I am going to be the moderator of the workshop today. [applause] nothing but stars on the panel here. [laughter] i feel very honored to even be here today and be remembering the brave women and men who started the National Organization for women. 1966 that they first together. Living whove anyone was at that first meeting. At the washington hilton. Second meeting. Some of the history. Very active womens bureau in the department of labor. In 1966, the democrats were in charge. President kennedy had been elected. The women from unions were very active in the department of labor and the womens bureau was very led by feminists. They persuaded the president to call meeting of commissions on the status of women. The commissions on the status of women were organizing going on in the states without a feminist movement to pull everybody together. The commissions often serve as a place where women met and came together. Enbock wasine clark boug that of the commission in washington and the head of the commissions, so she was a pretty big deal. She, along with other women, came to the meetings on the status of other women. The eeoc had been created. Title vii had been passed. Women around the country were getting mad that the enforcement of the law was not what they thought it should be. Commissions of the allowed these women to come together. N was there. Peopleray was one of the who writes about the founding meeting. Mentor andonroy, my also from wisconsin, the book by her writes about the founding meeting. They were at the washington hilton. They were trying to figure out what to do. Nsy met in betty frieda room. Of founding an organization, that Something Like the naacp was needed for women. Buddies were, my not quite ready to go over the edge that night. They wanted to try one more time. They went to the government next morning and said we want to move this resolution to mandate the eeoc to declare helpwanted, male and female as an illegal strategy. They said we dont do resolutions against other Government Agencies at a government meeting. That was it. At lunch, they got together. They threw down their 5 and formed the National Organization for women. Then they had a founding conference. Muriel will pick up that history. Notice it wast to any government meeting, that government money was used to get these women together, and they took advantage of that to actually form their own organization and see what things they can do with the governments help and what things they had to do on their own. Murieler thing i think will talk about is there were a lot of women who worked for the government who were not able to be up front, but they were very instrumental. I will say one or two things about myself. I was fortunate to know these fabulous women. In wisconsin, i went to a womens college. Was another founder of now. She was my history teacher. Theynow got founded, called me up and said you will love this. That is how i got involved. It changed my entire life. I worked in the chicago chapter of now. I was a National Board member of now. I had a recycling in 1982. I got elected Vice President of action. That is how i got to be in washington. I worked for catholics for free ice and americans now im going to ask muriel to introduce herself. She is one of my longest colleagues in feminism. I met muriel fox in the very early days after i got involved in now. She is not only a founder, but she is a mentor. She is a wonderful person who has made such an enormous contribution to the rights of women in this country. I am proud to be on the same platform with you, muriel. [applause] thank you. You did not mention that you really kept now going in our early days, running all of our mail orders, all of our mailings. Everything we did. I think this was perhaps when the labor unions walked out because the Automobile Union really served as our secretary and treasurer in the early days. But when we decided to support they said e. R. A. , they could not do it anymore because it was against their unions policy. With her stepped in husband, jim collins. And they really did all of this for us. We would have been lost without them. [applause] we did it. It is very important. Im going to say this again later. When people talk about the modern womans resolution revolution, it is now that did it. It began exactly 50 years ago with the founding of now. That is when it all started. Before then, it was the dark ages. For thousands of years, women were the property of men. They were subordinate to men. It all changed because of now. We can certainly be very proud of that. I would also say it all changed very much because of one woman. We must not forget her. That was Betty Friedan. [applause] those of us who knew her personally, she was a big pain in the neck. [laughter] as i said at her memorial, she was not a good woman, but she was a great woman. I also had the honor of being the first speaker at bettys funeral. This, and truly believe but she was not just the greatest woman of the 20th century, she was the greatest. Oman of the second millennium in writing the feminine mystique and being the founder of now, the driving force, the strategist, betty is the one who did it. I know there are a lot of people who resented a number of things she did. We are going to hear some of those today. But we all know that betty was the founder, and weve got to keep her memory alive. Incidentally, the name now came about because at that luncheon, Betty Friedan wrote on the now National Organization for women. She stressed it was for women, not of women because we would have been active. We have had wonderful men who have been active through the years. Anyway, during that summer when everyone went back having put in their five dollars 5, they all organized their people. Betty friedan looked at her rolodex and sent out a couple of hundred letters. I was on her rolodex because in 1963, i had arranged for her to speak to american women in radio and television on her when her book, the feminine mystique came out. When mary jean talked about the term naacp for women, i asked betty, dont we need an organization . She said, you mean naacp for women . We are not ready yet. But in 1966, we were ready. I got her letter. Incidentally in that letter, she said we will be an elite cadre of professional women. She did not think about a Mass Movement. That just grew. That just happened. That he organized the board of directors betty organized the board of directors. We were all professionals who were successful in education and government, and labor, and business. It was sort of the typical elite cadre that found many organizations. One person i also want to murray and was polly Mary Eastwood who kept after betty to start this organization. And also catherine east, who was sort of our deep throat. She worked for the labor bureau. She kept feeding statistics on how terrible it was for women. She kept feeding those two betty. It was Mary Eastwood, who is still alive, so i am not the only living founder. Mary eastwood is living in wisconsin. I wish she were well enough to be here and be honored. At our founding conference which was organized for october 2930 in the basement of the theington post Hotel Washington post newspaper. I guess we rented the space from the washington post. Mary arranged for the space. Somebody asked if i would do the publicity. I was in Public Relations. A Vice President of what was the largest Public Relations agency in the world at that time. So i did the publicity and arranged for that famous picture that is in the book of the founders. There were about 35 of us in that room. My press release which i wrote said more than 300 women and men which was true because we were across the country there were about 300 of us. There were 35 of us in the room. It said we found it a militant organization to have lost enforced laws enforced on behalf of the quality. The terminology was very much Betty Friedans. I want to say she also wrote a statement of purpose for now. You can get that on the now website. Just be prepared to be so inspired. To the feminine mystique, it is the greatest thing betty ever wrote. It was everything wrong with society, all the discrimination problems. It also lists some statistics catherine east had given her, such as only 7 of lawyers were women. Only 5 of doctors were women. It was all spelled out there. We made a few little changes, but it was bettys document. It is a beautiful document. It said what was wrong with society and what now was going to do to change it. And now has changed it. There is no question. [applause] basis of that statement of purpose, we formed task forces those two days on every one of the issues that are still important today. Taskiggest tax course force was on employment. Jobs was always our number one issue. Of the Civil Rights Act had been passed which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex and the equal opportunity and limit commission treated that as trivial. They did not want to pay any attention to sex discrimination. They were much more interested in race discrimination. We had to press them to pay. Ttention actually, more than half the complaints they were getting were from women who were being discriminated against. E pressed that we had a big task force on employment. We had one on credit. We had one on childcare. That was an urgent issue for now from the very beginning, and it probably is still our most urgent unfinished business. Religion. On task force, every important issue was there, based anyways on the statement of purpose based in many ways on the statement of purpose but young women today dont believe this, but the helpwanted ads in the newspaper said help wanted female. Lpwanted we had to work on that and finally begin to get results at the end of 1968. Picketed, we had lawsuits, we pressured the government, especially the eeoc. Lley jean mentioned joe reed. I have to tell a story. At the founding conference, she heard there was going to be this conference on sex discrimination. She just walked in and out of the cold. No one invited her. She just walked into our meeting because she heard it was going to take place. When we went around the room, when she stood up, each of us introduced ourselves. She stood up still wearing her nuns habit in those days, later she didnt. She said i am a sister, i am a teacher. Im one of 50,000 american nuns, and we are working women and we are oppressed. [laughter] [applause] i will never forget that. Also, inat conference who wasolleen roland, the president of what was then called the stewardesses union, the flight attendants union. And she told us about the airlines requiring the flight attendants to retire when they 35, or the age of 32 or when they got married. This was an early case also that now took on, again very successfully. One other thing i want to point out is that we worked on all of these cases. We issued writs of mandamus. We had good lawyers and we knew what we were doing. That is one of the reasons now was so successful, because we were professionals in everything we did. Escmmediately pressed the sexeoc to work on discrimination. We pressured president johnson. We met at the white house with his associate working on this. He said, do you really want to be included with the other kinds of discrimination . Separate want attention to sex discrimination . We said no, it is the same thing. I wrote a letter over Betty Friedans signature to president johnson urging him to put sex discrimination into affirmativeaction. One of the most historic events, which was mainly a result of now, was in october of 1967 when Lyndon Johnson announced 11246, whicher added women to affirmativeaction. In this opened the pipeline and this opened the pipeline for millions of women across the country from then on. [applause] i think i have used up my time. There is just so much that happened and so many people who worked. Everyone there worked on what made her angry. That is why we were all successful. Everybody was passionate. In february of 1957, Betty Friedan said i think we need chapters. Will you start a new york chapter . So i sent out the postcards to those that were signed up in the new york area and the new york chapter was the first chapter of now. And all of the chapters, of course, really became the bedrock, the grassroots and they made actions happen very quickly, amazingly quickly. Betty friedan and i used to say we never dreamed it would happen so fast. Really, in the 1970s, we got the fair credit act, which meant women could have credit cards in their own name. Until then, a woman lost her credit card if she were to divorce or her husband died. The fair housing act, a landlord could say, i do not rent to women. That became illegal. Title ix, which finally prohibited sex discrimination in education. It is a lot more than sports. It is womens promotion, advancement in schools as well as colleges. All of these things happened in the early 1970s, and every one was mainly the result of now activists. There is a lot we can be proud of. I will answer questions. I do not know how much time i have used up, but anyway, we can all be very proud of what now did. [applause] mary jean thank you. [applause] mary jean we are going to take questions at the end because otherwise we will never get past muriel. [laughter] mary jean next i want to introduce eleanor pam, who is the president of veteran feminists of america, which is actually presenting this panel today along with the good graces of the National Organization for women. It is an organization founded by second wave feminists to keep the history alive and propagated of the achievements of the second wave women and the women that followed. And they are open to membership to everybody, so if you have a membership form in your packet, we would love to have you. Let me go back to introducing eleanor. She is the president of our organization now and she is herself a pioneer feminist and professor emerita at the City University of new york. Yorks first new education committee. She has focused on education issues and women in prison issues through her life and she gives us excellent leadership, and we are proud to be a part of being with her today. Eleanor. [applause] eleanor i want to talk about a hero of the feminist movement. Some people are technicolor and some people are black and white, and Betty Friedan was definitely technicolor. But kate millett, who has been a friend of mine for nearly 60 years, also in her own way made Great Strides in progress for women. She wrote the other book, sexual politics, which is known as the bible of the feminist movement. So you have the feminine mystique and you have sexual politics. Kate was also called the major theoretician of the feminist movement. She was also called one of the 10 most important people in the 20th century. I knew her in a very, very different way. And by the way, it was said the world was asleep, but kate millett woke it up. I met kate when i was just out of college with a degree in philosophy at brandeis university. And i did not want to go home after i graduated and live with my parents. My mother sort of thought i was a bit of a failure because i did not have an mrs degree. I only had a degree with honors in philosophy, and that was not quite what she wanted. So i did a very unthinkable thing i moved to greenwich , village, and that was really wicked because my mother assumed i was up to no good. Which, ultimately, i was. [laughter] eleanor i found a friend who was an artist and a dancer and she was chinese. And she had a very strange circle of friends. In the middle of the night, 3 00 in the morning, the phone, not the phone but the bell, would ring, and i remember this distinctly. I do not think i had lived with her for more than a week. I opened the door and there were these three grimy males standing there, filthy, with beards, and obviously not washed and were in rags. They pushed their way through. They were jack kerouac, and beatniks. We were bohemians. They were beatniks. They made themselves at home and and slept three weeks in the bathtub. We finally kicked them out. Another friend, another friend of my chinese roommate was this other strange woman. This was a female and she lived on the bowery, and her name was kate millett. Kate was very strange. She came from a middleclass family in minnesota, but she wanted to live in what i considered unbelievably squalid quarters. Winos and derelicts sleeping on her front porch. I came to her house, and i remember when i first met her. From thetled me, aside ramshackle way she looked, she did not even have heat. She had a potbelly stove. She had walltowall books, floor to ceiling. She did not even have a door on her bathroom. And she had just come from oxford, where she received first honors in english. That is an amazing feat. And she was a female, and that was even more amazing. And kate and i became intellectual sparring partners. She was brilliant, obviously, eccentric, obviously. I worried about her all the time. She was very pale. She was very poor. She did not have any money at all. And i would take her out and feed her and take her to the beach to kind of give her a little color. [laughter] eleanor and i never, i did not understand her. Why are you living on the bowery . I was from the slums and i wanted upward mobility. She was embracing downward mobility. [laughter] eleanor it was very strange to me. Now, kate identified herself as an artist, not a writer. She was a far better writer than she was an artist. And she took me around to all of these groups. She loved groups and organizations, and ultimately, by the way, she said she would join every feminist organization and i believed her. Because i was in the craziest places with her. Anarchists, atheists, communists, whatever fringe group there was, that is what she was attracted to and that is what she took me to. Spiritualists and so on. I thought this woman is never going to get to age 23. She was 18 months older than i was. But so brilliant, so unusual. I thought she was an alien. And then, maybe, i was the alien and i was not sure. We both lived in our heads. We both had wonderful conversations. But she was real, rockbottom poor. Strange things begin to happen around kate. Eventually she had an intellectual wagon train. People were