Narrator: Judith Lonnquist
Interviewer: Mildred Andrews
Date: February 12, 2007
Transcriber: Teresa Bergen
Andrews: The following interview is being conducted with Judith Lonnquist on behalf of
the Washington Women‟s History Consortium for the 1977 Ellensburg/Houston
International Women‟s Year Conference‟s Oral History Project. The interview is taking
place on February twelfth at Judith‟s office in the Seattle Tower Building in downtown
Seattle. And the interviewer is Mildred Andrews.
As a beginning, Judith, would you tell me about your growing up years, your
family, community, school, and how you developed your ideas about being a woman in
the home and in society?
Lonnquist: Well, I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, home to the Women‟s Christian
Temperance Union. My father was Swedish/English. My mother was Northern European.
They‟d been second generation Americans. I have two younger sisters and a younger
brother. I went to a public school in Evanston for the first eight years, then went to a
private girls‟ day school. And I think it was there that I began to develop an interest in
women‟s issues and women‟s history.
I remember my junior year we were assigned to write a biography of a prominent woman.
And I picked Babe Didrickson Zaharias and knew nothing about her. And was just
fascinated by this consummate athlete who won gold medals in Berlin in 1936, I guess it
was, and then became a golfer in her later years. A championship golfer. And I was just
fascinated with having a prominent woman, that by the time I was sixteen years old, I
knew nothing about. So I began to wonder why I hadn‟t known more about women in
American culture.
Then I went to Mount Holyoke College, which is the oldest institution of higher
learning for women in the country. The message is taught there is that we are uncommon
women, that we would dedicate ourselves to making the world a better place. So I
became very active in politics when I was at Mount Holyoke. And did a lot of work in
civil rights and those sorts of issues. Also, when I went to law school, I took various
courses that were geared towards a career in civil rights.
Andrews: Where did you go to law school?
Lonnquist: University of Chicago. And I had worked in the United States Senate when I
was at Mount Holyoke for then Senator Paul Douglas who had assigned me to work on
the Peace Corps and a bunch of other issues. So I was leaning very heavily towards doing
something in politics. Senator Douglas had asked me what I wanted to do when I grew
up. I said, well, I hadn‟t really given it any thought. I said, “What would you
recommend?”
He said, “Go to law school. It gives you a good background for electoral politics.”
So I said, “Okay, where should I go?”
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He said, “Oh, there‟s only one place. The University of Chicago.” He had taught
there for years before becoming a senator.
So I went to the University of Chicago Law School. And of course, the courses I loved
best were constitutional law and labor law. So that leaned me towards a course of study
to become a civil rights lawyer. I clerked for the chairman of the National Labor
Relations Board between my second and third years in law school. And loved labor law. I
decided that when I graduated out of law school, I would seek a position in a labor law
firm, on the union side. Which I did.
I got a call from, I think it was the second year of practice, I got a call from a
woman who was a few years behind me at Mount Holyoke. And she had become very
active in the local NOW chapter, and invited me to come talk about employment law.
And I did. I became really interested in the National Organization for Women. I became
first nationalboard member, and then the national legal vice president for the two terms.
That‟s how I got to an interest in women‟s issues.
Andrews: And how did you get to Seattle?
Lonnquist: Through my work as legal vice president, the NOW chapters at the time were
generating a number of cases, employment law cases. Because women would come to the
chapter and say, “I have a problem with the University of Washington.” And this was
happening all around the country. And the chapters would encourage them to go through
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and work with them, help them. But
then there was no one to take the case. So as legal vice president, I took a tour of the
country talking to local bar associations, encouraging lawyers to take these cases that our
chapters were generating, to pursue them in federal court. Because that‟s what I was
doing in Chicago, and I knew how to do that, so I gave them tips on how to do that. And
showed them that they could make money doing it as well. Of course, as an economic
entity, lawfirms needed to take mone-making cases.
And I came to Seattle to give such a talk. I‟d been down in Portland. It was the
middle of July, and it was absolutely, exquisitely gorgeous here. And I was wined and
dined by the NOW chapter, and then after my vacation was through, I flew back to
Chicago, and there was an ozone alert. The air was orange. And I thought, my heavens,
why am I still in Chicago when I could be out there in beautiful Seattle? So I moved out
here in April of 1975.
Andrews: And is that when you became a WEA [Washington Education Association]
attorney?
Lonnquist: Yes. I had my daughter in May of ‟75. And stayed home with her for about
three months. And then started getting restless and found a job with the WEA.
Andrews: So what were your major affiliations and networks, then, at the time of, let‟s
say, the early „70s? You‟ve already mentioned–
Lonnquist: I had served on the board of the ACLU in Chicago. I of course had my work
with NOW and WEA, primarily those two.Plus, I was very involved in Washington
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Women Lawyers. Sometime, about the same time as the Ellensburg conference, we about
starating at the Northwest Women‟s Law Center. A small group of women got together
and founded the law center
Andrews: What did you think of women‟s role in the home and society at the time of the
conference?
Lonnquist: Oh, I was then, and still am, a hardcore feminist. I believe that was really
every woman‟s choice. Everyone should have the option to work in the home or outside
the home. And that there shouldn‟t be any arbitrary or societal barriers to a woman‟s
choices to pursue a career or not.
Andrews: And there were quite a few barriers at that time, were there not?
Lonnquist: Yes, many barriers.
Andrews: Were there some specific events that spurred your thinking about changing
roles of women?
Lonnquist: Well, I read The Feminine Mystique, I‟m sure you‟ve heard that before. I read
The Feminine Mystique when I was in law school. Shortly thereafter. But anyway, some
point in there I read that. And working in Chicago, it was very obvious to me that women
were blatantly, suffering blatant sex discrimination in employment; that was my major
area. For example, I had two clients, one white, one African American, flight attendants,
both of whom wanted to get married, but they‟d lose their jobs. And I thought, how
ridiculous. I had another client that went to apply for a job for which she was eminently
qualified. But they told her they couldn‟t hire her because they had no ladies‟ room.
I myself have experienced it. When I came out of law school, I had, in Chicago,
very good credentials. Gone to an Ivy League school, and gone to one of the top law
schools in the country. Had clerked for the National Labor Relations Board, and I was
looking for a job in the labor sector. And I had a preference for working for unions, but I
interviewed on both sides. And I was called back to one very major Chicago firm seven
times. And the seventh time, I met with all the partners. And at the end of the meeting,
one of them said, “Well, we would love to hire you, but you‟re young, you‟re pretty, and
you‟re a woman.”
And I said, “Well, time will take care of the first. I suppose I could do something
about the second. But I‟ll be damned if I do anything about the third,” and walked out.
And that haunted me. Because at the time, Title VII didn‟t apply to professional
positions. So there was no way I could sue them. But I thought, how ridiculous that, well,
it says it all. And the other conversation was, “What would the wives of our lawyers think
if their husbands went on business trips with a young woman?” All of the typical
stereotypes. It just served to make me more rabid. [laughter]
Andrews: They‟re still doing the same things today, but maybe it‟s not as blatant.
Lonnquist: That‟s true.
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Andrews: How did you become interested and involved in the Ellensburg conference?
Lonnquist: Well, I was staying with Elaine LaTourelle. And Elaine was very active in
the organizing committee. And she knew that I knew parliamentary procedure. They also
needed someone to chair or participate in the workshop on the Equal Rights Amendment.
And I had been given, part of my job as NOW legal vice president was to travel around
the country, talking to people about the ERA. I had debated Phyllis Schlafly on a couple
of occasions in Illinois, because she‟s the lady from Peoria who opposed the ERA. So I
signed up to do the presentation at the ERA workshop, and then they asked me to preside
over one of the plenary sessions, and I was asked to be one of the Houston delegates.
Andrews: Tell me about how you got to Ellensburg. The planning, a little bit more about
the planning, and the logistics of getting there.
Lonnquist: Well, I wasn‟t really involved in the planning. Elaine and Betty Kersh and
Karen Fraser, and many other women. Lilly Aguilar and Mary Ellen McCaffree and
Mary Helen Roberts. There were enough women on the planning committee who knew
the state. I was a relative newcomer. And many of these women had been involved in the
ERA referendum in ‟74, ‟75. That was before I came. So they were better suited to set up
this committee than having somebody that‟s relatively new to the state. But I was happy
to help in any way I could.
So I volunteered to do what I could. I was very heavily committed at work, so it
was difficult to take time off. I didn‟t get there until, goodness, Friday night. And by that
time, it was pandemonium. Busloads of blue and white ladies coming from every
direction. So many of us just got on the phone and started calling our friends and saying,
“You‟ve got to come and vote.” And of course this was before the day of the cell phone.
So, land line. Elaine was over there already, and she called me at work and said, told me
that they‟d heard about 2,000 women were coming from the blue and white contingent.
So I immediately started calling everyone I knew to get them to go to Ellensburg. So I
went over on Friday, and I don‟t think I slept again until Monday morning.
Andrews: Would you say something about you chairing the second day?
Lonnquist: Well I, because I had represented labor unions by that time for ten years, I
knew how meetings should be run. You can‟t attend a large union meeting without
having respect for the order, and the importance of effective chairing. And I had studied
parliamentary law and parliamentary procedure, and I had given lectures in training to the
WEA. Although they use Sturgis, rather than Roberts, but I knew both systems. And
Elaine and Betty both knew that, because they had seen me in the NOW national board
meetings raise parliamentary issues. So they recommended to the committee that I be the
presiding officer. And it was decided that they wanted to share that responsibility. With
Bev Smith of, I think she was with the nurses.
Andrews: Mm hmm. Washington State Nurses.
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Lonnquist: Decided to make her, ask her to be presiding officer as well. And since I was
going to be on the slate, I said that I didn‟t think it would be, it would give me an unfair
advantage, or it might give me an unfair advantage if I presided before the election. And
so Bev took Saturday, and I took Sunday, which was after the election developments. By
that time, of course, I could see what was happening on the Saturday plenary. So I was
anticipating some parliamentary moves from the blue and white coalition.
And I tried, my philosophy then and now is the best meeting is run as long as, the
best way to run a meeting is to let everybody know what the rules are, and apply them
equally. So I did that throughout the day. Instead of just saying, “You‟re out of order,” I
would try to explain why they were out of order, and to give a little, not apply the
parliamentary rules woodenly, but with some flexibility. But in the end, I had to start
ruling people out of order, because we were never going to get through the agenda, and
we really needed to move the agenda along.
So I had met with a number of the steering committee members and other
volunteers and said, “Look, we need people to call the question. We need people to raise
parliamentary issues.” And I told them a few other techniques so that we could get the
debate on the floor, but move it along. Ultimately, that‟s what we did. We got everything
done. We got the work done, which was quite amazing. I could look out over the sea of
people, and see these men with clipboards. Now, the blue and white ladies all wore a
little blue and white ribbon. And they often were accompanied by men in white shirts and
black ties. We started calling them “their handlers,” because they would run around,
telling these women what to do. I don‟t know what was on theclip boards. But you could
tell, I could tell, from where I was chairing the meeting, that something was going to
come from this section over to the left because there were four of these men with
clipboards fomenting something over there. So it was quite obvious to me that there was
some manipulation going on. So I made sure that parliamentarily I could keep that from
happening.
Andrews: I understand that the minority caucuses had some special successes at the
conference.
Lonnquist: Yes.
Andrews: Would you comment on that? That was during your plenary session?
Lonnquist: You have to remember the history of the time. There was a perception that
the National Organization for Women was not a friendly place for minorities. I never
personally experienced that, but it was, predominantly, a white woman‟s organization.
Although I think at the time, we had an African American president, Aileen Hernandez.
Andrews: I thought she might have been Hispanic.
Lonnquist: Aileen Hernandez. And she was African American and married to a
Hispanic.
Andrews: Oh, I see.
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Lonnquist: But that was the perception. That the women‟s movement, as represented by
NOW, was not a friendly place for minority women, and/or did not take an active interest
in the special issues that related to minority women. There was the same problem
involving lesbian women. For a time, it was reputed that the New York NOW chapter
had purged all of the lesbians from the chapter. I think that‟s probably exaggerated. But
the perception was there, nonetheless, that it wasn‟t friendly territory for lesbians, and
that NOW was actively avoiding lesbian issues, because it didn‟t want to be tarred and
feathered with that label, the accusation that they‟re all a bunch of gay women.
So we had to handle that very sensitively. We knew that, going into the
conference, that the planks from these minority women, from African American women
and Hispanic women, and to some extent, from the women in poverty, and, of course, the
lesbian women, all those were going to be very controversial planks, and that we had to
make sure that they were treated with some sensitivity. And I think it‟s accurately
described in The Women of Ellensburg book that you sent me. And I don‟t remember the
details as well as it‟s written in the book. But there was quite a bit of negotiation with the
blue and white coalition about trying to get the minority women‟s plank, core value,
whatever it was called at the time, into the plan of action, and a number of motions and
substitute motions. And ultimately, the minority women‟s plank, as originally written,
was put into the plan of action, which was a big victory. It was a close vote. Oh, it was
fun. [laughter]
Andrews: I think you may have just covered this, but I‟ll ask anyway. Which issues were
of major concern to you, and why?
Lonnquist: Well, the Equal Rights Amendment, of course, was the primary issue that I
was concerned about, because it‟s the overarching constitutional premise on which other
rights of women are based. And we knew that was the primary target of the blue and
white coalition. So that was the biggest issue, to get support for the Equal Rights
Amendment ratified.
My own personal issues were employment and education, because that‟s the area
of law I was practicing in. And then, of course, abortion rights. I think the ERA and the
abortion rights were the two biggest targets of the blue and white coalition.
I have a funny story.
Andrews: Oh, please.
Lonnquist: You know, the Saturday when all of them voted, there was this enormous big
line waiting to vote. The registration process was sorely taxed with this influx of
unanticipated attendees. And there was this huge long line through the campus. And we
were all mixed up, blue and white ladies and the rest of us. And I was standing, and the
wind was howling as only it can. It was summer, but it was cold, because the wind was
just– So we were standing there under these very unpleasant conditions. And there was
this gaggle of blue and white ladies in front of me. I heard one of them say to the other,
“Have you seen that button that a lot of them are wearing? It‟s a hanger with a red line
through it? What‟s that mean?”
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And one of the other blue and white ladies says, “Oh, that‟s a lesbian who‟s come
out of the closet.”
Well, of course it was all I could do to keep from guffawing. Of course, it‟s about
abortion, that was the type of pin. They had this very strange view of what this button
was.
Andrews: Great story. How did the conference influence your perceptions, or did it
influence your perceptions, of women‟s role in the home and society?
Lonnquist: I don‟t think it did, really. I had been involved enough in the women‟s
movement by that time that I already had a clear perception of what was going on with
women‟s rights in society. I see a terrible picture of me there. [laughs]
Andrews: This is one of the newspaper articles that I‟ve copied. [“State women‟s trip to
D.C. almost a „waste of time,‟” The Seattle Times, 3/25/78, B-10.]
Lonnquist: That‟s my daughter. [looking at photo of herself and her daughter in the
Times article]
Andrews: What‟s her name?
Lonnquist: Victory. I had named her Victoria after my political science professor, but
she later changed it Victory.
Andrews: What were some of the positive or negative outcomes of the Ellensburg
conference, in your opinion?
Lonnquist: One of the positive outputs of the conference was it really brought the proERA women in the state together again. They had been very tightly brought together by
the referendum, but this was another time when we could pull the pro-women, profeminist women and men together. So it became a focal point for that. And then, of
course, the subsequent litigation, the challenge to the delegation, and going to Houston,
just further developed that camaraderie.
Andrews: Could you comment on that litigation?
Lonnquist: Well, they, the blue and white ladies challenged the delegation in federal
court.
Andrews: And why was that, just for the record?
Lonnquist: I don‟t remember. I didn‟t get that far into the book to refresh my memory.
Andrews: They had doubts about the integrity of the election process.
Lonnquist: The election process, right.
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Andrews: And they were concerned the delegates would be feminists.
Lonnquist: And we ended up with two blue and white ladies on our delegation. [Kay
Regan was the only blue and white lady on the delegation, and all five of the alternates
were conservatives. (ed.)] And that‟s another interesting story of what we did at the
Houston conference, but that‟s not the subject of this–
Andrews: I‟d love to hear that story, too. Go ahead.
Lonnquist: [laughs] Well, Christine Marsten was one of our delegates. I chaired the
delegation. So I gave Chris the assignment of sitting in the aisle, on the aisle, next to the
blue and white delegates, so they couldn‟t get to the microphone. They had to crawl over
Chris. Well, crawling over Chris was not something blue and white ladies would want to
do. So, a little known factor.
Andrews: [laughs] Getting back to the lawsuit, we were just talking about that.
Lonnquist: It was more of the animosity that was prevalent. They had come there to elect
the slate, but the blue and white ladies were unsuccessful. So they took their next, what
they believed to be their next open avenue. And that was litigation. We went off to
Houston with two blue and white ladies, and the rest of us were pro-feminist.
Andrews: I think it‟s time to go on to Houston.
Lonnquist: Okay.
Andrews: There‟s an article in Pandora, do you remember that?
Lonnquist: Oh, my goodness.
Andrews: A Washington women‟s news journal?
Lonnquist: Right.
Andrews: And it says, “Ellensburg Experience Saves National Conference.” And the
first paragraph reads, “After the National Women‟s Conference adjourned–“ and this was
in Houston, “Judith Lonnquist, the Washington state delegation coordinator, relaxed,
smiled, and proudly said, „Our contribution to the conference was the national plan of
action.‟”
Lonnquist: Yes. And I think that‟s very true. We were, Washington state delegation was
very well organized, as a result of the Ellensburg conference. I gave a course in
parliamentary procedure, so that everybody in the delegation knew the ins and outs. Not
just what it said, but how you could use it to be effective on the floor. And we had a plan
of action that we thought was very effective. So what I did was I divided up the
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responsibilities among the delegates for each plank, so that we had a liaison for each
workshop at the Houston conference to argue for our particular statement of what the
issue was. And then I acted as troubleshooter. We had a lot of problems with the welfare
women‟s plank, and I remember a lot of heavy negotiations there, in which the
Washington delegation played a huge part. The same with the women of color caucus, we
had a lot of role in mediating the divisions within the women of color caucus.
And we were the best organized on the floor. We had runners. We had people at
every microphone, whether they were actually going to speak or not. And their
assignment was to either speak, or, if they‟d reached the limit of speakers, to call the
question. So we could control the debate, and control the process. And when I say
control, I don‟t mean in a bad way. I mean, keep the business moving. And so we were
very effective. Everybody saw what we were doing, and they relied on us to give us
information, and let us help them coordinate their delegations.
I was on the Pro-Plan Caucus, which was the steering committee at Houston. So I
brought that information back to the Washington caucus, to talk about what we were
going to do that day, and to give assignments. So we were a very organized celebration.
Andrews: Can you talk a little bit about the atmosphere of Houston?
Lonnquist: Oh, it was amazing. I should mention, because I didn‟t mention a few
minutes ago, we also had huge support. We had something like fifty women from
Washington state in Houston who were not delegates. They came to be supportive. And
they brought us food if we needed food. They put Victory down for a nap when she
needed a nap. Anything that they could do to be of assistance to the Washington
delegation, they did. And they were just phenomenal.
We got to Houston, and of course, ringing where the conference was, were all
these anti-choice, anti-ERA people with placards and banners and vitriol. So you‟d have
to cross this picket line of people that were, mainly men, hurling abuse, verbal abuse, at
us. So you‟d walk this gauntlet, and then you would come into a place where the energy
level was so high, because, I think, women from all over the country had come to make a
statement about the status of women in the United States. And everyone was excited. And
it was palpable inside the arena. And it was just, it was a phenomenal experience. It was a
sea change in the women‟s movement.
Andrews: In your opinion, what was the significance of both Ellensburg and Houston?
Lonnquist: It put women‟s issues on the front page. It made society, at least for a little
window of time, aware that women were treated like second-class citizens in this country
and across the world. That women could do the impossible, because the media said
there‟s no way you can get the plan of action done in three days, there‟s just no way. And
we did it with time to spare.
Andrews: Who were some of the national leaders that were there?
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Lonnquist: Bella [Abzug], and Betty Friedan. Lady Bird Johnson. Gloria Steinem. I‟m
going down the list. Many of the NOW current and former presidents of NOW: Wilma
Scott Heide, Aileen Hernandez, Ellie Smeal.
Andrews: And were they easily accessible?
Lonnquist: Some were, some weren‟t. Lady Bird was not. She was on the dais, and
wasn‟t working the floor. Betty Friedan was on the floor a lot of the time. She was part of
the New York delegation. And of course, I knew Betty well from working with her at
NOW. Gloria was very active on the floor. But, you know, the conference was open,
anything in the conference was open to any delegate. So you could go to any of the
caucuses that were working on a speech issue and listen to the discussion among the
people participating. It was a very democratic process. Very, very interesting.
Andrews: Were you involved in chairing parts of the national?
Lonnquist: No, I was running the floor. Ellen Goodman and, I‟ve lost her name. From
New York. There were two of us that were in charge of the Pro-Plan Caucus. And we had
strategy meetings on a regular basis. Her name will come to me. The caucus worked to
get the plan of action adopted. So we were, I can talk about what I was doing. I was
moving from delegation to delegation, saying, “Who from this delegation is going to
speak, if anyone?” Getting them on the list, making sure the strongest speakers were at
the microphone so that we could coordinate who were the best people to speak. For
example, I asked Betty Freidan to move the adoption of the lesbian plank, simply because
of the history, what had been attributed to her in the early days of NOW. The lesbian
caucus thought that was great.
We lined up the best possible speakers on the Equal Rights Amendment, on
different facets of the ERA. We did that for all the planks. “Would you speak to this
particular issue, and be sure that you are sitting in a chair close to the microphone. The
minute the chair announces this plank is on the, open for debate, run to the microphone.
Take up as much space as you can.” Typical convention tactics. I went to a number of
conventions, mainly through the Democratic Party, to know what was the best way to
effective use of the microphone. So that was my job. The national people did the chairing
of the conference.
Andrews: Could talk a little bit about the Pro-Plan Caucus, how it evolved, what it was,
essentially?
Lonnquist: Well, it was delegates who supported the plan of action, who supported the
more feminist view of each of the planks. And the workshops had all been set up in
advance, according to, there were twenty-four, twenty-five different topics. And each
topic had a workshop, and the intention was that each workshop would produce a plank
for the national plank. And so from the experience in Ellensburg, because it hadn‟t
happened in the early days, and most of the East had had their state women‟s
conferences. We were sort of one of the last.
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Based on our experience, and the experience of some of the others, we knew what
was going to happen, or we anticipated what was going to happen in Houston. And that
was, the blue and white ladies were going to try to thwart the adoption of a pro-feminist
plan of action. So we knew that we needed some coordination. So a number of
delegations, mainly the chairs, got together at the beginning of the Houston, before the
Houston conference began, we set up. And remember, this is the days before cell phones
or emails, so it was quite an undertaking. But we set up this Pro-Plan Caucus. There was
to be at least one liaison from every state delegation to the Pro-Plan Caucus. We had
three, as I recall: Patricia Benevidez, Elaine LaTourelle, and myself. And we strategized
how best to get a good outcome, and then we would continue to lobby and touch base
with the various caucuses to make sure that everything was on track. It was well
organized.
Andrews: What kind of follow up activities did you participate in in the short term?
Lonnquist: Well, I was on the coordinating committee that came out of the conference to
make sure that any planned actions were implemented. I was on it for a year. And we had
regular meetings to basically try to get the plan of action moved into legislation. That
was not particularly effective in the long run. Because once the Houston conference was
over, Congress sort of moved on to other things. And it was difficult to get some of the
plan of action, it was difficult to get them to pay attention to the issues that we were
raising. I just happened to be a delegate, a Jimmy Carter delegate, to the Democratic
convention, which came up, the next Democratic convention after 1977.
Andrews: It was in 1980.
Lonnquist: In 1980. I was on the platform committee, and Gloria Steinem was also on
the platform committee. So she and I virtually single handedly got the whole plan of
action put into the Democratic platform, which was quite a coup. [laughs] I don‟t think
they know what hit them.
Andrews: I understand that the ERA was quite a factor.
Lonnquist: Well I had put in the platform a proposal that required the Democratic Party
to withhold support from any candidate that didn‟t support the Equal Rights Amendment.
That was my idea. Gloria thought it was a great idea. And the subcommittee, we got it
through the subcommittee, and got it in there. But then the platform committee as a
whole didn‟t want it. They made it a minority report. And as the drafter of the article, I
had the right to speak to the convention.
Well, this upset the leadership of the National Organization for Women
considerably because it wasn‟t them, it was me, and I was no longer in the leadership. So
it was a brokered deal that Betty Friedan made for NOW that I would allow, because as
the speaker, I got to designate two other speakers, that I would allow Ellie Smeal to be
one of the other speakers. She was the president of NOW. And there had been this major
schism in NOW. Some of us got booted out. And I had been re-elected. So it was sweet
irony that Ellie would have to come and beg me to let her speak to the convention.
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Andrews: Could you talk about the schism?
Lonnquist: I will. Let me finish this. I had every intention of agreeing to this, but I
wanted her to sort of spin in the wind a little until I said yes. So it was sort of sweet. And
then Sonja Johnson, who was a Mormon in support of the Equal Rights Amendment was
the other speaker. So it was me and Sonja and Ellie.
This is a very long story about the split in NOW. What had happened was we had
an executive director in Chicago. So the national office was in Chicago. And the people
in Chicago, the NOW people in Chicago, and in the Middle West in general, and in the
West, were very much in favor of a delegate system. Because up to then, wherever the
convention was, the subsequent slate of officers and board would all be from that region.
So if it was in Pennsylvania, the board would be heavy with East Coast officers, members
of the board, or if it was in California, same thing. And the rest, of course, the Middle
West gets left out there every time. This was before I moved to Seattle.
So I had proposed, as legal vice president, that we adopt a delegate system, where
we had delegated convention. Well the East quickly saw that that was not to their
advantage. They were very opposed to the delegate system. And they were, for the same
reason, opposed to having the national office in the Middle West, because they felt that
they were losing control of the organization. So we had a majority on the board, and we
had a very good executive director, and a very good office staff. And for the first time in
a long time, NOW was really chugging, because we had people working on a day-to-day
basis. Up until then, it had been a totally volunteer organization. So the minority group –
by minority I mean numerical minority – on the NOW board, decided that they would fire
Jane Plitt, the executive director, and close down the national office.
And so they had elected Karen DeCrow as president, whose sole purpose, I think,
for running and being elected president was to close down the national office and get rid
of the executive director. Karen had never practiced law, but she had a law degree. I
don‟t think she passed the bar. But in any event, she meets with Jane and says, “You‟re
fired.”
And the majority of the board members heard about this, and we said, “You can‟t
do that. You have to bring it to the board. The board authorized her hiring.” And, as legal
vice president, I made the ruling that Karen would have to have just cause for firing her.
And when she has the burden of just cause it means she has to prove first, she has to go
first and prove that there‟s reason to fire Jane, because there was no good reason for
firing Jane.
So we had this meeting in New Orleans, and this was going to be the time when
DeCrow was going to be put to the test. And I made that motion that Karen establish just
cause for her notice of termination. And the numerical minority got up and walked out of
the room, including the secretary. Betty Kersh, who was one of the delegates to
Ellensburg, who was on the board. She was the regional director. She stood up in this
meeting and she said, “Let the record show that the secretary‟s absconding with the tape
recorder.” Well of course, the record was going out the door with the secretary. So there
was this big schism, DeCrow and Smeal were the two candidates. And so probably, oh
maybe what was a third of the board left. So we did our business.
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Well, the next convention was in Pennsylvania. It was not a delegated convention.
So they packed, Ellie Smeal was from Pennsylvania. So they packed the floor at the
national conference, just like the blue and white ladies tried to do in Ellensburg, with the
people who were bound and determined to get rid of these “evil people” who were
forcing the president to give reasons why she was going to fire the executive director. Of
course, I was the main target. So they ran a non-lawyer against me. They ran Ellie for
president. I can‟t remember who all, but none of us from the old slate of officers except
Elaine [LaTourelle] got reelected. She got reelected, and then she was all alone with all
the others. So it was not a very happy term of office for Elaine. But legislation was key to
what NOW was doing at the time, it was good that we had somebody that was really
competent.
So we called it the Pennsylvania Railroad, this convention, because they
railroaded all of us out. That was fine. I had plenty of other feminist work for me and
plenty of other avenues to accomplish change. So I came back to Seattle and was elected
chapter president, just so I could be a thorn in Ellie‟s side. Eventually, the delegate
system was adopted.
Andrews: How long did that take?
Lonnquist: A couple of years.
Andrews:
Then, did it become cohesive?
Lonnquist: No, I don‟t think it‟s ever been resolved. My view of it was that there were a
group of women and men that were in NOW for what each individual could give to the
organization. And then there was another group of women who were in NOW for what
NOW could give to them. Generally, in group one, you found people who were mostly
interested in reform in education or employment, in doing active things like bringing
lawsuits, seminaring, that sort of thing, activist kinds of things. In Ellie‟s group, there
were more passive consciousness raising groups, demonstrations. And it‟s always a
philosophical difference. They didn‟t want a delegate system, we did. We didn‟t want
paid officers. They would agree to the delegate system if we would agree to pay officers.
And I don‟t think that NOW has really been as strong or as vibrant organization since
that time.
And I attribute the loss of the Equal Rights Amendment to the schism in NOW,
because we lost two very crucial years with internecine fighting when we could have
been duking it out in the state legislatures, and getting the ERA ratified.
Andrews: Do you recall much about efforts to save the Washington State Women‟s
Council following the Houston, the Ellensburg conference? There was a referendum to
rescind it. Were you involved in any of that?
Lonnquist: Not really, no.
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And then the irony, of course, is we elected our first woman governor, and she
eliminated it.
: I mean, I shouldn‟t say I wasn‟t involved. Marianne Kraft Norton was a friend, and she
was the executive director, and a marvelous director. So I would do lobbying and
speaking and that sort of thing. But I wasn‟t one of the key persons involved.
Andrews: There‟s another article in one of the newspapers about, “State women to DC,
almost a waste of time” is what the heading is. It‟s the Seattle Times, March 25, 1978.
And that was, of course, following the Houston conference.
Lonnquist: Right. The coordinating committee.
Andrews: Yes. Meetings with the president, you‟ve covered quite a bit of this, and I
thought this was a rather fascinating article. There‟s just so much in it about you as copresident of Seattle King County NOW at the time. It says you summarized the
continuation committee meetings as “disorganized and without agenda.”
Lonnquist: That was my impression, because many of the people had been appointed by
the White House. I‟m not saying the White House did this intentionally, but the people
that were appointed were not the worker bees. And you know, if you want anything
implemented, you need worker bees.
Andrews: It also talks here about meeting with Senator Magnuson and Senator Jackson.
Lonnquist: They were supporters.
Andrews: Especially about Senator Magnuson, how he read all this documentation.
Lonnquist: Yes, he was quite a guy. They both were very interesting men. Of course,
both of them had been in the Senate when I worked for Senator Douglas.
Andrews: Did you know them at that time?
Lonnquist: I knew them at that time.
Andrews: Do you have more to say about that meeting, or subsequent White House
meetings?
Lonnquist: The White House meetings were mainly receptions. They weren‟t working
meetings. I don‟t think that the federal government had much of an interest in actually
doing anything beyond opening the conference. I think they thought that we would sit
down and be quiet after we had our conference.
Andrews: It was more political, then. From your perspective, how have women‟s lives
changed since the conferences? Or have they stayed the same?
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Lonnquist: Well, I think that the, I‟m not sure it‟s as a result of the conference, but
certainly the awareness, the heightened awareness of women‟s issues, gave other women
an awareness that there were problems. I see that in my business. Back in those days,
women were fairly routinely sexually harassed and they didn‟t have a name for it. They
didn‟t recognize it. That‟s the same thing with, most of the discrimination. You have
what‟s happening to you or people you know, but you don‟t have a conscious awareness
of what it really is, because in many respects, discrimination can be very subtle and
understated. It‟s no less invidious, but there‟s not in your face awareness of it,
particularly at the time of the Houston conference.
I think that raising these issues, debating these issues, bringing these issues out
into the public gave a greater awareness in general of the problems that women face in
employment and education and government services and etcetera, etcetera, fill in the
blank. And that sort of was another step in the ultimate goal, which is ongoing of
equality for women. We certainly have seen a major change in the status of women since
the 1970s. I‟m not saying that‟s necessarily all attributable to this Ellensburg/Houston
process, but I think there was a good part of it that was. It certainly got people going at
the Ellensburg conference, got their juices flowing, and that carried on for a number of
years. I mean, I think a number of the women who ran for the legislature after that, or ran
for school board, were sparked by the interest that they developed in Houston or in
Ellensburg. So we probably can‟t trace a lot of the change directly to it, but I intuitively
believe that it did make a great deal of difference.
Andrews: If there were specific issues, and there were many, that concerned you during
Ellensburg and Houston, have they been resolved, do you think?
Lonnquist: No, we still don‟t have an equal rights amendment. I think we still need an
equal rights amendment. I‟m still grossly disappointed in a country that was founded on
democratic principles that they haven‟t extended a constitutional right for women in this
country. And I‟m hoping that sometime soon we‟ll have another equal rights amendment
come through the Congress.
Abortion is always still a challenge. We have to fight, we have to be ever vigilant
on the right to choose. States like South Dakota pass these draconian laws. This is the
state that has no doctor except maybe one that performs abortion. These are services that
are not given to a segment of our society, and who is that segment? Well, it‟s women.
Not women of my age, but my daughter‟s age. That‟s always an issue. Employment is
always an issue, and women still continue to be discriminated against in the workforce,
that there‟s very clearly a glass ceiling. There‟s a wage gap.
And that‟s why I‟m particularly pleased to see Hilary Clinton throw her hat in the
ring because it will put women and women‟s issues, not necessarily that Hilary will raise,
but that will be raised by virtue of having a viable candidate for presidency that‟s a
female. This is an ongoing dialogue that this country has yet to conclude.
And there‟s a country in South America, I can‟t remember which one it is, it may
be Argentina, that now has a woman president. And when you think about, this is a
Catholic country, this is the land of machismo, and they have a woman president, and
sixty percent of their national budget is health and human services. And then you
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compare that with this country, that has a military budget that‟s bigger than all the
countries in the world. And we‟re cutting off (Indian?) health. There‟s no money in
Bush‟s budget for (Indian?) health. I mean, it‟s a travesty.
Andrews: By the same token, just taking that a step farther, could you comment on
Washington state?
Lonnquist: Oh, what a great state! [laughs]
Andrews: What‟s happened here in terms of the racial, gender, racial, in politics?
Lonnquist: NOW voted us the best place for a woman to live.
Andrews: Really? National NOW?
Lonnquist: National NOW. This was the work of Washington women. Again, a handful
of women led by Lee Kraft, who was in the Washington legislature. After the
Washington state Equal Rights Amendment, Lee and a number of other women held
meetings and did a review of all of the Washington statutes. And they enacted laws so
that every single statute was made equally applicable to women. And, you know, we have
a state equal rights amendment. There are no restrictions on abortion in this state. There‟s
a strong law against employment discrimination, housing discrimination, the laws that are
on our books are just very, very, very good, and very helpful to women. So it‟s a great
place for women to live and work and raise their families. It‟s not surprising to me that
the majority, for quite a long time, the majority of the supreme court were women. And
we have more women on the superior court than any other state in the nation. Look at the
number of women in the legislature, the city council, in the county councils. Everywhere
I turn, there are good women who are in positions of power.
Andrews: Of course, our governor.
Lonnquist: Our governor. That‟s true.
Andrews: And one more question that I think, I‟m sure you answered it, but I‟d like to
go back to it, about the ERA. I know you lectured all over the country, pro-ERA. Could
you just summarize what you said, and what some of the arguments against, or what kind
of opposition you faced? I‟d like to hear it from you.
Lonnquist: “Equality of rights shall not be denied on account of sex” is a very simple
statement that basically what it would mean for the national basis is the same thing it
meant that I just went through for the state. The entire federal register, federal code of
laws would have to be analyzed to make sure that there was no disparity. There‟s no
nefarious undercurrent there at all. It is what it is, and it does what it does. But opponents
to the Equal Rights Amendment came up with fairly ridiculous, in my view, arguments
that this would mean unisex bathrooms.
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And after a while, when you do this debate often enough, finally you get to
humor. My response to that was, “Do you have a men‟s room and a ladies‟ room in your
home? Or do you have a unisex bathroom?”
That it would force women into the trenches. And who says that the lives of our
male children are less valuable than the lives of our female children? That it really is a
just war, to the extent that‟s not an oxymoron, which is a whole other topic, but to the
extent that the United States determines this is a war we need to wage, why isn‟t that
responsibility put on the shoulders of all of its citizens instead of– and of course, the
military is a prime way for poor people to get training and to get career advancement.
And of course that‟s denied to women, because there‟s not a lot of combat authority, and
you need combat, you need that in order to be respected and to move up the ranks.
Those were the major objections to the Equal Rights Amendment. Plus, we didn‟t
need it. That was the major one. And those were pretty well debunked. I don‟t think
anyone, really, who was not an ideologue, believed those statements.
And the little anecdote about that, I was on a late night talk show with Phyllis
Schlafly in Chicago before I moved out here. It was one of those from eleven o‟clock to
two o‟clock in the morning. And you know, three hours is a very long time to talk about
one topic. So we were sort of making up things to say, and answering callers. Well this
one person, a man, called in, and he said something about, “Well, is it going to force
women into the trenches?” or something. Phyllis made up some patently ridiculous
response to this.
And then we had a station break. We went off the air and I said, “Oh, Phyllis. You
know that‟s not true.”
She said, “I know, but it sounds good.”
Sort of sums it all up, to me, anyway, that it was just a matter of sounding good.
Andrews: I‟m glad I asked that question.
Lonnquist: I just came back from South Africa. And the constitution of South Africa has
an equal rights amendment in it. And it sort of saddened me that a very small country in
the so-called Third World has a constitutional provision that the women in this country
don‟t have. It makes a statement about our democracy.
Andrews: In summary, I think I‟ve asked my questions. In summary, is there anything
else you‟d like to add?
Lonnquist: No, except I‟m very happy that this is happening. What a great idea, to put
into law the requirement that the women‟s history in Washington state be preserved.
Andrews: Well, thank you so much for your contribution. This has been fabulous.
Lonnquist: Good. Thank you.
[End Interview.]
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