Ideas With Attitude

The indomitable Flo

By Georgie Bright Kunkel

After trying to locate Florynce "Flo" Kennedy in the late 1990s I gave up. I wanted to contact her to let her know that one chapter of my first book, Color Me Feminist, was all about her.

Recently I got the urge to locate her on the Web only to find that she had died at age 84 in 2000. I cried real tears and will do everything that I can to memorialize her. She was the original Raging Granny of the early activist movement, one of the few black women who dared to talk openly about women's equality when many people derided feminists.

Many years ago I headed a group that sponsored her appearance at Seattle Center. I personally guaranteed the rent of the venue and a group of us women circulated information about the event. To our delight over 800 people showed up to hear the wonderful Flo give lily-livered Congress members hell, as it were. She never pulled her verbal punches when criticizing those in power who dragged their feet in working for equality for everyone - women, minorities, the poor or anyone who was disenfranchised.

One Flo quote that got everyone's attention was, "The spending of our tax dollars by the Pentagon represents the greatest social disease of our country. I call it Pentagonorrhea."

She stood by prostitutes that were being harassed and raped without any justice in the 1970s. Her quote on this, "Prostitutes don't sell their bodies, they rent their bodies. Housewives sell their bodies when they get married and most courts do not regard the taking of a woman's body by her husband against her will as rape."

Most young people today don't remember those days before equal rights legislation was passed.

Flo contended that we are faced with government doublespeak (actually Flo used a stronger term here) and it piles up in mountains which are chocolate covered to make it more palatable. We are fooled into thinking it is great. And all we have to shovel it with is a teaspoon.

We have been fed a mountain of disinformation that we have been asked to believe all the way through Afghanistan and Iraq. We must help to spread the truth about what has happened in this country ending in our economic downfall and support a truly great leader with intelligence, strength, know how, and determination - a leader representing us all.

One way to do this is to stop taking in the drivel that the mega-media spews out over and over on talk shows and entertainment news channels. Talking heads are always willing to entertain with their conjecture and second-guessing if we are willing to sit and watch the tube without thinking intelligently. Then we need to refuse to watch the negative political ads, which are filled with innuendos and half truths.

Instead why not associate with groups that study the issues and learn about candidates? Why not read the words of people who do not have an ax to grind but who are brave enough to tell it like it really is? Why not refuse to be frightened like a deer in the headlights as we face economic uncertainty.

We have put our heads in the sand through aggressive warfare as corporations skimmed off profits and financial institutions were not monitored. Will we finally choose elected officials who will truly represent the will of the people? Whoever is elected, we need to keep the pressure on like Flo Kennedy kept the pressure on.

Long live Flo and her spirit that we need to carry with us into the challenging time ahead.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer, care manager for her husband and Rosie the Riveter contact for West Seattle at gnkunkel@comcast.net