Huge shout out to the Austin Public Library Manchaca Road Branch for inviting me to speak in celebration of Veteran's Day. Add a shout out to reader Keith Hunter for this Veteran's Day story. He emailed to share new information that surfaced recently about the American POW women featured in my book PURE GRIT. The Wisconsin State Historical Society has posted scrapbooks online telling the story of Army Nurse Marcia Gates posted to the Philippines before the start of World War II and later captured POW by the Japanese. The collection of two scrapbooks immediately reveals the desperation and hope of Lieutenant Marcia Gates' mother after the surrender of American forces to the Japanese attack in the Philippines. Also named Marica Gates, the woman wrote letter after letter in an effort to discover if her daughter was dead or alive. The War Department notified Mrs. Gates that Marcia was missing in action. She sought further information from the government, plus the Red Cross, the San Francisco Press Association, and television station WRG that had received tape recordings of American nurses who had escaped before the surrender. Nobody had any news of her daughter. The family had received a letter from Marcia dated the day of Corregidor's surrender. I can't help but wonder if they believed the lies mixed with the cheerful optimism the young nurse sent to comfort her mother. "Another short note to remind you again that I am safe and well and will be always, I'm sure. Now you must keep yourself the same. Sure am enjoying my work, plus plenty of food and rest. The weather where we are now is ideal—evenings cool, days windy and dry. Now don't worry because that would be silly. It anything does happen to me it will to everyone here. Just think, I wanted adventure and I got it." The Japanese attack on the Philippines cut right to the heart of the small town of Janesville, Wisconsin. As well as Army Nurse Marcia Gates, ninety-nine men from the town were serving there. A week prior to the attack A company of the 192 Tank Battalion had arrived at Ft. Stotsenburg and Clark Field. They became the first American tank unit to engage enemy armor in tank to tank combat during World War II. Many were kids, some still in high school. Others had been in the National Guard for years, but most had never expected to see actual combat. Those who survived the fighting, faced the Bataan Death March and the horrors of prison camp until the end of the war. Known as the Janesville 99, only 35 of the men survived to come home. Twenty of the survivors are pictured at left. In the Nixon Era, Republicans discounted Martha Mitchell's accusations, saying she was mentally unstable. Her attacker got promoted and President Trump recently promoted him again. In voting to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the swing voters said the same thing about Christine Blasey Ford. They just used more subtle phrasing. They implied she had been so traumatized she couldn't tell what was real and what was not. Nothing has changed but the excuses people use to justify discounting women's stories, and the science that would support them. Richard Huganir, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine says trauma would only help a woman remember an attack more clearly. “The person lying on top of you — who she’d previously met — you’re not going to forget that,” he told the Washington Post. “There’s a total consensus in the field of memory ... If anything, fear and trauma enhances the encoding of the memory at a molecular level." It's the reason people never forget details of where they were on 9/11, or the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. Martha and John Mitchell came to the white house from Arkansas in President Richard Nixon's first term, he as attorney general. She publicly and loudly supported the president for a second term as her husband took over the president's re-election campaign. But then Martha began to suspect Nixon's men were up to "dirty tricks." She listened in on her husband's meetings with Nixon, and concluded members of the campaign were acting illegally. Martha had always spoken her mind; the press had dubbed her "mouth from the south." She complained about the label, which wasn’t applied to men in Washington. “Why do they always call me outspoken? Can’t they just say I’m frank?” She asked. The name calling got worse. The night arrests in the Watergate break-in hit the news, Martha called reporter Helen Thomas of United Press International to say she thought her husband and the president were somehow involved. The phone call was suddenly cut short. According to Thomas, “…it appeared someone took away the phone from her hand." She heard Martha say, ‘You just get away.’” Thomas said she called back and the hotel operator told her, “Mrs. Mitchell is indisposed and cannot talk.” Martha later charged an FBI agent named Stephen King ripped the phone from her hands and subsequently threw her down and kicked her to keep her from making any phone calls. She says under orders from her husband she was locked in her room incommunicado for 24-hours. She was given alcohol, but no food. This seems like a good point in the story to introduce Stephen King (shown at left). After Nixon was re-elected in 1972, King left the FBI for private industry. Then last year, he was appointed Ambassador to the Czech Republic by Donald Trump. During his confirmation hearings, no questions came up about allegations he helped in the Watergate cover-up, or that he assaulted a woman to that end. Martha Mitchell claimed King held her prisoner despite a number of escape attempts. When she tried to exit through a glass door they got into a tussle that broke the glass and her hand was cut so badly she required six stitches. Martha said a doctor was finally summoned to aide King in keeping her a prisoner. King forced Martha onto the bed and held her down while the doctor removed her pants and gave her a shot of tranquilizer. A reporter who spoke with Martha after she was released described her as “a beaten woman,” with “incredible" black and blue marks on her arms. As Nixon fought for his office and reputation, his administration briefed the press about the Martha's lack of credibility. She was portrayed as a paranoid, publicity-seeking and, possibly alcoholic, housewife. Rumors spread that she had been institutionalized for insanity. Martha wanted Nixon to fire Steve King, but the agent was promoted to chief of security. After leaving the FBI he went on to a lucrative career in chemical manufacturing. Arriving in Prague, last December, to take up duties as Trump's Ambassador to the Czech Republic, King told Radio Free Europe reporters, "I was there when this matter occurred [with Martha Mitchell]....But I have chosen -- then and now -- not to really speak to it specifically only out of respect to the Mitchell family, those that survive today." Nixon himself said, “If it hadn’t been for Martha Mitchell, there’d have been no Watergate [scandal].” Scandal, he means. But by the time he resigned in August of 1974, Martha's marriage had crumbled, she appeared to have possibly had an emotional breakdown and had suffered embarrassing publicity. So far, the only justice for Martha has been in the form of recognition by the mental health community. Harvard psychologist Brendan Maher encountered mental patients incorrectly diagnosed as being delusional, when it turned out their "delusions" were true. He named this the Martha Mitchell Effect. The effect is not a mental problem of the patient, but a mental block on the part of the psychiatrist. Seems like today we have a mental block on the part of half the senators in Washington. Thanks to YA Author Jody Casella for telling me about Martha Mitchell. Another courageous woman whose story I had not known. I've got a terrific love story for you today, but first, exciting news. Advanced Review Copies of Standing Up Against Hate arrived! Known in the biz as ARCs, these are cheap, paperback, uncorrected proofs of the book, which comes out in January. From the book jacket: "Standing Up Against Hate offers a much-need perspective on the lives of women of color during wartime America." Marcia M. Anderson, U.S. Army (Ret.) It tells the stories of African American women who enlisted in the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in World War II. They faced as many obstacles in the armed forces as they did in everyday life, but they survived racial prejudice and discrimination with dignity, succeeded in jobs women had never worked before, and made crucial contributions to the military war effort. The Power of Love Stands Against HateToday's featured story is about an African American woman who served in the Army Nurse Corps. She had the extraordinary courage to stand against hate in the most personal way, all day every day. Elinor Powell fell in love with a German POW and chose him, for better or worse, knowing their interracial marriage was against the law in 29 states. Elinor grew up near Boston, in a small town that was integrated. She played with white children, went to school with them and never saw a drinking fountain labeled “White’s Only”. (Photo courtesy Smithsonian Magazine and Chris Albert) When America called for nurses during WWII, Elinor wanted to serve her country. But the segregated Army Nurse Corps came as quite a shock. Elinor deployed to Camp Florence, near Phoenix, Arizona, where her army uniform did not exempt her from Jim Crow laws. Off base, Elinor was refused service at a Woolworth's lunch counter. On base, she suffered further indignity, forced to tend German POWs, soldiers from the army gobbling up territory to expand Hitler’s white supremacist regime. Some POWs called the black nurses derogatory names, and the U.S. Army wasn't a whole lot better. There was a shortage of nurses to treat American wounded, but hundreds of black nurses were turned away. Elinor wanted to use her skills to aid men who'd been wounded fighting the Nazis. The Army posted her to the Arizona desert at a hospital for German POWs that rarely needed medical care. One day, Elinor walked into the mess hall for a meal and was approached by one of the German men. Frederick Albert was a baker in the kitchen and when he saw Elinor, it was love at first sight. He walked up and introduced himself. "You should know my name. I'm the man who's going to marry you." I imagine Elinor wasn't moved at the moment, she may even have suspected she was the butt of a joke. But Frederick didn't hold with Nazi doctrine. Like many German soldiers, he'd been drafted and forced to serve in the military. And he was a persistent man. He volunteered to work at the hospital. He organized baking classes and Elinor attended. She saw that he was kind and he made her feel desirable. Soon they were meeting in secret. Enemies in love. Their love story is told in a new book by Alexis Clark. It's not all sunshine and roses. Fredrick was caught sneaking our of Elinor's barracks and punished with a beating. Not because he was a POW consorting with an American, because he was a white man dating a black woman. According to the publisher, Enemies in Love " paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court's Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage—revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection in one of history’s most violent conflicts." You could understand how this romance might fade away when the war ended and Frederick was shipped home to German. But these two concocted a daring plan. They got pregnant, hoping that would help Frederick get a visa to come back to the States. Elinor hid her pregnancy until she was discharged from the Army, then went home to her proper family in her proper New England town. Her mother wasn't happy. Honestly, I can't blame her for thinking her daughter was being duped by a cad who might never return, and if he did, might just want a green card, not a biracial family. But Frederick was true. He got permission to return to the U.S. and the couple married. Initially, they moved to Germany settling with Frederick's wealthy family where he was poised to take over his father's engineering company. But Frederick's mother wouldn't accept her African American daughter-in-law, and treated her rudely. The townspeople didn't take to Elinor, either. Author Alexis Clark told NPR, "People were pointing, taunting her when she was walking down the street. She remembers that a man dropped his groceries when he saw her and the fruit just rolled down the lane. He couldn't believe it! She said she felt like an animal in a zoo. And so the family moved back to New England, where their troubles continued. Frederick had trouble finding jobs because he was German. They had trouble finding a place to live because Elinor was black. But their love persevered. Eventually, they discovered a place where people had consciously chosen to live in an integrated community. They made a home in South Norwalk, Connecticut, where a diversity of mixed-race couples, Jewish families, gays and other misfits of post-war America were welcome. Pepperidge Farms baking company was located in Norwalk, and I knew there was a reason I love those cookies! The company, founded by a woman during the Depression, hired Frederick as a baker. This day in history, May 4, 1886, saw possibly the most significant event in American labor history: Haymarket. Controversy churns over the details even now some 130 years later. In schools across the U.S. our kids are taught that anarchists, socialist and communists rioted that day. Haymarket Riot is the answer to a question on the Advanced Placement U.S. History exam. Socialist and Communists--the ultimate enemies of American ideals, and yet, what these workers wanted was simply to lay down their tools at five o'clock, go home and have dinner with their families. Sixty hour workweeks were the norm. This was a case of labeling, the type still prevalent in America that allows us to immediately discount a group of people and their concerns. As you know, the words we choose to describe what we see are not idle, they determine what we see. One award-winning curriculum developer offers teachers a lesson plan on the Haymarket that asks students to "read like a detective" to gain a clear understanding of a newspaper article published the following day by the Chicago Hearld. Only this one source is offered on the subject and the event is called a riot by teachers following this guide. At the time, there were numerous English newspapers in Chicago, as well as German and Irish newspapers that would have reported on this event, many of the striking workers were German and Irish immigrants. What happened in Haymarket, a public market square in Chicago, stemmed from a labor strike that started on May Day. More than 350-thousand workers across the country joined in demanding an 8-hour workday. Among them were machinists at Chicago's McCormick Reaper Company. They built a piece of farm machinery which had replaced scythes for cutting crops. Imagine how vastly the reaper improved farmers' productivity and increased the food supply for all Americans. McCormick locked out the striking workers and hired new men to take their jobs. When strikers gathered outside the plant to protest violence broke out between strikers, strikebreakers and police. It's unclear how many people were injured, at least one was killed. What we do know is that workers planned a meeting to protest police brutality the next day in Haymarket Square. Some fifteen hundred people showed up and protested peacefully. After most of the crowd had gone home, police marched out in force to disburse the remaining crowd. Suddenly a pipe bomb exploded among police ranks panicking everyone. Police opened fire on the crowd. The bomb killed seven policemen. At least four civilians were shot and more than sixty demonstrators injured. A frenzy swept Chicago that night as police rounded up labor leaders and suspected radicals. In addition they arrested hundreds of workers, many of whom were interrogated and beaten. No evidence ever identified who threw the bomb. Eight men stood trial, four hanged. Historians still debate the accuracy of the charges and fairness of the trial. The Haymarket Affair delayed the 8-hour day and kindled xenophobia against radicals and immigrants that haunted labor unions for decades and continues in America today. Our kids are taught that this protest against police brutality, this strike for the eight-hour workday, was a riot by workers. To make sense of political issues today like "the right to work," "Obama Care," and immigration. Kids need to know American labor history. The Library of Congress puts out curriculum aides for teachers on all sorts of history topics. You may or may not be shocked at the wording of their labor history lesson. "One especially significant labor upheaval was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Wage cuts in the railroad industry led to the strike, which began in West Virginia and spread to three additional states over a period of 45 days before being violently ended by a combination of vigilantes, National Guardsmen, and federal troops. Similar episodes occurred more frequently in the following decades as workers organized and asserted themselves against perceived injustices." Will you do one thing today to help America's kids learn a balanced view of our labor history? Click here for a round-up of great books for kids on the topic. Then call your public library and ask them to stock one or two of them. Better yet, purchase one and donate it to your local school. Thanks so much! When facing news of the worst kind, we hope for the courage to see beyond our pain and grief to something larger we can believe in, something enduring to hold us up and carry us onward. A new book for teens highlights the moment Senator Bobby Kennedy delivered the awful news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination to a crowd of African Americans. In that terrible moment, Kennedy faced the specter of violence and hate with vulnerability. His courage to reach beyond differences and find common ground in pain and grief touched people profoundly. Kennedy was running for president, scheduled for a campaign rally in a black neighborhood of Indianapolis. News of MLK’s death sparked violence across the country. The mayor said it was too dangerous for Kennedy to speak. Police refused to escort him to the scene. There was no social media or 24-hours news coverage in 1968. Arriving at the rally, Kennedy realized the clamoring crowd did not know King had been shot. Claire Rudolf Murphy is the author of Martin and Bobby: A Journey Toward Justice. The book is not due out until August, but it is available for pre-order now here... to mark the 50th year since King's death, she is joining us here on the blog to give you a sneak peak at the book, and share how she came to write it. Claire: On April 4, 1968 Senator Robert Kennedy spoke at a campaign rally in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis. But instead of telling the crowd why they should vote for him for president, he had to announce that violence had struck again. “I have sad news for you, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world . . . Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.” Riots had already erupted in cities across the country. But that night in Indianapolis the crowd stood quietly in silent grief because Bobby Kennedy didn’t talk to them like a politician. He shared that he had lost a family member, too, addressing them as people who also knew the pain of great loss. Earlier in the 1960s, King and Bobby Kennedy, as attorney general under his brother President John F. Kennedy, had challenged and tested each other as wary allies in the fight for civil rights. But by the spring of 1968, as Kennedy began his campaign for the presidency and King made final plans for the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D. C., they had arrived in the same place. Both men declared often and publicly that Americans had a moral imperative to end the war in Vietnam and address poverty and racism. I knew nothing about Bobby’s April 4th speech until one evening several years ago when my mother, husband and I watched the documentary “A Ripple of Hope” about Robert Kennedy. Today Bobby’s speech is available on You Tube and often referenced in articles about King’s assassination. But in 1968 regional events were only broadcast on TV local stations. Watching Bobby’s speech for the first time in 2012 I was awed by the beauty of his words, and the sorrow in his voice that touched the crowd so deeply. I had to learn more. I wanted to understand how and why Kennedy had such courage and was able to give such a powerful, healing speech on one of the worst days in America’s history. I had written children’s books for many years and decided that day that I wanted to share with teen readers’ Bobby’s speech and his relationship with Dr. King. During the many years of researching and writing this book, I got lost often in the events of the sixties, and my own personal history since I was 17 in 1968. The epilogue was the most difficult to write. Fifty years later, income disparity has grown even greater, poverty continues to place its heavy burden on families and communities, and divisive political rhetoric divides our country. The words of Martin and Bobby still offer inspiration and insight on how to face the historic challenges of economic and racial inequality. But we need that same inspiration and call to action from our leaders today. However, the young activists give me hope. I also know it is time for me and other concerned Americans of all ages to raise our voices, so that the lives of King and Kennedy, and all those who have died protesting for change, are not forgotten. Martin and Bobby: A Journey Towards Justice will be published By Chicago Review Press in October 2018. Listen to KPBX Public Radio interview Claire about King and Kennedy here... |
I'm fascinated to discover little-known history, stories of people and events that provide a new perspective on why and how things happened, new voices that haven't been heard, insight into how the past brought us here today, and how it might guide us to a better future.
I also post here about my books and feature other authors and their books on compelling and important historical topics. Occasionally, I share what makes me happy, pictures of my garden, recipes I've made, events I've attended, people I've met. I'm always happy to hear from readers in the blog comments, by email or social media. Archives
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