Henrietta Hay's Column

Whatever the Bill of Rights may say, civil liberties have been slow in coming. Historians will look at this as the century of expanding human rights.

There have been two interesting women in the news recently. They are diametrically different from each other as individuals, but both are or have been, involved in civil rights movements.

Some people have to set the stage for those who will follow. Such a woman was Marian Anderson, who died in April at the age of 96. She had possibly the greatest voice of the century. She only wanted to be a singer, but she turned out to be a freedom fighter.

She had a double handicap. She was female and she was black. She was refused admittance to a Philadelphia school of music because she was a Negro--not Black, not African American, not yet. Although she appeared in 1925 with the New York Philharmonic she could not find operatic engagements and her career came to a standstill. She went to Europe for training and, away from the racial prejudice of her native land, built an international reputation. Even so, she did not break the color barrier of the Metropolitan until 1955.

She is, however, remembered even more for an event that took place in 1939 than for her voice. That was the year that she sought to perform in concert in Washington's Constitution Hall. But the Daughters of the American Revolution, women who traced their ancestry to the rebellious colonists, barred her from singing there because she was a Negro. An appalled Eleanor Roosevelt promptly resigned her membership in protest. So did I, but I wasn't famous. The following Easter she made history as she stood in the rain on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and sang for 75,000 people gathered to hear her. Historians believe that this was the first strategic victory of the civil rights movement.

In an interview which was shown following her death she said in her deep, soft voice, "I was not a fighter." She was not in the traditional sense, but her great voice, her unfailing dignity and the D. A. R. gave her a place in the history of the civil rights movement.

Denver County Judge Jacqueline St. Joan, like Marian Anderson, is making her influence felt by doing her job. It is hard to imagine two women more different. St. Joan is young and white and probably can't sing a note, but she too is working to expand civil rights.

She got in the news when she was assigned to hear the charges against ex-Bronco Clarence Kay. Kay faces charges of violating a temporary restraining order barring him from having any contact with his former girl friend. His lawyers have asked to have the case transferred to another judge, citing that she is biased against men.

Judge St. Joan spoke at the University of Colorado/Denver on the subject of traditional bias against women in the judicial system. While judges remain non-political, it is quite common for them to speak on issues of general concern. This speech, however, upset Kay's lawyers who promptly accused her of gender bias, although her reputation for fairness has never been challenged. She said, "The legal system has for too long neglected to address adequately the injustices that are suffered by women. As a patriarchal (male oriented) institution, it has a limited capacity to determine what is just when cases involve questions of gender."

She went on to say that, "It has been my experience, as a judge, that among judges gender is a contentious issue...There is too much permission for judges to remain ignorant and resistant to understanding a female point of view in the courtroom." Perhaps we should remember the generations of women who have sought justice in cases of rape and abuse, only to be told that they asked for it. Only in the past twenty years have the courts been moving to erode that heavy weight of tradition. Judge St. Joan is speaking for justice that is gender free.

Two women, several generations apart, one black one white, both helping us to achieve liberty and justice for all.