On Tuesday evening, March 16th, at 6 p.m. I gave a talk for the Brooklyn Public Library on the life and work of Ernestine Rose. This virtual lecture was in honor of Women's History Month as part of Midwood Library’s Women Pioneers series.
To watch if you are receiving this as an email: Go to the blog post or to the the video link.
On March 16th from 6 - 7 p.m. I’m giving a talk on Ernestine Rose for the Brooklyn Public Library. Here are the details from the BPL:
In honor of Women's History Month, Midwood Library is pleased to present a virtual lecture and discussion on the life of women's rights activist Ernestine Rose. Join us for a lively discussion as distinguished author and historian Bonnie Anderson, a Brooklyn resident and a professor emerita of history at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, shares poignant insights on Ernestine Rose.
Here is the Zoom link for the event.
Please register for the program to receive a reminder with the Zoom link via email the day of the event.
You can read more about Ernestine Rose in Bonnie Anderson’s latest book, The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter, available at the Brooklyn Public Library.
An interview I did on the life of Ernestine Rose for a Jewish site:
Jewish Culture & Jewish Awareness Episode 40: Who was Ernestine Rose?
Dustin Hausner, the Jewish Outreach and Program Director at the Wayne YMCA interviews Bonnie Anderson, Author. In the book The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer. Bonnie Anderson introduces you to Ernestine Rose and her work on Women’s Rights, Ending Slavery and Freethought Movement.
In 1856 and again in 1857, the Supreme Court heard arguments about an enslaved man brought by his owner to a free state. He claimed his freedom, but the court ruled that African-Americans could never be citizens and therefore had no right to the protection of law. Dred Scott was deemed a "piece of property" and returned to his supposed owner in the South.
A few years later, the Civil War overturned this dreadful ruling. I think it's important to keep historical passages like this in mind, as we enter an era when the court may rule against important civil rights gain of the last half century. Justices can also change their opinions when they are on the court. Hugo Black, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and an opponent of equal rights for blacks in his early years, evolved into a staunch defender of civil liberties, even though he did justify the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Chief Justice John Roberts recently cited this case, saying that it was nothing like the third Muslim ban, which his court recently upheld. I, and many others, think it was, since it blocks large groups based on race, religion, or nationality. But situations and justices can change.
In addition, the Supreme Court does not necessarily have the final word. Years ago, I argued with an Englishman who declared that we "had government by court." The people are the basis of our government. If Congress passes a law against a Supreme Court decision, the law prevails unless the Court can and does declare it unconstitutional. It's important to remember this in difficult times.
And if we think our times are difficult, let's remember earlier eras. Ernestine Rose continued to fight against slavery before and after the Dred Scott decision. She succeeded in that fight, but did not live long enough to see women get the right to vote. In this regard, I highly recommend a wonderful anthology which appeared last year: We The Resilient: Wisdom for Americans from Women Born Before Suffrage. The editors Sarah Bunin Benor and Tom Fields-Meyer interviewed 78 women from all races, ethnicities and classes about their lives, first before the 2016 election, and then after. They all recommended persisting in your ideals. They had lived through the Great Depression, the second world war, McCarthyism, etc. and they maintained that important struggles can be won if we don't give up. They advise courage, hope, humor, keeping on, and knowing that conditions will change. They provide inspiration for today to continue working for our beliefs.
My blog about Ernestine Rose and the January 21st Women's March is now up at the OUP History blog -- just scroll down a little bit -- it's the first one and you can read it here
In 1898, six years after Ernestine Rose died, the black activist Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) addressed the 50th anniversary meeting of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. "Fifty years ago a meeting such as this, planned, conducted and addressed by women would have been an impossibility," she declared. "Less than forty years ago, few sane men would have predicted that either a slave or one of his descendants [both her parents had been enslaved] would in the century at least address such an audience in the Nation's Capital at the invitation of women representing the highest, broadest, best type of womanhood, that can be found anywhere in the world." This to me, she continued, "is a double jubilee, rejoicing as I do, not only in the prospect of enfranchisement of my sex [US women could not vote until 1920] but in the emancipation of my race. When ERNESTINE ROSE, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony" began this movement, it was still "forbidden to teach slaves to read and not only could they not own property, but even their bodies were not their own." Church Terrell, among many other achievements, was one of the founders of the NAACP.
Although Rose became forgotten by the 1920s, Terrell's speech is proof that she was still honored at the end of the nineteenth century. Today, we would do well to remember the battles of this feminist pioneer, who fought for abolition as well as free thought. Although the world was against her, she never gave up.
Ernestine Rose said "The most hopeless condition is that when a patient loses all sensation of pain or suffering." In other words, the ability to feel badly is the first step towards remedying a situation by changing it. Time to start fighting back, by demonstrating, writing, and speaking, as she did all her adult life.
We have had it easier than younger people adjusting to this dreadful election. I'm old enough to remember '68 when Nixon was elected. And Reagan, and the Bushes. We lived through that and we'll make it through this, remembering that we're still stronger together. Ernestine Rose provides an inspiring example: she fought all her adult life for women's rights, abolition of slavery, and free thought. She lived to see the nominal end of slavery and some gains for women, but not the vote. She never gave up.