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- [00:00]
A
You know, recommendations can be great. Maybe someone recommended this podcast and here you are. But home projects are different. If a podcast isn't your thing, you lose a few minutes. If you hire your cousin's neighbor to mount your tv, you might end up with a lopsided screen and wall damage. Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home. That's why thumbtack works. It matches you with top rated local pros with photos, reviews and credentials all in one place. For your next home project, try thumbtack. Hire the right pro today.
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B
Ah, summer break. Time to kick back, relax and donate to our summer drive. Because the need for investigative journalism doesn't take a summer break. Our work is more important than ever and we need your support to keep at it. Independent nonprofit journalism is an antidote to authoritarianism. To say that three times fast and to I'm not going to do it, but you get the point. So please, before you head to the beach, head over to revealnews.orgsummer and donate today. Again, that's revealnews.orgsummer thank you. From the center for Investigative reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. The 4th of July is just around the corner, and soon people across the country will gather with family and friends, fire up the barbecue, and when the sun sets, they'll find a spot in a neighborhood park or field to watch fireworks light up the night sky. We're 250 years into the American story, and yes, it's a time to celebrate, but also a moment to reflect. What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be patriotic? We asked you, our listeners, to call us with your thoughts, and you did. And we were really moved by what you told us.
- [01:57]
C
Well, in a democracy, patriotism and devotion don't have to mean blind agreement with the government. They can include principled criticism, dissent, protest, and reform.
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B
Being a patriot means being a good citizen, staying informed, voting, serving when necessary.
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C
It's giving back to your community so that it's a bit better than what you found it.
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B
It also means not giving in to political bullies and not giving up the fight for freedom when times are tough.
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D
Patriotism is caring for your country and following the Constitution.
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C
Patriotism, to me right now means wanting us to actually see each other again. You know, not to agree on everything, but at least be willing to listen without immediately assuming the worst in each other. I think it also means caring about truth, like really caring about it. Not spreading things just because they fit what we already believe. But taking a second, to ask, is this real? Is this helping? Being able to say what we think, but also being open to being questioned, challenged, and even sometimes when we're wrong. But at the end of the day, patriotism feels less like a slogan and more like effort.
- [03:19]
B
Hearing from everyone who called in, it's clear that people have strong feelings about patriotism these days and that there are really different interpretations of what that word means. For the founders of this nation, patriotism meant standing up to a tyrannical king and declaring independence from him and from Great Britain. The document they signed on July 4, 1776, is, in a way, America's birth certificate and a blueprint for democracy and freedom. But perhaps its most famous statement, all men are created equal, did not apply to all men who were living in America at the time and definitely did not apply to any of the women. That is a truth that is self evident. On this episode, we're celebrating America's 250 years by reflecting on that statement and telling stories of people who were not recognized as equal at the country's founding, but who fought to make America better. We begin in Massachusetts around the time the Declaration of Independence was signed with a woman who would test whether democracy was a promise or or a lie. Mother Jones correspondent Garrison Hayes has the story.
- [04:43]
E
Let's be real. Most of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. And the hypocrisy of that is impossible to ignore when we're talking about the Founding Fathers, equality and the Fourth of July. It's an uncomfortable fact. But here's another important fact. People began working to end slavery and to fulfill the promise of equality. The since the moment the nation was founded. One was an extraordinary woman named Elizabeth Freeman. She was born into slavery in 1744.
- [05:15]
F
Elizabeth Freeman is somebody who has kind of loomed pretty large in my imagination ever since I first learned about her.
- [05:20]
E
Erin Haynes is the editor at large of the 19th, an independent newsroom focused on gender politics, policy and power. Erin wrote a story about Elizabeth Freeman for a series she's doing on America's 250th anniversary. She argues that Elizabeth Freeman's brave pursuit to be recognized in the words of the Declaration of Independence should cement her as one of America's founding mothers. It's an inspiring piece of hidden American history. And if you're anything like me, you're probably wondering why you haven't learned about Elizabeth Freeman sooner.
- [05:53]
F
So Elizabeth Freeman is an enslaved woman at the time of, you know, the kind of emerging American revolution, who went by Mumbet and The family that she worked for, the master of that house, would have dinners with other prominent men in Massachusetts, and they would talk. They would talk about revolution. They would talk about, really, some of the ideas that became the founding ideals of America, of the United States. And so one of those people, Mumbet, overhears talking about freedom, talking about equality, talking about liberty. His name was Theodore Sedgwick. He was a lawyer, and he was a friend of the man who in enslaved her. And, you know, enslaved people oftentimes are doing labor, but they're treated as invisible, quite frankly, by the people that are in that home. Now, Mumbet, like other enslaved people who are present at America's founding in 1776, hears those words and realizes that even though the people that wrote those words didn't mean for them to apply to her, she absolutely understands that those words do apply to her.
- [07:01]
E
A few Years later, in 1780, Massachusetts adopts a new constitution. It includes the phrase, all men are born free and equal. Elizabeth Freeman knows that this statement, just like the one in the Declaration of Independence, contradicts her legal status as an enslaved woman. She thinks there might be a chance that the lawyer Theodore Sedgwick agrees with her and that he might even help her. So she makes the brave choice to slip away from her enslavers, the. The Ashley family, and walks several miles to the Sedgwick house.
- [07:32]
F
What happens is she goes to Theodore Sedgwick and says to him, you know, did you mean these words that you said that are in the Massachusetts constitution, and if you mean them to be true, then I need you to take up my case and argue that I should be free. And so he agrees to do that.
- [07:51]
E
The connection she makes with Sedgwick is unique. For a white lawyer to take an enslaved black woman seriously as a legal client, to represent her in court and help her win her freedom, well, that was different. Sedgwick had never even litigated a case about slavery before this one. He had even owned slaves himself.
- [08:10]
F
I mean, for her to go to this white man who is friends with the person that is enslaving her, and for her to ask him for help, what a risk she was taking. He could have said no. He could have told her, her enslaver, what she had done. But instead, he decided to take up her case and to help her argue for her freedom like that is extraordinary. And it definitely was not something that was typical of that time. But there were many enslaved people who heard the words of the Declaration of Independence, who heard the words of those early states, and they're establishing their constitutions and understood that slavery was in direct conflict with those words.
- [08:50]
E
Freeman's lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, took those words so seriously that he enlisted the help of another lawyer, a guy named Tapping Reeve, the founder of one of America's earliest law schools. To bolster their case, they added another person enslaved by the Ashley family, a man named Brom, as a plaintiff, and they sued. The court case known as Brom and Bet v. Ashley, was heard in August of 1781 by the county court in Great Barrington.
- [09:18]
F
Elizabeth Freeman was not somebody that would have been able to argue on her own behalf as an enslaved person. And so she needs Theodore Sedgwick to do that, to argue in front of this court. He does that. Mumbet does not take the stand or argue for herself in any way. He represents her.
- [09:34]
E
Sedgwick and Reeve argue that the state constitutional provision that all men are born free and equal should effectively abolish slavery in the state of Massachusetts. Sedgwick is very persuasive.
- [09:46]
F
He is laying out the argument that, you know, per the Massachusetts constitution, that she should be a free woman. And so that argument was successful. And so Mumbet becomes the first enslaved person to, with the help of this lawyer, argue for her freedom successfully. She becomes a free woman in Massachusetts. And it's at that point that she changes her name to Elizabeth Freeman because she that represented her new status, her enslaver. The Ashley family, you know, had considered appealing, but actually ended up not doing that. And so she becomes a free woman. She actually ends up working for the Sedgwick family. She was a midwife. She was a caregiver in the Sedgwick home for many years, but also was able to continue to live in her community as a free person. And that was a point of pride, not just for her, but also for many of the black people who were also in that community. In Massachusetts.
- [10:45]
E
Elizabeth Freeman's case rippled far beyond her own freedom.
- [10:49]
F
People at the time were absolutely paying attention to Elizabeth Freeman's case because it was so groundbreaking. And also just the idea that the Massachusetts constitution, for example, was at odds with slavery at the time. And so eventually, that leads to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. The Declaration of Independence and kind of the founding words of that document and other state constitutions become really the basis for the argument for ending slavery in other colonies as well. Elizabeth Freeman's example should inspire all of us, right? She is somebody who heard the words of the Declaration, knew that they were real. In her life and argued for that to be true. And in doing that, made not only her own life better, but expanded democracy for more of the people who were present in the country at that time. And so that really is what all of us can do. Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved person. She wasn't an elected official, she wasn't a person of prominence, but she knew that she could make a difference. And so what does that mean for all of us, right, who maybe did not have life as hard as Elizabeth Freeman did as an enslaved person, but who recognize when something is wrong in our democracy? When we see the country not living up to the Declaration of Independence, what can we do about that? All of us, all of us can do something, she was quoted later saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, you know, it would be worth it for her to have one minute of freedom than to live her entire life as an enslaved person.
- [12:34]
E
Elizabeth Freeman, a founding mother of the United States of America, died in 1829, and she was buried in the Sedgwick family plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Sedgwicks had her tombstone inscribed with these words. She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly 30 years. She could neither read nor write. Yet in her own sphere, she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust nor fail to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper and the tenderest friend. Good mother, Farewell.
- [13:17]
B
That story was from Mother Jones correspondent Garrison Hayes. You can read Erin Haynes article about Elizabeth Freeman at the 19th.
- [13:29]
G
This is Tanisha Christie. Real patriotism to me is being committed to the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. It's refusing false narratives. It's staying in the work of building something better, not pretending we already have it. Because what could really make this country great and a model to the world is the willingness to to become. Because we all bleed red.
- [14:07]
B
When we come back, we meet the descendants of the first people to lose their lands to the colonists.
- [14:13]
D
We've suffered tremendously at the hands of what is now our federal government. It's hard to get that warmth of the feeling about 250 years of this.
- [14:25]
B
You're listening to reveal.
- [14:35]
H
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- [15:12]
B
From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. Hi, I'm Al Ledson. Today we're looking at the people who were left out of that famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal. It's a Sunday afternoon at the Upper Mattapanai Tribal center in eastern Virginia. Ten people are gathered on a grassy field. Mark Rainbow Walker, an elder from the nearby Pamunkey tribe, leads the group in prayer. Blessings today. Ahon Kamanasi, creator of all things beautiful. Thank you for gifting us with such a lovely blue sky day. The people are here to play an ancient Native American game called Shinny. They're divided into two teams. Each player holds a stick made of hickory and shaped like a shepherd's crook. They score by hitting a ball between goal posts. You guys play fun, hard and accurate. Be swift like the deer and sharp like the hawk. And with that, the game starts. Mark sends a hand woven ball about the size of a softball high above the heads of two players. They scramble to hit it to their teammates. Oh, he saved it. The ancestors of these players were among the first native people to encounter English colonists back in 1607 at what would become Jamestown. Back then, tribes here were part of an alliance called the Powhatan Confederation. These tribes helped the settlers fend off starvation during their first year. Their chief was the father of the famous Pocahontas. But the years that followed this first encounter brought enormous suffering for the tribes in this part of Virginia. They were the first to be displaced by the British. Their lands taken through brute force, broken treaties and forced marriages to indigenous women who held land and power within their tribes. Some Native Americans fought in the Revolutionary War, yet the Declaration of Independence referred to them as as merciless Indian savages. Many tribes went into hiding after the nation's founding and the US government tried to eliminate their language and culture. This game shinny disappeared for centuries.
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I
About three years ago, was looking for just something athletic for the kids around here to do amongst the tribes and kind of something to bring the tribes together.
- [17:56]
B
TJ Tuppence is a citizen of the Upper Mattaponi tribe.
- [18:00]
I
And when I was doing the research and looking back through old diary journals and stuff from Jamestown and Williamsburg, and they speak of a crooked stick that was used to drive a ball between Two upright goals. My friend Martin and I kind of took all the journal entries and all the documentation we could find, and we reconstructed the game to the best way we knew how.
- [18:25]
B
Men, women, girls, boys, even elders play shinny on Sundays. And as long as you can score with your shinny stick, just about anything goes.
- [18:37]
I
Absolutely everything is used but your hands and whatever level of physicality you really want to bring, how brave you're feeling that day brings.
- [18:47]
B
Taking back shinny is a part of a larger effort by the Upper Mattaponi tribe to reclaim its culture, history, and language. One of the people involved in that effort is TJ's cousin, Connor Tuppence. Connor's in law school. He's a delegate to the National Congress of American Indians. And as America marks its founding, he brings us the story of how his nation is slowly recovering from its first encounter with colonists more than 400 years ago and reasserting its sovereignty and identity. Here's Connor.
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J
Our ancestors in Virginia have been traced back to at least 15,000 years ago. We didn't have a written language, so we told stories. But since colonization, those stories were suppressed and almost disappeared. Artifacts of our ancestors are still scattered throughout Virginia, mostly on private lands. We still live in the Tidewater region, close to the Mattaponi River. Standing on the banks of that river is my chief, Frank Adams. He's tall, with a braid down his back that reached his waist. He's played an important part in my life, teaching me a lot about deer hunting, fishing, and being an outdoorsman.
- [19:56]
D
On this river, there are two tribes, the Mattaponi Reservation and the Upper Mattaponi people. And at one time, we were all the Mattaponi tribe. And then they formed the reservation.
- [20:09]
J
This was one of the very first reservations created by the English colonists in the 1600s. The idea was to control our ancestors by keeping them in a confined space.
- [20:18]
D
And what I understand about history is that some people were okay to be on the reservation, and some people didn't like the concept of being on a reservation. If you step over the line at the reservation, you were fair game to be shot.
- [20:35]
J
Creating that reservation split our tribe in two. Some people chose to stay, but my ancestors moved upriver, away from the English, and eventually became the Upper Mattapanae tribe.
- [20:46]
D
I consider the Mattapani reservation a sister tribe because we're all kin. But my ancestors said, I don't like the idea of living in the projects or living on a reservation.
- [21:01]
J
And the oppression didn't stop. After America was founded, the US government enacted policies to strip us of our Land and identities. Many tribes were confined to reservations. Generations of children were forced into Indian boarding schools where they were punished for speaking their language and praying. In Virginia and along the east coast, some tribes like mine, tried not to stand out. But eventually we were forced to assimilate into American culture in order to survive. Then our tribes in Virginia faced another threat.
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D
Well, the Racial Integrity Act. You can Google it. Racial integrity act of 1924 was really our Trail of Tears.
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J
The Racial Integrity act was a Jim Crow law that erased our identity from Virginia state records. When we registered births, deaths and marriages or enlisted in the military, the word Indian was crossed out and replaced with colored or Negro. We call this paper genocide.
- [21:57]
D
Things were so harsh in Virginia that so many of our cousins and uncles and aunts and sisters and brothers moved away. They left Virginia just so they could get a decent job and or educate their children. I remember my mother telling me how when her aunt moved to Philadelphia and they packed the car and with a little bit they could get in the automobile, they drove away with the kids hanging at the windows by and crying. So I call it our trail of tears.
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J
A few years after Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, Molly Adams, the wife of the Upper Mattapanai chief at the time, wrote a letter to the governor to protest the law. That letter was discovered a couple years ago in the archives of the Library of Virginia. In early June, a group of us drove to Richmond to see it. With me are two Amali's grandchildren, our Assistant Chief Lew Ratchford and former Chief Ken Adams. The library sits behind the State Capitol above the James River. Inside are papers from the state's first governor, Patrick Henry, and one of 12 surviving copies of the U.S. bill of Rights. On the second floor, we come to a security checkpoint.
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B
Got a kind of big belt buckle there, sir. Don't pull the belt off.
- [23:18]
J
Just a moment, please. After Ken finally gets through security, we head to the archive room where we meet Ashley Ramey Craig, a specialist with the library. She's waiting for us with a cardboard box filled with folders. In one of them is the original letter written by Ken and Lou's grandmother when she was nearly 50 years old.
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K
Now, let me.
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D
What year was that, Lou?
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K
It was in 1930.
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J
Okay.
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K
And you would have to know my grandmother to be able to understand why she would write this letter. Because she was a. She was feisty. Very much so.
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J
The five page letter is yellowed, it's written in pencil, and the handwriting leans way to the right. On the last two pages, Molly has drawn scenes of Pocahontas and Indians. She drew pictures.
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K
Look at that. Can you imagine?
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J
Lou wants to read it out loud, but the writing is hard for her to make out, so Ashley reads it instead.
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L
I am sorry to my heart for my children, Dr. Walter Plecker, Mr. Powell, and Major Ernest Cox. I cannot see what they have against the Indian race so much that they are always hammering on them.
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K
And this is the letter that she got back after she submitted the letter to the governor.
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J
The Virginia governor's reply is unsigned. It says, your letter of January 20th is received. I'm a friend of the Indian and I will do anything I can for his interest. Consistent with the public welfare, Lou and Ken grew up during the 40s and 50s when the racial Integrity act was still in place, but within the family. It almost never came up.
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B
And it wasn't any everyday conversation about the racial integrity. Matter of fact, I didn't even really
- [25:03]
A
know about it until I was 40 years old.
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K
I didn't hear about it until I was older as well. And I understand where Grandma Molly was coming from because the Racial Integrity act, it stated that in Virginia, there were no Indians in Virginia. And that's how egregious it was. And so as a result of that, and Ken is right, that was not something we talked about. We didn't talk about how hard times were. We just went ahead and lived our life and we supported each other as people. And now we're faced with the fact that this document does exist. I asked Ashley a couple of years ago, is there any way that I could have the original document that my Grandma Molly wrote and that the library could have a copy of it? She told me no.
- [25:57]
J
At this point, you understand that Lou is very much her grandma's granddaughter. She's determined to have that letter for our tribe.
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K
What I would like is the original document because it's a historical document of our tribe.
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J
Ashley suggests we talk with the state librarian and the state archivist to see if there's some kind of way to preserve the letter and display it respectfully. I suggest that we work out a co curation agreement so the library can exhibit the letter, but ownership would go to the tribe. Every step we take to bring something back to the tribe takes so much effort and time. It wasn't until the 1960s civil rights era and a landmark Virginia court case that went to the Supreme Court that the Racial Integrity act was finally eliminated. Getting rid of that act opened the door for tribes in Virginia to seek federal recognition, which is a complicated process where you have to Compile an enormous amount of research and documentation, which is very expensive. Federal recognition is a huge deal, and our tribe got it in 2018. That's allowed us to reclaim something else that's really important to us, land.
- [27:05]
D
And there's a doctor's office we're driving by right now, the Aylett wellness center.
- [27:10]
J
Chief Adams takes us on a drive along a rural highway to point out some of the property that the tribe has bought back. There's a dental clinic, a pharmacy, and a health clinic.
- [27:19]
D
One of our first things after becoming federally recognized was we realized one the danger of COVID and the lack of medical facilities in our community. So we decided that one of our first actions would be to open a clinic that would take care of our tribal citizens. So we treat all federally recognized tribes in our facility free of charge, but we also open to the public, to the community. This area was basically a Dr. Desert until we opened our facility.
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J
Since federal recognition, Chief Adams says We've rematriated about 2,000 acres of our ancestral homelands. We say rematriated and not repatriated because in our culture, women owned property, not men.
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D
Well, we're gonna get off and walk to the river now.
- [28:16]
J
Our last stop is an 855 acre stretch of land along the Mattaponai river. We purchased it about three years ago with a federal grant. Chief Adams pulls up to a spot along the river where our ancestors used to hunt and fish, and we still do today. It's one of my favorite places.
- [28:34]
D
I'm going to have them build a kayak launch right here.
- [28:39]
J
There are river otters, beavers, and herds of deer.
- [28:43]
D
And you can see right here looks like a turtle laid its egg, dug them up in the ground, ate them.
- [28:49]
J
You can see osprey and bald eagles diving for fish in the ponds left over from a sand and gravel mine. A great horned owl sweeps past us, Gliding up into the branch of a tall pine where it hides. There's so much going on here, but the quiet that greets us is deafening. Since federal recognition, our tribe has recovered so much. But it's a battle every time.
- [29:19]
D
The battles we have now, I mean, how the history is taught in public schools is an ongoing battle. We have accepted that the people that write the books or embarrassed to tell the truth of some of the things their ancestors did. So we've accepted that. We try to educate our youth a little differently, but the battles we face now is economic independence. We're battling to become not dependent on federal grant monies that can flow or stop depending on who gets elected into office. Projects that you spend years building just die on the vine because the funding has ended. So, you know, if we got our own economic development, then we can move forward with things that we really want to do. And the big fish just jumped in the water right there. But lost my train of thought. But it seems like as the tribes venture into things, there's always some pushback from the localities, from the state of Virginia.
- [30:35]
J
Recently our tribe has joined other tribes in Virginia to stop development of the birthplace of our ancestors, political and spiritual leader Wahunsenaca, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy. It was under his leadership that the tribes helped colonists survive their first year here. Chief Powhatan's birthplace is now a 530 acre farm where a developer wants to build a new suburb. For us, that would be desecration. A number of artifacts have been discovered there and we maintain that our ancestors still rest there.
- [31:04]
D
Today the United States is famous, is famous for saving birthplaces of important people. And nobody's even saying that, hell, this was a great man. I mean, it's a sacred property. And if you do it for George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, you certainly ought to do it for the paramount chief who met the settlers and didn't declare war immediately, but helped feed them and teach them how to live on a strange land.
- [31:44]
J
Tribes like ours are constantly having to remind state and local governments that we are sovereign nations and that they need to work with us on these issues. We're also trying to educate the public that's often been taught the wrong history of our tribes or none at all. And we're working to relearn that history and culture ourselves, including our language in our traditional game shinny. Here's Sequoia Fortune, a citizen of the Rappahannock tribe.
- [32:15]
M
This is really important to have spaces where we can come out and express, like who we are, that we've been here, we have rights and things like that that a lot of people don't get that history. You know, they see us out there dressed up or in the powwow circle or drumming or dancing and that's all well and good and that's nice, but, you know, there's real people out here living their lives. And 250 years of America is a short time compared to thousands of years of indigeneity.
- [32:45]
J
That milestone 250 years and the 4th of July celebrations happening around the country bring up complicated emotions for many of us, including my chief.
- [32:56]
D
I tell a lot of my native friends who live out west that look we held white men off for 250 years before the. Before you also oversaw them. So, yeah, we've suffered tremendously at the hands of what is now our federal government. It's hard to get that warm, fuzzy feeling about 250 years of this.
- [33:25]
J
In the Declaration of Independence, the tribes were referred to as merciless Indian savages. I think we've come a long way from. We as Americans have come a long way from. From putting those labels to groups of people, specifically to our tribal nations. However, there's still so many narratives today, harmful narratives that we fight about, and we really try to ensure that the correct narratives, the right history, all those things are told. But it's about changing that mindset. I don't think that people still refer to us widely as merciless Indian savages, but I don't doubt that there's those out there that would. And there's still that element of resistance when it comes to protecting our culture, our values, our ways of life, our sovereignty. There's still so many challenges. We still think about it as an active fight.
- [34:28]
B
That story was from Connor Tuppence, a citizen of the Upper Mattaponi tribe. It was reported and produced by Pamela Diangelo. She also produced the Tribal Truth series, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. In a moment, the long and still ongoing struggle for women's equality in America. You're listening to Reveal.
- [35:01]
N
Jimmy Conrad here, and I have something to put on your radar. The core short from Viori. Because after getting my first pair, I was hooked. They work for everything that I like. Doing soccer, tennis hoops and lifting weights, to name a few. And they're unbelievably comfortable, which is why I wear them doing everything else. They are designed to work for whatever your day throws at you. For our listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase, so head to vuori.com footy that's V-U-O-R-I.com F-O-O-T-Y exclusions apply. Visit the site for full details.
- [35:33]
B
From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. This is Reveal. I'm Al Letson.
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C
Patriotism, for me, is something really special. Love of country, love of our people. Patriotism is service to the country, speaking up for freedom of speech, freedom of religion.
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G
Because there are no greater patriots than the people who have had to love this country, be in this country without being protected by it.
- [36:03]
B
These are the voices of Reveal listeners talking about what patriotism means for them. As we approach Independence day, it's been 250 years of struggle to make good on Americans promise of equality, including for women. Today, of course, American women have the right to vote, own property and go to college. But it didn't start out that way.
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L
Forward, together, Backward.
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K
Never.
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B
And still the battle over legal protections for women's rights continues.
- [36:38]
L
Why don't we win era when do we want it?
- [36:41]
C
Yeah.
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B
Which is why I wanted to talk to Julie Sook. She's a law professor at Fordham University and an expert on the history of women's long fight for equality, equality in this country, and the author of the book we the Women the Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment. Julie, thanks so much for coming onto the show.
- [36:59]
L
Thank you for having me.
- [37:01]
B
So can you take me back to 1776? What rights did men have that women did not?
- [37:07]
L
So. Well, not all Men in 1776 in the United States had these rights, but I would say the most important for which the revolution was fought was the right to property. Women couldn't vote. Women couldn't enter into most professions. Married women couldn't hold property, couldn't sue or be sued in their own name. And if all men are created equal, and men is a term that is not really just supposed to mean men, but all humans, all human persons are created equal, what it means to take that seriously goes far beyond just getting rid of a king.
- [37:44]
B
How would you describe the role of women in colonial society?
- [37:49]
L
Generally, women were considered not to be rights bearers. So if you look at, for example, a very famous quote Abigail Adams telling John Adams, her husband as he was going to the continental Congress in 1776, remember the ladies? What she meant when she said remember the ladies is try to figure out a way to set up our political institutions so that husbands don't have complete unfettered power over their wives. She says all men would be tyrants if they could. And this did not lead to women's rights being included in our founding documents. But the fact that she said that suggests, of course, that women during that time were completely at the mercy of their husbands.
- [38:40]
B
So it took a really long time for women to get the most basic right of any citizen in a free democracy, the right to vote. What took so long?
- [38:49]
L
What took so long was that the people who held power resisted it. And they resisted it because having patriarchy in which women had no voice actually benefited the men who ran the institutions. And I would say that by the time women finally got the right to vote in 1920, it was because, not just because there were a lot of men who didn't want patriarchy anymore, but because we were in World War I, and the women's movement very strategically decided that they were going to support the war effort, and it made many politicians think that it was useful to have women's vote to support policies that they wanted. So we get the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, and that basically says that people cannot be denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. And of course, interestingly, it just says you can't be denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It doesn't say all people, including women, have a right to vote.
- [39:52]
B
So what are some of the milestones since the Declaration of Independence on women's path to equality?
- [39:59]
L
Well, I think one of the things that's really huge is the abolition of slavery in the United States. And of course, we had to fight a civil war, but certainly it's really the movement to abolish slavery that gets people thinking that the position of women within the family and the dominion of husbands over wives is something like slavery. The idea that there's like a whole class of people who have no rights and who have no voice in the political system and are basically existing at the mercy of their husbands or fathers, that that's something that's at odds with a world in which you believe all human persons are created equal and therefore deserve a voice in our politics.
- [40:40]
B
You wrote a book about the Equal Rights Amendment. I think the ERA is something that a lot of people are familiar with, but maybe don't know much about it. So tell me, what is the Equal Rights Amendment and what's its status?
- [40:53]
L
The Equal Rights Amendment is a constitutional provision that would guarantee that equality of rights can't be denied by the United States or by any state on account of sex. And so if you think about that, it's just a provision in the Constitution that say that everybody has equal rights, including women. And most constitutions around the world that were written in the 20th century have a provision like that. If you think about the basic rights that you would want to see in a constitution, like the right to free speech, the right to freedom of religion, the right of men and women to be equal is something that in the modern era is considered one of those basic constitutional rights. Now we have one of the oldest constitutions in the world. Our Constitution was written in 1787. And as we discussed earlier, women were not considered bearers of equal rights at that time. And so the Equal Rights Amendment was actually introduced in 1923. It was proposed right after the women suffrage amendment in 1920, thinking that's the next logical step. First you say women have the right to vote, kind of. And then you say that equal rights can't be denied on account of sex. But Congress didn't vote for that amendment. And in the United States, under the constitution, you need 2/3 of both houses of Congress, followed by 3/4 of all the states to ratify a constitutional amendment. So for the first 50 years after the ERA was introduced in 1923, Congress didn't adopt it. They didn't have 2/3 of both houses to adopt it. They finally got 2/3 of both houses in 1972. And once Congress adopted it, the state started ratifying it pretty fast. So we got up to 35. You need 38 states because you need three fourths of the states. And the reason things stalled in the 1970s is that the era was controversial from the moment it was introduced, because a lot of people assumed from the day that it was introduced and in the 1970s that what it means to have equal rights is that men and women have to be treated the same under the law all the time, no exceptions. And if you think about that for a moment, women and men have to be treated the same under the law, no exceptions. That people had a lot of questions. Did that mean that you couldn't have, like in a federal building or even a state building, in a public building, you couldn't have separate restrooms for women and men? If you were going to have all girls schools and they were run by a state, would that violate the Constitution under the Equal Rights Amendment? The question that was probably the most controversial in the 1970s because of the Vietnam War was are women also going to be drafted? Because even to this day, only men have to register for the draft. Women do not have to register when they turn 18 for the draft. So for all these reasons, there was a lot of fear mongering saying once you pass this amendment, women and men are, we're just going to have a unisex society as a result of this. And because of that, a lot of people said it's not going to be good for women. We really don't want this. And so the states pretty much stopped ratifying the amendment. And the other complication which I haven't mentioned yet, was that Congress, when they passed it in 1972, they put a seven year deadline on ratification. And so the clock was ticking and there were only 35 and you needed 38. But then in recent years, just in the past decade, three additional States ratified the era, but now people are very uncertain and confused as to whether it can be added to the Constitution because there was that seven year deadline. So do they count or not count? And that's why it's currently in limbo. And there's a lot of disagreement and there's a lot of legal disagreement as to whether or not the deadline should apply.
- [44:56]
B
Can you help me understand, like, what are the benefits of passing it? Or is it just, you know, vastly symbolic?
- [45:03]
L
Symbolic is not even the right word, political rather than legal. So I think the most important reason to have the ERA in the Constitution is so that Americans can live under a modern Constitution that reflects American people's modern values and sentiments. Because if we have a Constitution that does not say that women have equal rights, then we are living under something that is really not reflective of the country we are and want to be today. And I think that's not good. The Constitution really does two important things. One of them is it designs the basic institutions of society. It tells you how Congress is going to be designed. It tells you how the Supreme Court is going to be designed. It tells you what the powers of the President are. That's very important. And then the rights provisions in the Constitution put limits on what the government can do. But so much of what the Constitution does, it speaks the values of the people. The first three words are we the people. And so I think if we continue to live under a Constitution, it's not that we need an ERA in order to have laws that protect gender equal policies.
- [46:21]
F
Right?
- [46:21]
L
We need a Constitution that reflects our values. Especially because the Constitution that was written in 1787 was written by a bunch of guys who were very smart but did not share the values that we hold dear today. Many of the guys who wrote the Constitution were enslavers. And almost all of them believed that patriarchy was a normal and acceptable way of running their society. We no longer think that. At least I believe the majority of Americans do not want that and do not think that. And we should have a Constitution that reflects that.
- [46:54]
B
Professor Sook, thank you so much for coming onto the show today. I really appreciate it.
- [46:58]
L
Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure talking with you.
- [47:01]
B
Julie Sook is a professor of law and an author. Her new book, the Shadow Rescuing Democracy from the Supreme Court, will be out in the fall.
- [47:16]
C
Patriotism these days in America, I believe, is largely dead. We don't have any leaders with backbone anymore. Patriotism kind of boils down to this ethos. Act locally but sink globally. Participating as a citizen. That's a big one. By voting, staying informed, serving, volunteering, speaking out, holding leaders accountable.
- [47:44]
B
Those were the voices of some of you, our listeners. This last one came in as an email from a listener who didn't want his voice to be public. So I'm going to read some of it. I have served in the US army for over 20 years and I'm still actively serving. I've spent over 10 years in the special operations community. I've done two tours in combat zones. This is a complicated topic for me. I grew up believing that the US Was a bastion of freedom and an example to others striving for democracy and a fair share of the pie. I still believe that we could be that. But over the last 10 years or so, we've started to slide into authoritarianism. I believe we have the right to defend ourselves as a nation. And perhaps I don't know the whole story, but the aggressive actions in Venezuela and Iran strike me as poorly planned, without justification and no defined end state. I still believe in the idea of America, but not in the way we are currently operating on the global stage. I want us to return to being an example of free and fair democracy while acknowledging the errors and darkness in our past. Thank you for that message and your service. And to everyone who called in to share their thoughts. When I think about patriotism, my mind goes to a quote from James Baldwin. I think about this all the time. He said, quote, I love America more than any other country in this world and exactly for this reason I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. That's our show. Be safe out there. Take care of yourself and each other. Our lead producer for this week's show is Michael I. Schiller. Taki Telenides edited the show. Thanks to our production manager, the great Zulema Cobb, for co producing the interview with Julie Sook. Thanks also to Cameron Smith, Jeffrey Kelly, Dan Friedman, Antonella Vitale, jos Sandburn, Carl McGurk, Allison, Jody Kauser and Julia B. Chan of the 19th Artist Cheriscus and Chastity Hale are our fact checkers. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Score and sound design by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My man Yo Arruda. That help from Claire C. Note Mullen, our executive producer is Bright. I'm Brett Myers. Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning. Before we go, I want to invite you to join me right here next week when I travel to a special place, a spot that for me is sacred. Holy ground, the National Memorial for Peace and justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Right now I am in the memorial and I'm walking through and there's a lush green lawn in front of it. There are statues made of iron of enslaved people in chains. And then you walk up a pathway to the full memorial itself and it is breathtaking. And I meet the man behind the scene. Place Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. We talk about the importance of preserving America's history at this moment in time. Even the most painful chapters.
- [51:11]
L
As I think about the 250th anniversary, as I think about the 10 million Black people who were enslaved for 246 years, when people try to eliminate their narratives, erase their histories, minimize their struggle, take away their stories, I feel an obligation to represent the immense suffering and conflict, constant sorrow that they endured.
- [51:30]
B
Join me here next week. Support for Reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Helmet Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. I'm Al Letson and remember, there is always more to the story.
- [52:21]
O
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- [53:22]
G
from PRX.