionist activities, Harper was committed to the temperance movement and the struggle for women's rights. She believed that alcohol was linked to the decline of the Black community and wrote multiple poems on this topic. Harper was also focused on women's suffrage and the pursuit of equal rights, job opportunities, and education for Black women. She was a member of the American Equal Suffrage Association, and later formed the American Woman Suffrage Association with Frederick Douglass and other reformers.

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2.  Deborah McKay talks of the impact of Carrie Chapman Catt had in directing the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and founding the League of Women Voters (LWV) in 1920 after the passage of the 19th Amendment to bring women into the political mainstream. Deborah talks about the mission of LWV to inform citizens with candidate debates and ballot measure forums before casting their ballots. LWV wants to make democracy work. The local chapter started in the 1950s in Sonoma County and has a website offering educational videos and reports on the electoral process, money in politices, alternatives to the electoral college, rank choice voting, and campaigning for office. Check out LWV for learning how to participate in democracy, volunteering and offering support.

 About our Guest:  Deborah McKay is a lifelong resident of Sonoma County and has always been active in the community. Previously she served as the treasurer and president of the YWCA. She just stepped down as the president of the League of Women Voters for two years. She is the the former Chair of the League's Outreach Committee where she taught over 60 local community members how to register citizens to vote.

Guest Links:

League of Women's Voters - Sonoma County Chapter:  lwvsonoma.org

LWV-Sonoma County YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvppI3yS3Hcus_mTECDsbFA

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Herstory

Our history is our strength. Check out important dates to remember in herstory at the National Women's History Alliance

Herstory of the National Women's History Alliance:  

In 1980, the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) was founded in Santa Rosa, California by Molly Murphy MacGregor, Mary Ruthsdotter, Maria Cuevas, Paula Hammett and Bette Morgan to broadcast women’s historical achievements.
The NWHP started by leading a coalition that successfully lobbied Congress to designate March as National Women’s History Month, now celebrated across the land.
Today, the NWHP Now the National Women’s History Alliance is known nationally as the only clearinghouse providing information and training in multicultural women’s history for educators, community organizations, and parents-for anyone wanting to expand their understanding of women contributions to U. S. history.

Herstory Events:

March 8.  International Women's Day (IWD), grew out of the labor movement to become a recognized annual event by the United Nations (UN). The seeds of it were planted in 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote. The idea to make the day international came from a woman called Clara Zetkin. She suggested the idea in 1910 at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen. There were 100 women there, from 17 countries, and they agreed on her suggestion unanimously. It was first celebrated in 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. The centenary was celebrated in 2011, so this year we are technically celebrating the 110th International Women's Day. Things were made official in 1975 when the United Nations started celebrating the day. The first theme adopted by the UN (in 1996) was "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future".
International Women's Day has become a date to celebrate how far women have come in society, in politics and in economics, while the political roots of the day mean strikes and protests are organized to raise awareness of continued inequality.

Herstory Birthdays:

March 9, 1928 (1987) - Graciela Olivarez, Chicana activist, first woman and Latina graduate from Notre Dame Law School, one of first two women on the board of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

March 9,1910 (1996) - Sue Lee was a labor organizer in San Francisco and led the 15-week strike against National Dollar Stores garment factory for better wages and working conditions, her story is featured in Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco.

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Announcements

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Thursday, March 18, 2021, National Organization for Women (NOW) Sonoma County Chapter monthly membership Zoom meeting, free and open to the public, featuring the one woman show performed by Lilith Rogers where she becomes Rachel Carson. Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published in 1962, documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Lilith tells this story in such an inspiring fashion, that you do not want to miss her performance. 

                                                                                                              Lillith Rogers

 Just think of what we might have accomplished, if we would have listened to Rachel Carson 59 years ago when she wrote the book.  Last month we had more than 60 participants at our monthly meeting via Zoom,  which was a great networking opportunity. For more information visit http://nowsonoma.org/  or call (707) 545-5036.

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Celebrating Familiy Portraits Project in downtown Petaluma from January 29 – March 15, 2021.  https://pbcd4us.com/celebrating-family/

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Music Selections

The Opening and Closing Theme song is with permission of the Composer and Singer Alix Dobkin:

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For music purchasing opportunity: 

Link:  Spinitron.com Playlist for Women's Spaces Show