May 27, 2022 • 29 mins
Anita Hill speaks with her friends Emma Coleman Jordan and Beverly Guy Sheftall, feminists, activists and scholars, about their work and her friendships with them over the decades. The events of 1991 challenged each in different ways; together they forged a path forward with the support of each other.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other
Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign
(00:35):
up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot Fm. We've known each other now
for decades. It's hard to believe it's been decades. It's
gone fast for me anyway. Yes, and we've had lots
of phone conversations, We've had many in person conversations, and
(00:57):
every time that we've gotten to gather for an interview,
you've interviewed me. So now it is both my pleasure
and privilege to interview you to I'm outset with that,
but I think it'll be a conversation, but that would
be good. This is what I know about Beverly. If
(01:18):
you want someone to direct you, Beverly is the person
you want. So this is going to be our conversation. Yes,
we're letting people eavesdrop on absolutely. That's my long time friend,
Beverly Guy chef Doll. She's been at the forefront of
(01:38):
the black feminist movement, teaching and heading the Women's Research
Center at Spellman College. Another one of my friends and
co conspirators is Emma Coleman Jordan. Emma was a colleague
of mine back in the nineteen eighties. We were part
of a very small group of black female law professors.
(02:00):
I always wanted to be a lawyer. I thought of
myself as a lawyer lawyer, somebody who is going to
be in law to make money, but really to change
the equality equation in my society. Amma and I have
written and edited a book together and planned numerous conferences.
(02:23):
I sit on the board of the center that Beverly
created at Spellman College, and I've spoken there often. At times,
all three of us have collaborated. These friendships have sustained
and strengthened me for decades. I'm Anita Hill. This is
(02:50):
Getting Even my podcast about equality and what it takes
to get there. On this show, I've been talking with
people who are improving are imperfect world, people who took
risks and broke the rules. In this last episode of
the season, I'm sitting down with two change makers who
(03:11):
are also my friends. We remind each other to keep
going when change seems impossible to achieve. First, I'm talking
with Emma Coleman Jordan, who's an author and professor at
Georgetown Law. She was there for me in nineteen ninety
one during the Thomas hearing. Emma helped organize my legal team.
(03:38):
What made you want to support me? What made you
go to that extra effort to become really actively involved? Well,
actually I started just like asking you if you needed
some law students to help out, and then when I
saw that wasn't going to be adequate to the task,
I became personally involved myself. I had some experience in Washington.
(04:02):
I had been a White House fellow. I had been
a special assistant to the Attorney General, and during that time,
one of my responsibilities was to prepare for the confirmation
hearing for Justice Sandra d O'Connor. So my eye and
(04:23):
Tenna were up. I thought, oh, she's going into a
bus saw And I could see the posturing that was
being done in the news even though Democrats were in
the majority. I could see the positioning in public statements
that the Democrats were going to attack you. So that
(04:48):
was just my reading of the Tea leaves based upon
my experience in Washington. Well, that's all the more reason
I want to ask, well, I in the world, ten
that you decide that you were going to step into
that mess because I could see and I'm sure there
were many people and that fit this category that you
would have just walked away. There were others who did
(05:10):
just walk away. Yes, I know, but you decided that
you were going to be not only active you were
really essential to the formation of the legal team, but
also you were essentially really in connecting me and understanding
(05:32):
who I was. And one of the things that you
did involved faith and our shared faith. Can you talk
about that? Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that. It's something
that's not widely known. But I'm a Baptist. You also
(05:52):
and I thought, we're going into the lions Den, we
need to pray. And I called my minister h Beater Hicks,
who was then the minister in charge of Metro, called
and Baptists and asked him would he come and pray
with us the night before the hearings. And then on
(06:16):
the day of the hearings he came to the hearing room.
So we were in an anti room, you me and
Charles Ogletree and Reverend Hicks, and he held our hands
in a circle. We held hands in a circle, and
(06:38):
he said, let us pray, and I remember feeling that
whatever happened, I had the faith of my parents and
my grandparents with me, and I thought, this is the
(07:00):
right thing to do. Identified with you as a young woman,
law professor, teach cover visual law, and I thought, this
is not going to be a fair fight. There were
so many powers stacked against you, all of the powers
(07:25):
of the presidency going to be against you. It wasn't
just Clarence Thomas. I cared about fairness and equality, opportunity
for an African American woman who'd achieved at a very
high level, and I thought, let's get in there and
(07:47):
do it. I still wonder if it was my personality
or my legal training that helped me to do the testimony.
Part of what we know about these public hearings now,
and what we learned really from nineteen ninety one was
how the person presents herself is important. Part of my
(08:11):
ability to testify had to do with the fact that
I had been trained as a lawyer. I had been
trained in part to see the law as a as
a mediator, but also to see it as separate from
personal interest and to take almost a detached approach. Do
(08:35):
you see that as part of how I used my
voice on that day. I think there was a fusion
of identities there, your religious belief, your family connections. The
most vivid moment for me was when your family came
into the hearing room. You had that confidence that you
(09:02):
don't learn in law school, a confidence in the rightness
of your being, and I had that too. But we
are definitely sisters in the law in that respect. Yeah, yeah,
that's a good way to put it. After the break,
(09:24):
you'll hear from Beverly guy cheft Hall. In the months
following the hearing, she helped me navigate the fallout for
my testimony. I'm Anita Hill, and this is getting egan.
(09:48):
In the first half of this episode, you heard from
my friend and colleague, Emma Coleman Jordan. Now I'm speaking
with longtime friend Beverly guy cheft Hall. Beverly is a
black feminist scholar, writer and editor. She's taught at Smelbourne
College for most of her career. We didn't know each
(10:09):
other when I testified before Congress in nineteen ninety one,
but she was watching the hearing at home in disbelief.
As soon as it was over, she took action. She
joined a collective called African American Women in defense of Ourselves.
That group took out an ad in the New York
Times in response to my testimony. The ad is striking.
(10:34):
It's an open letter surrounded by sixteen hundred signatures. Before
I ask you to talk about that, I want to
say it just went such a long way in restoring
me and assuring me that my black identity and my
black identity as a woman was not going to be forgotten.
(10:58):
You signed the ad, So tell me more about why
you signed it, why it was done, and what it
meant to the sixteen hundred women who signed onto it. Okay,
so let me let me just say that not only
did I sign it, but I got it framed and
it's in my office. I'm looking at it now. It
is to my writing, so I see it every day
(11:19):
that I come into my office, and students also see it.
So that mobilization, that mobilization of primarily black feminist academics,
in terms of its a genealogy. We were trying to
decide what can we do publicly, what can we do
(11:40):
publicly to disrupt this racial script that goes back to
the nineteenth century that says that black women cannot out
African American men that our primary loyalty is to race,
and that any kind of loyalty, any kind of gender politics,
(12:01):
or any kind of gender loyalty, is something that we
cannot do. This is this is a script that we
get and we learn, and so black feminism emerges going
back to the nineteenth century because of an intersectional lens
and an intersectional politics which says that we are committed
(12:22):
to the eradication of all isms racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism,
and there's no contradiction at all in struggling to eradicate
all of those and that even though we know we've
got the script, we are going to speak out about violations,
(12:44):
gender violations, including when African American men are the perpetrators.
We were very upset about the placement of you, or
the construction of you also as a pond of white feminists,
as if there were no black feminists in the world,
and so we wanted to make it very very clear
(13:06):
that white women had nothing to do with your decision
or your black feminist politics, that there's a black feminist
history that goes back to Mariah Stewart, and that you
were a part of that history. It's interesting that we,
you know, were not able to have that heard in
(13:27):
the same way that the lynching claim was heard. But
it's not surprising because our history teachers teach about lynching. Now,
we have the signs, we have the pictures, we've got
the old postcards, but we didn't have any of that
(13:50):
evidence that was available to show what was going on
in the lives of black women throughout the period, even
of lynching, and so it was really hard to get
that message through. And I think we're beginning to do that.
But all of this was going on at a very
different time. And then you and I met. It was
(14:14):
nineteen ninety two. We met because Spellman invited me to
speak at the college. None of the other HBCUs did
at the time. The invitation itself was important, even before
I set foot on the campus, Just having that invitation
was important. What were you expecting or hoping for for
(14:37):
the students? What did you want them to see? So
our students are accustomed to seeing black women who are successful,
because you can be successful without being controversial or without
taking difficult public stances around race and gender issues, you know,
So we can invite corporate women, lawyers, other presidents. We
(15:02):
can invite those kinds of amazing and wonderful black women
to campus at Spellman, which we have done, but we
thought it was also important for them to see a
black woman dissident d I s s at D E
n T. What John Lewis would say, a person who's
making good trouble to be courageous and public, even when
(15:27):
it is controversial, and even if your stance is likely
to produce, which is what you experience of being demonized,
being rejected, being called off, all kinds of names. But
we wanted Spelling students to see that there are models
for women like you. Well, I got there, and I
(15:49):
hope that's what they saw. And you know, I spoke
in Sister's Chapel right to me at the moment, it
was this incredibly impressive space. So paint a picture for us. Okay, So,
Sisters Chapel is probably the most sacred and I don't
mean sacred in the religious sense per se. I can
(16:10):
remember because I was a student from nineteen sixty two
to nineteen sixty six seeing amazing people speaking Sisters Chapel,
but they weren't mostly men. I heard Martin Luther King
Junior speak in Sisters Chapel. It's the place where Martin
Luther King Junior's casket lay for two or three days
(16:31):
so people could visit. So it's a kind of place
that people associate with these towering, big figures. So being
invited to speak in Sisters Chapel as opposed to other
places on campus signal to the community that this is really,
really important. We were not sure, Anita, what the audience
(16:52):
was going to be. Like you advertise, you say the
students and fact of the members, please get your students out,
And we a little bit worried about the fact that
we might show up in Cisters Chaplan and have a
tiny audience, especially given the fact that at the hearings
and you were controversial. You know, that was buzzed during
(17:13):
the day. But when we walked into Sisial Chapel and
solve that audience, it underscored for us why it was
important to invite you to Atlanta, Georgia, the home of
the civil rights movement and two Spellman College because of
its connection to black women's leadership and in more recent
(17:35):
years it's connection to black feminist politics. You know, I
remember feeling wonderful when I looked out at that audience,
and because it was you know, of course the students
from Spellman, but there were a number of folks that
were clearly community folks. Yes, I had sort of taken
a chance to come to Atlanta because I didn't know
(17:59):
what to expect. I knew what I had been getting,
but I didn't know what it would be like in person.
But I knew that I had to go good because
that was the only way to confront what I had
been experiencing. The resistance. And I remember giving that speech,
(18:20):
and I talked about speaking out against sexual harassment and
the role of black women in history, on the issue
and the role that we play in the value that
we are to our community. But I think part of
what stood out among the people in the audience was
what I didn't say. Didn't say anything at all about
(18:40):
Clarence Thomas. And I think there were people who were
expecting me to finally just sort of be angry and
maybe even vindictive, or to talk about the unfairness of
the hearings, which there was plenty of that to talk about.
But we realized, we both realized that all of the
(19:01):
things that I could say that would be true may
not help us move forward. Yes, you say, the buzz
still out there. There were still all of these questions
about how what to make of that hearing. It was
important for me to try to create a path to
(19:21):
move forward at and I just wanted you to know
how importance Spellman was in that path as part of
that path to be really a plea to join with me. Yes,
because it wasn't a foregone conclusion. I remember you're saying
that you were going to go back to your regular
(19:42):
life as a professor in Oklahoma and that you would
not be on the lecture circuit and out and about,
and so I said, you know, I think that's a
really good move on her part. And it was a
good move until it wasn't, and then it was time
to come out. You know, you're right. I had no
(20:04):
intention of it. And I tell people, two days after
I've been aact Oklahoma, I was in the classroom teaching.
Of course, it was not great teaching, but I have
to say the classes that I taught that year, even
the first year law students who have of their own anxiety,
they pulled it together and pulled me through so many classes.
(20:30):
They were patient and carrying and you know, supportive, in
ways that you just don't expect law students to be
what you're observing, or all of the things that I
think stick out to me too. The family and friends
and the witnesses that came stepped up. We did what
(20:53):
we came to do, which was to be heard, and
we were heard, and we didn't change the outcome, but
we were heard. And thirty years later, we're still being heard,
and nobody expect to that. If you had to pick
(21:16):
one lesson, what would that lesson be for moving us
even further? The work is really important, and you do
it over the long haul. You just can't give up,
and you can't say, well, I've done this for about
ten or twenty years and now it's somebody else's work
(21:37):
to do. So I just have said to myself, Beverly,
you will be doing this forever. The joys outweigh the challenges.
I've always been very clear, having grown up in the
gym and Jane Crow South, how challenging it is within
(22:00):
African American communities to center gender politics. That is a
big challenge and it is a lifetime project. And if
you add sexuality, if you say I am as committed
to the freedom of LGBTQ queer people. You're going to
(22:20):
get talked about as a man hater and as a
traitor to the black community, which should be familiar to you.
And you say that's fine, and you're gonna get all
kinds of bad names, and you basically have to say
this work, as you said, it's not about me. You know,
(22:44):
you say it's not about you, But I want people
to understand that doesn't mean that it isn't personal. It
is deeply personal the work that we do. It's not
about you alone, but it's about all of us and
all of our experiences. And in two thousand and three
you wrote about your experience with partner violence. Yeah, and
(23:06):
I need I don't think I've ever said this to
you or even privately, So let me just say now.
Meeting you in nineteen ninety two as a result of
those hearings, this was actually five years after the what
I am calling domestic terrorism that I experienced for over
(23:31):
a year in and out of court for assault, car theft,
arson even And so when you came to Spellman, and
you don't know this, when you came to Spellman in
nineteen ninety two, I was still dealing with that emotionally.
(23:52):
So when I saw you giving that talk, I said
to myself, one of these days, I don't know when
it will be. One of these days, I'm going to
speak publicly about my experience with sexual assault and see
your book. Since your new book, Anita, I now for
(24:13):
the first time call myself for a survivor, which which
I have never done publicly or even privately. As horrible
as the physical and part of that experience was, the
thing that I also wrote about is that he put
my name in public male bathrooms and telephone booths in Atlanta, Georgia,
(24:35):
so strange men would drive by my house and call
me in the middle of the night. And again, getting
back to friendship, Bell Hooks, a long term friend who
was visiting me. She and I went out at night
with wind decks and paper towels to remove my name
and number from public space. So thank you, Anita. Our
(24:58):
evolving friendship is what motivated me to speak publicly for
the first time I write about my experience with intimate
part of a bowls. Friendship is a in so many ways.
Because I'm gonna quote another pioneering black Faminists was well
ahead of her time, Polly Murray, and she wrote that
(25:18):
hope is a song in a weary throat. Do you
ever get weary? Nope? And you know I think that
I don't get weary because of my friendships. I mean
this may no one has ever asked me that question.
But no, I don't get weary. You get weary when
(25:40):
when stress begins to consume you. And I find I
find all kinds of frivolous ways to have joy, shopping
at TJ Max's one. So no, I don't. I don't
get weary because I have I also feel like, you
know what my sister says, My sister Francine says, bever
you you're surrounded with angels, and so I think that
(26:00):
if you have angels and I'm not talking about in
the Christian sense, and you have friends and you have
important work, you don't get weary. Yeah, you know, I
say all the time, I am ever hopeful, and I
honestly believe that, and really just to be with friends.
(26:22):
And you know, I come from that huge family of
thirteen and I have five sisters, but they're not the
only sisters that I have. So Beverly, I'm just proud
to have you as a sister. And to have you
as a guide actually for the work that is being
done and it still needs to be done. Thank you.
(26:50):
As a poet, Audrey Lord wrote, without community, there is
no liberation. With these friendships making change feels possible. You
could say that Getty Even was the product of conversations
I've had with Emma and Beverly over the past thirty years,
from reclaiming black girlhood to critical race theory and the
(27:14):
transformative power of art. They helped me develop my thinking
on pressing issues I presented in this series, and as
I wrap up this season, I think back on various
conversations I've had and how they've elevated the voices of
all of us who have been dismissed or even deemed unimportant.
(27:38):
And after these conversations, I'm more determined than ever to
help our society get even. Getting Even is a production
of Pushkin Industries and is written and hosted by me
(27:58):
Anita Hill. It is produced by Molaboard and Brittany Brown.
Our editor is Sarah Kramer, our engineer is Amanda kay Wang,
and our show runner is Sasha Matthias. Louis Gara composed
original music for the show. Our executive producers are Mia
(28:19):
Lobell and Lee Taal Mallard. Our director of development is
Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Maggie Taylor,
Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Morgan Rattner, Mary Beth Smith, Jordan McMillan,
(28:40):
Isabella Narvaias, Carle Migliori, Royston Beserve, Maya Kanig, Daniella Lacan,
Jake Flanagan, Jason Gambrel, Ian Pesca, Sarah Brugier, Julia Barton,
John Snars, Christina Sullivan, Carrie Brody, Jacob Wiseberg, and Malcolm Gladwell.
(29:09):
You can find me on Twitter at Anita Hill and
on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can find Pushkin on
all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign
up for our newsletter at pushkin dot f M. If
you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider
(29:31):
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To find more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio, app,
(29:56):
Apple podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other
Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign
(00:35):
up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot Fm. We've known each other now
for decades. It's hard to believe it's been decades. It's
gone fast for me anyway. Yes, and we've had lots
of phone conversations, We've had many in person conversations, and
(00:57):
every time that we've gotten to gather for an interview,
you've interviewed me. So now it is both my pleasure
and privilege to interview you to I'm outset with that,
but I think it'll be a conversation, but that would
be good. This is what I know about Beverly. If
(01:18):
you want someone to direct you, Beverly is the person
you want. So this is going to be our conversation. Yes,
we're letting people eavesdrop on absolutely. That's my long time friend,
Beverly Guy chef Doll. She's been at the forefront of
(01:38):
the black feminist movement, teaching and heading the Women's Research
Center at Spellman College. Another one of my friends and
co conspirators is Emma Coleman Jordan. Emma was a colleague
of mine back in the nineteen eighties. We were part
of a very small group of black female law professors.
(02:00):
I always wanted to be a lawyer. I thought of
myself as a lawyer lawyer, somebody who is going to
be in law to make money, but really to change
the equality equation in my society. Amma and I have
written and edited a book together and planned numerous conferences.
(02:23):
I sit on the board of the center that Beverly
created at Spellman College, and I've spoken there often. At times,
all three of us have collaborated. These friendships have sustained
and strengthened me for decades. I'm Anita Hill. This is
(02:50):
Getting Even my podcast about equality and what it takes
to get there. On this show, I've been talking with
people who are improving are imperfect world, people who took
risks and broke the rules. In this last episode of
the season, I'm sitting down with two change makers who
(03:11):
are also my friends. We remind each other to keep
going when change seems impossible to achieve. First, I'm talking
with Emma Coleman Jordan, who's an author and professor at
Georgetown Law. She was there for me in nineteen ninety
one during the Thomas hearing. Emma helped organize my legal team.
(03:38):
What made you want to support me? What made you
go to that extra effort to become really actively involved? Well,
actually I started just like asking you if you needed
some law students to help out, and then when I
saw that wasn't going to be adequate to the task,
I became personally involved myself. I had some experience in Washington.
(04:02):
I had been a White House fellow. I had been
a special assistant to the Attorney General, and during that time,
one of my responsibilities was to prepare for the confirmation
hearing for Justice Sandra d O'Connor. So my eye and
(04:23):
Tenna were up. I thought, oh, she's going into a
bus saw And I could see the posturing that was
being done in the news even though Democrats were in
the majority. I could see the positioning in public statements
that the Democrats were going to attack you. So that
(04:48):
was just my reading of the Tea leaves based upon
my experience in Washington. Well, that's all the more reason
I want to ask, well, I in the world, ten
that you decide that you were going to step into
that mess because I could see and I'm sure there
were many people and that fit this category that you
would have just walked away. There were others who did
(05:10):
just walk away. Yes, I know, but you decided that
you were going to be not only active you were
really essential to the formation of the legal team, but
also you were essentially really in connecting me and understanding
(05:32):
who I was. And one of the things that you
did involved faith and our shared faith. Can you talk
about that? Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that. It's something
that's not widely known. But I'm a Baptist. You also
(05:52):
and I thought, we're going into the lions Den, we
need to pray. And I called my minister h Beater Hicks,
who was then the minister in charge of Metro, called
and Baptists and asked him would he come and pray
with us the night before the hearings. And then on
(06:16):
the day of the hearings he came to the hearing room.
So we were in an anti room, you me and
Charles Ogletree and Reverend Hicks, and he held our hands
in a circle. We held hands in a circle, and
(06:38):
he said, let us pray, and I remember feeling that
whatever happened, I had the faith of my parents and
my grandparents with me, and I thought, this is the
(07:00):
right thing to do. Identified with you as a young woman,
law professor, teach cover visual law, and I thought, this
is not going to be a fair fight. There were
so many powers stacked against you, all of the powers
(07:25):
of the presidency going to be against you. It wasn't
just Clarence Thomas. I cared about fairness and equality, opportunity
for an African American woman who'd achieved at a very
high level, and I thought, let's get in there and
(07:47):
do it. I still wonder if it was my personality
or my legal training that helped me to do the testimony.
Part of what we know about these public hearings now,
and what we learned really from nineteen ninety one was
how the person presents herself is important. Part of my
(08:11):
ability to testify had to do with the fact that
I had been trained as a lawyer. I had been
trained in part to see the law as a as
a mediator, but also to see it as separate from
personal interest and to take almost a detached approach. Do
(08:35):
you see that as part of how I used my
voice on that day. I think there was a fusion
of identities there, your religious belief, your family connections. The
most vivid moment for me was when your family came
into the hearing room. You had that confidence that you
(09:02):
don't learn in law school, a confidence in the rightness
of your being, and I had that too. But we
are definitely sisters in the law in that respect. Yeah, yeah,
that's a good way to put it. After the break,
(09:24):
you'll hear from Beverly guy cheft Hall. In the months
following the hearing, she helped me navigate the fallout for
my testimony. I'm Anita Hill, and this is getting egan.
(09:48):
In the first half of this episode, you heard from
my friend and colleague, Emma Coleman Jordan. Now I'm speaking
with longtime friend Beverly guy cheft Hall. Beverly is a
black feminist scholar, writer and editor. She's taught at Smelbourne
College for most of her career. We didn't know each
(10:09):
other when I testified before Congress in nineteen ninety one,
but she was watching the hearing at home in disbelief.
As soon as it was over, she took action. She
joined a collective called African American Women in defense of Ourselves.
That group took out an ad in the New York
Times in response to my testimony. The ad is striking.
(10:34):
It's an open letter surrounded by sixteen hundred signatures. Before
I ask you to talk about that, I want to
say it just went such a long way in restoring
me and assuring me that my black identity and my
black identity as a woman was not going to be forgotten.
(10:58):
You signed the ad, So tell me more about why
you signed it, why it was done, and what it
meant to the sixteen hundred women who signed onto it. Okay,
so let me let me just say that not only
did I sign it, but I got it framed and
it's in my office. I'm looking at it now. It
is to my writing, so I see it every day
(11:19):
that I come into my office, and students also see it.
So that mobilization, that mobilization of primarily black feminist academics,
in terms of its a genealogy. We were trying to
decide what can we do publicly, what can we do
(11:40):
publicly to disrupt this racial script that goes back to
the nineteenth century that says that black women cannot out
African American men that our primary loyalty is to race,
and that any kind of loyalty, any kind of gender politics,
(12:01):
or any kind of gender loyalty, is something that we
cannot do. This is this is a script that we
get and we learn, and so black feminism emerges going
back to the nineteenth century because of an intersectional lens
and an intersectional politics which says that we are committed
(12:22):
to the eradication of all isms racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism,
and there's no contradiction at all in struggling to eradicate
all of those and that even though we know we've
got the script, we are going to speak out about violations,
(12:44):
gender violations, including when African American men are the perpetrators.
We were very upset about the placement of you, or
the construction of you also as a pond of white feminists,
as if there were no black feminists in the world,
and so we wanted to make it very very clear
(13:06):
that white women had nothing to do with your decision
or your black feminist politics, that there's a black feminist
history that goes back to Mariah Stewart, and that you
were a part of that history. It's interesting that we,
you know, were not able to have that heard in
(13:27):
the same way that the lynching claim was heard. But
it's not surprising because our history teachers teach about lynching. Now,
we have the signs, we have the pictures, we've got
the old postcards, but we didn't have any of that
(13:50):
evidence that was available to show what was going on
in the lives of black women throughout the period, even
of lynching, and so it was really hard to get
that message through. And I think we're beginning to do that.
But all of this was going on at a very
different time. And then you and I met. It was
(14:14):
nineteen ninety two. We met because Spellman invited me to
speak at the college. None of the other HBCUs did
at the time. The invitation itself was important, even before
I set foot on the campus, Just having that invitation
was important. What were you expecting or hoping for for
(14:37):
the students? What did you want them to see? So
our students are accustomed to seeing black women who are successful,
because you can be successful without being controversial or without
taking difficult public stances around race and gender issues, you know,
So we can invite corporate women, lawyers, other presidents. We
(15:02):
can invite those kinds of amazing and wonderful black women
to campus at Spellman, which we have done, but we
thought it was also important for them to see a
black woman dissident d I s s at D E
n T. What John Lewis would say, a person who's
making good trouble to be courageous and public, even when
(15:27):
it is controversial, and even if your stance is likely
to produce, which is what you experience of being demonized,
being rejected, being called off, all kinds of names. But
we wanted Spelling students to see that there are models
for women like you. Well, I got there, and I
(15:49):
hope that's what they saw. And you know, I spoke
in Sister's Chapel right to me at the moment, it
was this incredibly impressive space. So paint a picture for us. Okay, So,
Sisters Chapel is probably the most sacred and I don't
mean sacred in the religious sense per se. I can
(16:10):
remember because I was a student from nineteen sixty two
to nineteen sixty six seeing amazing people speaking Sisters Chapel,
but they weren't mostly men. I heard Martin Luther King
Junior speak in Sisters Chapel. It's the place where Martin
Luther King Junior's casket lay for two or three days
(16:31):
so people could visit. So it's a kind of place
that people associate with these towering, big figures. So being
invited to speak in Sisters Chapel as opposed to other
places on campus signal to the community that this is really,
really important. We were not sure, Anita, what the audience
(16:52):
was going to be. Like you advertise, you say the
students and fact of the members, please get your students out,
And we a little bit worried about the fact that
we might show up in Cisters Chaplan and have a
tiny audience, especially given the fact that at the hearings
and you were controversial. You know, that was buzzed during
(17:13):
the day. But when we walked into Sisial Chapel and
solve that audience, it underscored for us why it was
important to invite you to Atlanta, Georgia, the home of
the civil rights movement and two Spellman College because of
its connection to black women's leadership and in more recent
(17:35):
years it's connection to black feminist politics. You know, I
remember feeling wonderful when I looked out at that audience,
and because it was you know, of course the students
from Spellman, but there were a number of folks that
were clearly community folks. Yes, I had sort of taken
a chance to come to Atlanta because I didn't know
(17:59):
what to expect. I knew what I had been getting,
but I didn't know what it would be like in person.
But I knew that I had to go good because
that was the only way to confront what I had
been experiencing. The resistance. And I remember giving that speech,
(18:20):
and I talked about speaking out against sexual harassment and
the role of black women in history, on the issue
and the role that we play in the value that
we are to our community. But I think part of
what stood out among the people in the audience was
what I didn't say. Didn't say anything at all about
(18:40):
Clarence Thomas. And I think there were people who were
expecting me to finally just sort of be angry and
maybe even vindictive, or to talk about the unfairness of
the hearings, which there was plenty of that to talk about.
But we realized, we both realized that all of the
(19:01):
things that I could say that would be true may
not help us move forward. Yes, you say, the buzz
still out there. There were still all of these questions
about how what to make of that hearing. It was
important for me to try to create a path to
(19:21):
move forward at and I just wanted you to know
how importance Spellman was in that path as part of
that path to be really a plea to join with me. Yes,
because it wasn't a foregone conclusion. I remember you're saying
that you were going to go back to your regular
(19:42):
life as a professor in Oklahoma and that you would
not be on the lecture circuit and out and about,
and so I said, you know, I think that's a
really good move on her part. And it was a
good move until it wasn't, and then it was time
to come out. You know, you're right. I had no
(20:04):
intention of it. And I tell people, two days after
I've been aact Oklahoma, I was in the classroom teaching.
Of course, it was not great teaching, but I have
to say the classes that I taught that year, even
the first year law students who have of their own anxiety,
they pulled it together and pulled me through so many classes.
(20:30):
They were patient and carrying and you know, supportive, in
ways that you just don't expect law students to be
what you're observing, or all of the things that I
think stick out to me too. The family and friends
and the witnesses that came stepped up. We did what
(20:53):
we came to do, which was to be heard, and
we were heard, and we didn't change the outcome, but
we were heard. And thirty years later, we're still being heard,
and nobody expect to that. If you had to pick
(21:16):
one lesson, what would that lesson be for moving us
even further? The work is really important, and you do
it over the long haul. You just can't give up,
and you can't say, well, I've done this for about
ten or twenty years and now it's somebody else's work
(21:37):
to do. So I just have said to myself, Beverly,
you will be doing this forever. The joys outweigh the challenges.
I've always been very clear, having grown up in the
gym and Jane Crow South, how challenging it is within
(22:00):
African American communities to center gender politics. That is a
big challenge and it is a lifetime project. And if
you add sexuality, if you say I am as committed
to the freedom of LGBTQ queer people. You're going to
(22:20):
get talked about as a man hater and as a
traitor to the black community, which should be familiar to you.
And you say that's fine, and you're gonna get all
kinds of bad names, and you basically have to say
this work, as you said, it's not about me. You know,
(22:44):
you say it's not about you, But I want people
to understand that doesn't mean that it isn't personal. It
is deeply personal the work that we do. It's not
about you alone, but it's about all of us and
all of our experiences. And in two thousand and three
you wrote about your experience with partner violence. Yeah, and
(23:06):
I need I don't think I've ever said this to
you or even privately, So let me just say now.
Meeting you in nineteen ninety two as a result of
those hearings, this was actually five years after the what
I am calling domestic terrorism that I experienced for over
(23:31):
a year in and out of court for assault, car theft,
arson even And so when you came to Spellman, and
you don't know this, when you came to Spellman in
nineteen ninety two, I was still dealing with that emotionally.
(23:52):
So when I saw you giving that talk, I said
to myself, one of these days, I don't know when
it will be. One of these days, I'm going to
speak publicly about my experience with sexual assault and see
your book. Since your new book, Anita, I now for
(24:13):
the first time call myself for a survivor, which which
I have never done publicly or even privately. As horrible
as the physical and part of that experience was, the
thing that I also wrote about is that he put
my name in public male bathrooms and telephone booths in Atlanta, Georgia,
(24:35):
so strange men would drive by my house and call
me in the middle of the night. And again, getting
back to friendship, Bell Hooks, a long term friend who
was visiting me. She and I went out at night
with wind decks and paper towels to remove my name
and number from public space. So thank you, Anita. Our
(24:58):
evolving friendship is what motivated me to speak publicly for
the first time I write about my experience with intimate
part of a bowls. Friendship is a in so many ways.
Because I'm gonna quote another pioneering black Faminists was well
ahead of her time, Polly Murray, and she wrote that
(25:18):
hope is a song in a weary throat. Do you
ever get weary? Nope? And you know I think that
I don't get weary because of my friendships. I mean
this may no one has ever asked me that question.
But no, I don't get weary. You get weary when
(25:40):
when stress begins to consume you. And I find I
find all kinds of frivolous ways to have joy, shopping
at TJ Max's one. So no, I don't. I don't
get weary because I have I also feel like, you
know what my sister says, My sister Francine says, bever
you you're surrounded with angels, and so I think that
(26:00):
if you have angels and I'm not talking about in
the Christian sense, and you have friends and you have
important work, you don't get weary. Yeah, you know, I
say all the time, I am ever hopeful, and I
honestly believe that, and really just to be with friends.
(26:22):
And you know, I come from that huge family of
thirteen and I have five sisters, but they're not the
only sisters that I have. So Beverly, I'm just proud
to have you as a sister. And to have you
as a guide actually for the work that is being
done and it still needs to be done. Thank you.
(26:50):
As a poet, Audrey Lord wrote, without community, there is
no liberation. With these friendships making change feels possible. You
could say that Getty Even was the product of conversations
I've had with Emma and Beverly over the past thirty years,
from reclaiming black girlhood to critical race theory and the
(27:14):
transformative power of art. They helped me develop my thinking
on pressing issues I presented in this series, and as
I wrap up this season, I think back on various
conversations I've had and how they've elevated the voices of
all of us who have been dismissed or even deemed unimportant.
(27:38):
And after these conversations, I'm more determined than ever to
help our society get even. Getting Even is a production
of Pushkin Industries and is written and hosted by me
(27:58):
Anita Hill. It is produced by Molaboard and Brittany Brown.
Our editor is Sarah Kramer, our engineer is Amanda kay Wang,
and our show runner is Sasha Matthias. Louis Gara composed
original music for the show. Our executive producers are Mia
(28:19):
Lobell and Lee Taal Mallard. Our director of development is
Justine Lane. At Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Maggie Taylor,
Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Morgan Rattner, Mary Beth Smith, Jordan McMillan,
(28:40):
Isabella Narvaias, Carle Migliori, Royston Beserve, Maya Kanig, Daniella Lacan,
Jake Flanagan, Jason Gambrel, Ian Pesca, Sarah Brugier, Julia Barton,
John Snars, Christina Sullivan, Carrie Brody, Jacob Wiseberg, and Malcolm Gladwell.
(29:09):
You can find me on Twitter at Anita Hill and
on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can find Pushkin on
all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign
up for our newsletter at pushkin dot f M. If
you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider
(29:31):
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you
can hear Getting Even and other Pushkin shows add free
and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up on the Getting
Even show page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm.
To find more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio, app,
(29:56):
Apple podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
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