SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE

Remarks at First Meeting of
the New Washington Branch of
the AAUW, Aug. 29, 1949

Remarks at First Meeting of New Washington Branch of AAUW-August 29-'49
Even though I should talk here three hours to night it would
be impossible for me adequately to express the satisfacton and
pleasure I feel at being able to attend the first meeting of the new
Washington Branch of the American Association of University Women
which hereby dedicates itself to the principles of Justice and Democracy
on which this great organization was founded many years ago -
With all my heart I want to congratulate and thank those
women who have worked so hard and so long, worked with so
much determination, enthusiasm and courage, worked indeed
with so much to make possible this meeting here to night.
Right now I am speaking as a guinea pig, you know,
And speaking as a guinea pig I realize that although I was the
casus belli, the cause of the confusion, worry and trouble in the
now defunct Washington Branc of the AAUW the women in the Minority Group
did not fight Injustice and Race Prejudice for me along. Those women
put on their armor, marshaled their forces and challenged the evil
forces so that women all over the world should be the beneficiaries
of the struggles and the battles they waged, so that no other
women would ever be humiliated and coldbloodedly rejected
by a Branch of the AAUW solely because of her race.
When on June 22nd the delegates to the National AAUW
convention in Seattle voted 2168 to admit all qualified women
without regard to Race or religion with only 65 opposing,those delegates
simply finished the work which the Minority Group in Washington
so courageously started nearly 3 years ago. To a great extent the Minority Group
here in Washington deserve credit for that overwhelmingly favorable vote
of 2168 for Justice and Democracy, a vote which was a veritable miracle of
modern times. Before that Seattle Convention it is safe to assert that
not a single human being in this country would have predicted that
such an unprecedented, miraculous vote would have been cast.
2
The women in the Minority Group who started that crusade
which resulted in a 2168 vote for Justice and Democracy deserve the
gratitude, not only of the women of the United States who might
have been the unfortunate victims of a cruel discrimination
on account of their race, but they deserve the gratitude of women
of all races all over the world.
Since it has been my unpleasant duty to speak critically of
one Branch of the AAUW, I think it is my duty, as it certainly is a 
great pleasure to present another side of the story.
A short time after [when] my application for reinstatement was rejected by the
then Washington Branch of the AAUW, of which I had once been a
member for a long time, I received the following letter from Mrs.
Thomas Evans, president of the National Council of Women, formerly
president of the New York City Branch of the AAUW, who has held other
important officers in that Branch. Read the Letter.
to all Branches of the AAUW
That Seattle vote of 2168 to admit [all] qualified women without
regard to Religion or Race may have a far wider, far more powerful
and beneficial effect upon the history of our country than any of us here to night may realize
(1) It will encourage the women of the colored races to have more faith
in the Democracy of the United States, encourage them to believe our
[*This very minute there are 4 [??????]
Democracy is neither a fiction nor a farce but a fact (3) It does not
require a great stretch of the imagination to realize that the faith
of the colored races [of the world] in the Democracy of the US may be a powerful
factor in preserving the peace not only in our own country but [?] preserving all the world (2) this very minute there
are 4 human beings on this mundane sphere whose faces are colored
to every one whose face is white.

Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.