Check out my new blog post, "Ernestine Rose in New York City," at the Gotham Center.
Rose lived in New York City for 33 years, longer than in any other place. To my mind, she was the quintessential New Yorker. Her intelligence, her ready wit, her ability to oppose the mainstream, and her internationalism remain New York characteristics today. But then, as a lifelong New Yorker myself, I'm sure I'm biased. :)
Read more here.
From the 1870s to the 1890s, Col. Robert Ingersoll led the free-thought movement in the United States. By then, Ernestine Rose was ill and living in England. In 1885, when she had been widowed for three years and was 75, she wrote that she wished Ingersoll would "visit her, should he ever go to England." He never did, but she then contributed $10 -- a sizeable amount then -- to the Ingersoll Secular Society. In appreciation, the group proposed a toast to "Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, dear to all American Liberals."
Ingersoll wrote that "The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart." Although Rose did not live to see either women's suffrage nor the success of free thought, she remained committed to her causes and engaged in their success. In these difficult times of the Trump presidency, her true courage is a model to us all. We need to continue our resistance to actions we find repugnant. I particularly like Jen Hoffman's weekly Action Checklist, which has a variety of different actions depending on how much time or energy you have.
This image was created by Nat Bernstein of the Jewish Book Council. I'm blogging for them on their "Prosen People" column this week and next. Here are some recent interviews and writing:
The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Interview with Bonnie S. Anderson
Daily History
AHA Member Spotlight: Bonnie S. Anderson
The American Historical Association
How Jewish Was Ernestine Rose?
The Prosen People: Jewish Book Council
Agitate! Agitate! Ernestine Rose and the Age of Trump
The Prosen People: Jewish Book Council
On Saturday, January 21st, I went to the Women's March. It was amazing! There were so many people that crowds clogged all the streets from 42nd Street on up and from Second Avenue to Fifth. I haven't been in a demonstration that large since the big anti-Vietnam War one in Washington back in the day. The estimate is 400,000 people. And it was incredibly diverse: young and old (many people brought their children), black, white, brown, Asian, mostly women, but many men. I carried the new Shepherd Fairey print of a young Muslim woman wearing an American flag hijab, which had the message "We The People Are Stronger Than Fear." A number of people stopped to take my picture and three or four young Muslim women thanked me for carrying it. It was amazingly heartening. So too was the news of similar marches all around the planet. Let's hope this beings a movement that cannot be overthrown.
Donald Trump could not resist slamming the 76-year-old civil rights hero, John Lewis, for refusing to attend his inauguration because the election had been contaminated by Russian influence. Instead of letting it go, Trump, in a typical narcissistic tweet, told Lewis to see to his own congressional district since it was in terrible shape. Lewis represents downtown Atlanta, a thriving prosperous area.
In these times, I take heart from Ernestine Rose, who although she lived a hundred years ago, expressed all the values Trump denigrates. For one instance, in an era far more racist than our own, she continued to speak out not only against slavery, but for the controversial topic of integration -- which hardly any white Americans did at the time. In 1862, at an Anti-Slavery Convention, she not only praised abolition, she said that she would contribute funds for the publication of the black antislavery activist William Wells Brown's recent speech so that "it could be laid on the desk of the Members of Congress, and others, who may still be troubled with the absurd idea that slaves, if set free, cannot take care of themselves."
That's the America I honor and identify with.
In 1836, just a few months after she arrived in the United States, Ernestine Rose took a petition for women's rights door-to-door through lower Manhattan. "After a good deal of trouble I obtained five signatures," she recalled. "Some of the ladies said the gentlemen would laugh at them; others, that they had rights enough; and the men said the women had too many rights already." And yet this uphill activism helped start the women's movement in this nation.
Today, a few week from the inauguration from the man a friend calls "Trumpelthinskin," women are in a much stronger position than in 1836. But it now time again to agitate, to organize, to fight for our rights and those of others. Instead of mourning, we must organize. Nothing will happen without our activism. Rose provides inspiration. Now it is time for us to inspire others.
Today is the actual publication date of The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter.
In 1858, Ernestine Rose addressed a "Free Convention" in Rutland, Vermont. Especially concerned about women's participation, she declared that if they did not speak out, "Silence implies consent. It is high time the ladies learned to say No. Therefore if you mean yes, say yes; and if you mean no, say no; though you find yourself in a minority of one."
Rose was more isolated in her day than we are in ours. As both the president- and vice president-elect proclaim that they want to reverse Roe v. Wade, prevent funding for contraception much less abortion, and urge states to require "burials" for miscarriages and abortions, it is time for us to say NO! There are a number of ways to do this. Give donations to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Center for Reproductive Rights, or NOW. Many have done so in Mike Pence's name. Join the Women's Marches around the nation on the day after inauguration, January 21, 2017. I'll be in the New York one, which assembles at noon at Union Square and will march up 5th Avenue to Trump Tower. Write your representatives, and here actual letters and phone calls are more effective than emails or digital petitions. We can affect political decisions that will shape women's lives. Outlawing abortions does not mean the end of abortions, it just means the end of safe abortions. Do we want women to die as they did before Roe v. Wade? If you mean "no," say NO!
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.
Thanks to JEWISH CURRENTS and Sharon Rudahl for these Ernestine Rose Comics -- scroll down to see them all.
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.
For most of her 82 years, Ernestine Rose fought for women’s rights – especially the vote. She never lived to see it, but she also never gave up. “'Agitate! agitate!' Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation – the one is life, the other death,” she proclaimed. She spoke out and organized, petitioned and wrote. Her efforts helped bring about future gains and can inspire us to forge ahead now.
Ernestine Rose's older friend and ally, Lucretia Mott, said of the women's rights movement: "Any great change must expect opposition because it strikes at the very foundation of privilege,:" One good thing that I think has come out of this dreadful campaign is that women have begun to discuss the persistent sexual harassment in their lives. La lutta continua!