Fighting for Ideas and Dollars

Wednesday, May 22
7-8:30 pm
Portland State University
2nd floor Gallery, Urban Affairs
506 SW Mill

Panel, Q & A discussion, Free

Ten years before gaining official recognition in 1980 as a program, female students and professors met to plan and implement the inclusion of Women’s Studies courses at Portland State University. Eventually it became a department granting degrees.

In 1980, 22 Oregon university and college women faculty members filed Penk, et al. v. Oregon State Board of Higher Education alleging sex discrimination in pay, promotion, and treatment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Panelists: Nona Glazer, Professor Emerita, PSU Sociology Dept., helped bring Women’s Studies to PSU and was a plaintiff in the Penk case.  Julia M. Allen participated as a graduate student in the development of the Women’s Studies Program at Portland State during the early to mid 1970s. She is now Professor Emerita, English Department, Sonoma State University. JoAnn Reynolds was associate counsel with Don Willner, in the Penk case, which was tried from September 1984 to June 1985. She now specializes in family law. Marjorie Burns is Professor Emerita, PSU English Dept. She was a witness for Penk v. the Oregon State Board of Higher Education.

Lecture, Q & A discussion,  Free

The Portland women’s movement of the 70s began with protests and consciousness raising but quickly expanded to include projects and services: bookstores, abortion information and referral, a rape hotline, women’s studies and a daycare center at PSU, a feminist school, a building, a health clinic and more. This panel will include Kristan Aspen, Ruth Gundle, Ann Mussey, and May Wallace and cover Red Emma, Prescott House leading to Bradley Angle, the Feminist Health Clinic, Rape Relief Hotline and the Community Law Project.

Thursday, January 24, 7pm
328 Smith Center, Portland State University, 1825  SW Broadway

Panel, Q&A, Free

Maureen Gray Hudson is an artist, writer and web publisher. She was active in Portland’s city-wide women’s organizing projects, including the  women’s speaker’s bureau and women’s center. In the late 60s and early 70s she was active at Portland State in the day care organizing project, the chair of PSU Speaker’s Bureau, President of S.D.S.  and co-founder of Women University Members.

Kathleen Saadat has been an activist in Portland, OR since the 1970′s.  She worked with several women’s groups both social and political.  Among them The Black Women’s Rap Group; Las Mujheres de Colores de Oregon; Radical Women; Black Lesbians and Gays United.  She was also part of the group of women who responded to the government’s attack on the Fred Hampton Clinic; participated in consciousness raising groups and community building during that time.

Susan Stoner is a local union attorney and historical mystery writer. She was involved in the early 1970′s with the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCHES), started the Women’s Health Clinic in Neighborhood House, Health Rap, Outside In and a whole slew of community activist projects ranging from children and families to prisoner advocacy.

Moderator: Sandy Polishuk is an oral historian, writer and activist. In the late 60s and early 70s she helped organize women’s consciousness raising groups, was a member of both the first women’s studies coordinating committee at PSU and the city-wide women’s movement speakers bureau.

Come learn about the surprisingly progressive agenda of the Grange (Not a casino!).

Wednesday, Nov 14, 7-8:30 pm at 236 Smith Center, Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway.

Born in the aftermath of the Civil War, for more than 140 years the Grange has played an important role in the fight for prosperity and opportunity for farmers and rural Americans. It was at the forefront in lobbying for regulation of transportation and public utilities, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and Universal Suffrage (1919). The Grange has been the driving force behind improving transportation, waterways; rural postal delivery and how we vote. Additionally, it established cooperative stores and elevators.

Featuring Theresa Thorud, Program Director of the Washington–Yamhill Pomona Grange. Thorud has done extensive research on the history of Granges and fraternal insurance.

100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century:A Social Justice Hall of Fame, by Peter Dreier

A hundred years ago, any soapbox orator who called for women’s suffrage, laws protecting the environment, an end to lynching, or a federal minimum wage was considered a utopian dreamer or a dangerous socialist. Now we take these ideas for granted— because the radical ideas of one generation are often the common sense of the next. We all stand on the shoulders of earlier generations of radicals and reformers who challenged the status quo of their day. Unfortunately, most Americans know little of this progressive history. It isn’t taught in most high schools. You can’t find it on the major television networks. In popular media, the most persistent interpreter of America’s radical past is Glenn Beck, who teaches viewers a wildly inaccurate history of unions, civil rights, and the American Left. The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century, a colorful and witty history of the most influential progressive leaders of the twentieth century and beyond, is the perfect antidote.

Following World War II, a massive attack on the Left took place. This attack was in response to Soviet successes in World War II, the Chinese Revolution and a then popular American progressive movement. At the same time the newly created CIA moved to stop potential enormous gains for Communism in Western Europe. Domestically, the attack on the American left included demonization and massive propaganda, as well as the jailing of much of the leadership of the Communist Party. Unions were purged of their Left. Hollywood stopped making socially significant films. And the culture hunkered down into what we now understand as the Cold War mentality.

Dr. Joe Uris is an associate professor (ret.) of history and sociology at Portland State University, a journalist, and KBOO (Tuesday am) talk show host. From the early 60s on, Joe organized for peace and social justice in New York and Portland.

Our first fall program will feature Joe Uris

Since the early1800s, there have been labor struggles, struggles against slavery and struggles for a more equitable distribution of wealth in the United States. Uris will briefly examine some of that history, including the formation of labor unions, idealistic and utopian movements for social justice, peace movements and efforts to bring a better share of the resources of this continent to all its people.

This is a two-part program. Part 1  will cover early 1800s to 1945; part 2 will bring us up to the present.

Part 1: Thursday, September 27. Part 2: Thursday, October 18

Both will be meet at Portland State University in 413 Cramer Hall, 1721 SW Broadway from 7-8:30 pm. The programs are free.

Dr. Joe Uris is an associate professor (ret.) of history and sociology at Portland State University, a journalist, and KBOO (Tuesday am) talk show host. From the early 60s on, Joe organized for peace and social justice in New York and Portland.

During the national wave of anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s, Oregon’s Trojan Decommissioning Alliance (TDA) was the only group to target an operating nuclear plant for non-violent civil disobedience. Claiming headlines both for its demonstrations and its analysis of Trojan’s safety and costs, the work of the TDA was complemented by that of the Coalition for Safe Power, which participated in Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceedings.

The Coalition became Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA) in the 1980s. Nina Bell has been the Executive Director of NWEA since 1985. She was an organizer with TDA while simultaneously representing the public interest in licensing proceedings for numerous nuclear plants in the region.

At the next free program of History of Social Justice Organizing, Nina Bell, will compare the anti-nuclear movement and Occupy, discuss outreach before and after the internet, and talk about the balance between taking actions outside and within the system. A q&a will follow Bell’s talk.

Tuesday, May 22, 7pm at Peace House, 2116 NE 18th Ave. on the corner of NE Tillamook, 4 blocks north of Broadway, an easy walk NE from the Lloyd Center Max station (still a free ride from downtown) and  3 blocks from bus #8, 4 blocks from bus # 9

History of Social Justice Organizing is an ongoing series of presentations by activists and scholars on a wide variety of social justice organizing both in Portland and elsewhere. A program of Occupy History and Our School.

Past program are posted on You Tube. Find links to the full presentations at http://occupyhistory.us/node/13

History of Social Justice Organizing

The Oregon Farmworker Movement
featuring Abel Valladares & Larry Kleinman
Tuesday, April 24, 7pm
Peace House, 2116 NE 18th Ave.
Lecture, Q & A discussion, Free

Based in Woodburn, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) is Oregon’s farmworker union and the cornerstone of a broader movement for farmworker and immigrant justice in Oregon. PCUN’s mission is to improve the living and working conditions of Oregon farmworkers.  PCUN work includes collective bargaining and other workplace justice organizing, consumer education and organizing for farmworker rights, immigration representation for families who qualify for legal status, and advocacy for a new legalization program. In 2006, PCUN established its own low-power noncommercial radio station known in the community as Radio Movimiento.

Larry Kleinman was a co-founder of both the Willamette Valley Immigration Project (1977) and Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (1985). Larry has served as PCUN Secretary-Treasurer since 1988. Abel Valladares took up a leadership role in Oregon’s immigrants’ rights movement in the spring of 2006, during his senior year at Salem’s North High School, when he co-led a walk-out by more than a thousand students to protest anti-immigrant laws. He serves as a PCUN field organizer and coordinator of the “CAPACES” collaborative, fostering leadership and uniting nine grassroots organizations based in the Latino communities of Salem and Woodburn.

History of Social Justice Organizing is an ongoing series of presentations by activists and scholars on a wide variety of social justice organizing both in Portland and elsewhere. A program of Occupy History and Our School.

occupyhistoryna@gmail.com    occupyhistory.us  ourschoolportland.org
http://www.facebook.com/historyofsocialjustice  Twitter: @OWS_Historians