American Women — Activists

  • Dolores Huerta : Vice President of the United Farm Workers / interviewed by Maria Huffman.

    Dolores Huerta, Vice President of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee discusses the Delano grape strike, racial discrimination, and farm work with WBAI’s Maria Huffman. She describes the exploitative conditions of California farm workers, the lack of recourse available to non-unionized underpaid agricultural laborers, and how the UFW was able to secure union contracts with…

  • Arab woman, guerilla leader / Leila Khaled ; interviewed by Colin Edwards.

    Colin Edwards interviews Miss Leila Khaled, a young Palestinian woman who has become a heroine to the whole Arab world through leading a two-man team in taking over a TWA airliner between Rome and Athens and ordering it to proceed first to Lydda, to circle over her homeland to challenge the Israelis, and then to…

  • Free abortion in Los Angeles / Sheila Smith interviewed by Don Porsche

    Sheila Smith, a volunteer worker at a short-lived free abortion clinic in Los Angeles, talks with KPFA Public Affairs director Don Porsche. Dr. John Gwynne opened the Community Service Center and Women’s Abortion Clinic, an abortion clinic in Los Angeles, on March 16, 1970 in defiance of the abortion laws, and in hopes of testing…

  • Delano now / Dolores C. Huerta ; interviewed by Elsa Knight Thompson.

    Dolores C. Huerta (1930 – ), Vice President of the United Farm Workers and Director of Contract Negotiations, discusses the negotiations centering on the 1965 Delano grape strike with KPFA’s Elsa Knight Thompson. They discuss the UFW’s negotiations with the produce industry, as well as the state of the grape boycott.

  • A Lady called Peace Pilgrim / interviewed by Lou Hartman.

    Lou Hartman interviews the activist who called herself “Peace Pilgrim” (neé Mildred Norman), who has walked 25,000 miles since 1953 in her quest for world peace. Peace Pilgrim talks about her journey, which she’s undertaken with no possessions, money or organizational backing, why she’s chosen to adopt a pseudonym instead of using her real name,…

  • Twenty days in Santa Rita / Emily Lewis and Lillian Rubin interviewed by Elsa Knight Thompson

    Emily Lewis, public health nurse and wife of Berkeley doctor Reuben Lewis, and Lillian Rubin, research assistant in sociology at the University of California, and the wife of a Berkeley restaurant owner, talk with Elsa Knight Thompson about their jail experiences. Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Rubin had just been released from Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center,…

  • Fannie Lou Hamer interview

    Colin Edwards interviews Fannie Lou Hamer, candidate for Congress and member of the Executive Committee of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, during Hamer’s visit to Berkeley in 1965. Hamer discusses how she got involved in Freedom Democratic Party politics, the planks of the Freedom Democratic Party, and the continuing fight for voting rights and human…

  • Bettina Aptheker interviewed by Elsa Knight Thompson

    Bettina Aptheker discusses with Elsa Knight Thompson her reasons for being a Communist Party member, her experiences as a young woman, traveling in Europe, and various related subjects. Knight mentions that it has been a year since Sproul Hall and the FSM activities, and asks Aptheker to discuss where she thinks the student movement is…

  • Women speak out against fascism (Episode 3 of 12, Part 2)

    A panel at the conference called by the Black Panther Party the weekend of July 18-20 in Oakland. Panel speakers are Roberta Alexander, Marlene Dixon, Evelyn Harris, Carol Henry, Penny Nakatsu, and Carol Thomas. Panel is introduced by Marie Johnson. Originally aired during KPFA’s Open Hour, 1969-08-11. Reel two of two.

  • Women In Arms / Victoria Schultz interviewed by Norma Smith

    Interview with Victoria Schultz film-maker regarding her film “Women In Arms” about the Nicaraguan revolution, beginning with the general strike in June 1979 and culminating on July 17, 1979 with the overthrow of the Samosa family dictatorship. Schultz visited the KPFA studios in February 1981 to talk with Mariah Gallardon and Norma Smith about her…