American Women — Activists

  • Angela’s homecoming.

    A few days after activist Angela Davis was found not guilty of all the charges against her, she spoke at the Embassy Auditorium in Los Angeles about her experiences in prison and her commitment to the prison movement. She explores the value of organizing in order to bring about prison reform, how both men and…

  • The sister’s been doing her homework / Betty Shabazz

    Mrs. Betty Shabazz (May 28, 1934 – June 23, 1997), educator, activist, and wife of Malcolm X, speaks on the eve of Malcolm X’s birthday at McClymonds High School in Oakland, California as a guest of Merritt College. She speaks about her and Malcolm’s efforts within the Black Civil Rights movement and takes questions from…

  • Demonstration at Alderson / reported by Danice Bordett.

    Report on the inmate’s demonstration at the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, the only federal prison for women in the country. Between 100 and 200 women took over an abandoned building on the prison grounds on October 2, 1971, following a memorial to the previous month’s shootings at Attica Prison; they held…

  • Coretta Scott King

    Coretta Scott King (1927 – 2006) delivers a speech on the civil rights movement at a peace march in Central Park, New York on April 27th, 1968. The march took place three weeks after the assassination of King’s husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. King reads from the handwritten notes of her husband’s incomplete speech for…

  • Bob Dylan, Erich Fromm and beyond / by Donna Mickleson

    Donna Mickelson, a graduate student in English & Creative Writing at San Francisco State College, delivers a talk entitled “Bob Dylan, Erich Fromm and Beyond: A Look at the New Politics.” One of a series of talks by SF State College students exploring student concerns about American culture, politics and education. Originally broadcast in 1966…

  • Readings on national liberation / translated and read by William Mandel

    Readings on national liberation / translated and read by William Mandel. Soviet news stories on world events. Phone-ins. pt.1. story on the escape of Assata Shakur, a Black woman poet, from a U.S. prison. — pt.2. stories about Iranian embassy takeover. — pt.3. phone-ins.

  • Sojourner Truth : walking to freedom / produced by Darcell King. (Episode 3 of 7)

    This program tells the life of Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – 1883), African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Prior to the Civil War, Sojourner Truth traveled around the country on foot telling others how she was abused as a slave, how she was sold and exploited, and how she gained her liberty. She began to…

  • Woman to woman : Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton / produced by Joanna Brouk. (Episode 4 of 7)

    In this docudrama, based upon court transcripts, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are interviewed on their lives and friendship. These two women were dedicated to their beliefs, and endured years of scorn and public ridicule for the efforts to achieve equal rights and suffrage for women. This program traces the history of Anthony…

  • Tribute to Malvina Reynolds / produced by Ed Schoenfeld.

    This is a program of music and reflections produced at KPFA by Ed Schoenfeld on the night of folksinger Malvina Reynold’s (August 23, 1900 – March 17, 1978) death. Includes two KPFA pitches by Reynolds. People who call in to share their thoughts on Malvina are Petria MacDonnell reading the epitaph Malvina wrote for herself…

  • Shigeko Sasamori addresses Physicians for Social Responsibility.

    Shigeko Sasamori, a “Hiroshima Maiden” who survived the dropping of the atomic bomb during WWII, discusses her disfigurement, how Mr. Norman Cousins brought her and twenty five other young women to the U.S. in 1955 for plastic surgery, and on her current life as a nurse and an ambassador. Talk delivered at the Physicians for…