Hello, I’m Nancy and I’m a Blogger
When I started singing at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Berkeley events, I started writing about them but didn’t have a blog set up to post these pieces on.
Then we decided to have an Occupella website, and now, with the help of my daughter, Nancy Ibsen, internet maven, I have a home for my blog. Sometimes I write about moments, like the five Buddhist monks walking by us in their orange robes when we were singing at the Montgomery Street BART station, one carrying a matching bottle of orange juice. Sometimes I write little stories.
My other blog, Writing Malvina, is about writing a book on my mother, Malvina Reynolds, with snippets from my source material, and sometimes it’s about what I do in between writing.
Monday, Dec 4, 2017: Three-demo Day
Last night at book group Jean told us about a demo today at noon in the SF financial district protesting Trump’s giveaway of big chunks of Bear’s Ears National Monument to mining interests. I had just written a song about that, so I decided to go. I woke up around 5:00 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up, did laundry and stuff, and then napped early. I overslept and tore out of the house and powerwalked most of the way to the downtown BART station.
On the platform, I noticed a young woman wearing an Indivisible tee-shirt and asked if she was going to the demonstration. “Yes”, she said, “at the Federal Building.” “Oh, mine is at Kearny and California, about Bears Ears.” “Tax bill.” we chatted a bit on the train till it got too loud. Agreed that two demonstrations about different issues at the same time in the same city is just what we do these days. I showed her a copy of the song and gave her an Occupella card.
555 California used to be the Bank of America headquarters, a dark tower in a then otherwise light-colored city. For a while it was partially owned by Trump, which is why we were there. Handily, it has a ittle round bakery kiosk right on the corner where we were assembling. I hadn’t eaten anything since my very early breakfast. I bought a small bag of “shortcake edges” and passed them around to the people waiting for the demo to start. In a perfect world, every demonstration would have a little bakery kiosk nearby. I showed the song, “Leave Our Bones Alone,” to one of the organizers and got an okay to sing it at the end, after another singer. I wrote the song after I read that tyrannosaurus skeletons had been found on the Kaiparowits Plateau, now threatened with coal mining. KPFA showed up, and some guy with a video camera briefly.
The organizers were mostly young but all ages (except kids) were present. Mostly white crowd. Pretty signs but not obvious enough what it was about, and while the four speakers alternated with chants and the two singers sang, all the signs were facing one way, except mine. I shouted a suggestion that some of us turn our signs, but only one woman joined me. I did engage passersby a little, and she was handing out leaflets which I hadn’t noticed. The whole thing seemed too much about us and not enough about reaching out. It was organized by Ignite Change, the activist arm of the Center for Biological Diversity. I think they are pretty new. My song got some laughs and I was able to announce Occupella and give copies of the song to several people, including the KPFA guy (I’ve learned to do this as a defense against inaccurate quotation).
On the way home on BART, I sat next to a guy reading the Handmaid’s Tale, and struck up a conversation with him. I said when I read it back in the eighties, I was thinking about how to get to Canada if I needed to. He was from there, it turned out, had been here 15 years, and was thinking he might go back if things kept getting worse here.
When I came up out of BART the wind hit me. First time ever I’ve felt it harder here than in San Francisco--especially in the canyons of the financial district. I’d been nibbling on the cookies but still had over half, and I really wanted to stop. I went in to the library to use the bathroom and left the rest of the cookies with the children’s librarians, most of whom I know from when Claudia worked there. They were delighted. I went home, grabbed a bite, had a second nap, and then rushed out the door to go sing in the wind with Occupella at Tax the Rich. Someone new found us, loved the singing and the songs, promises to return. Came back home, remembered to take the laundry off the line.
Not every day of my life is like this. Some days I don’t get out of my jammies till three.
Comment from Diana Thatcher posted 5-6-2018:
Dear Nancy,
You used to email me your "Writing Malvina" blog, much to my delight. I was sad when it stopped, but I'm happy to see what you're doing instead! Malvina and you changed my life when you sang at Piedmont High School in 1967 or 1969. (A friend, who was also present, and I were trying to figure out which.)
Thank you for keeping song in activism. It really makes a difference.
With deep appreciation,
Diana
Comment from Nancy Schimmel posted 5-31-2018:
Oh, my! I can't help you on the date. I don't even remember that gig. I'm going to start posting on the Writing Malvina blog again one of these days because I have some interviews someone did with my father that I want to put up.
Comment from Lydia A. Hubbell posted 11-12-2018:
Thank you so much. I just ordered "Occupella: Singing in the Lifeboars". My "cause" is supporting family integrity by requiring accountability of judges and others in our judicial system. My daughter, now 10, was "legally" abducted through the abusive misuse of the court system. I have been retaliated against again and again for speaking out, and singing out, against the corruption and about the court-ordered child abuse. "It Isn't Nice" is one of the songs I sing. I have been arrested 8 times in 3 years on bogus charges.I think there will be more arrests...
Malvina Reynolds is an inspiration. And I really hope to get some "Occupellas" going here. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Comment from Kennethalich posted 1-6-2021:
Downgraded storm brings flood warnings to Queensland
Queensland in Australia has seen heavy rainfall as an ex-tropical cyclone crosses the state, bringing warnings of “life-threatening" flash flooding.
Comment from Ronaldjurge posted 3-21-2021:
A 20:00-06:00 curfew has been announced in Miami Beach and will remain in effect for at least 72 hours.
Traffic restrictions are in place during the curfew, while businesses in the busy South Beach area must close.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said thousands of tourists had brought "chaos and disorder" to the city.
Comment from Ronaldjurge posted 12-11-2021:
Black market goods divert revenue from important projects
The public and private sector are working together to safeguard communities from scammers.
Comment from Earlene posted 3-28-2023:
useful link
Comment from avenue17 posted 1-31-2024:
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Comment from novopet posted 1-31-2024:
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Comment from continent telecom posted 2-6-2024:
In my opinion, it is the big error.
Comment from european sailing posted 2-7-2024:
What interesting message
Comment from virtual local numbers posted 2-11-2024:
At all personal messages send today?
Comment from avenue17 posted 2-28-2024:
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Saturday, Jan 21, 2017: Singing on Broadway
Bonnie and Leslie are already in front of Laurel Books when I arrive, right on time despite delays on BART due to huge crowds everywhere. A couple of singers come up, then Hali and Randy arrive with their blue gazebo and we set that up. They too were delayed on BART. Betsy and Marcie and Marianne are singing on the march. With the help of a taller man than I, I put up the OCCUPELLA.org sign I made and got laminated yesterday. There are only a few sprinkles of rain during the march, but we are glad for the covering so we don’t have to worry about our instruments, and we realize it helps people see us.
For two hours we sing on Broadway as the Oakland Women’s March goes by and goes by and goes by. Women mostly, but men of all ages and colors, children, and babies too. We take breaks when the three or four drumming contingents go by and as we figure out what to sing next and in which key. There’s a rhythm to this, somebody notices. We gather a crowd of singers from the march during a song and then it dissipates into the march between songs and another group forms with the next song. Some stay with us the whole time, some of our regulars and some newbies.
We were disappointed to learn a few days ago that we would not be singing a song on stage after all, but we are glad now not to have that interruption. This is where the action is. A handsome young man stops for a hug. I’ve known him since he was three. When I got on BART I got squeezed up next to my friend Ginnie from Portland whom I haven’t seen for two years. I say hi to Josh Kornbluth as he passes under the gazebo, where we’ve designated a path behind us with blue masking tape. We leave our packs and cases behind the path and nothing is taken or disturbed. We see nobody making any kind of disruption.
I hear later there were no arrests at any of the marches. As someone points out online, the police did not show up in riot gear or do any kettling, as they usually do at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Someone notes that we have the mayor’s approval, or the aerial dance troupe, Bandaloop, couldn’t have emerged from a top floor City Hall window and danced down the front of the building.
I take a break early on; the square is already pretty full but the port-a-potties stretch the whole length of the plaza on 14th Street so the wait is not long. Good planning. Someone has a big beautiful bird puppet on a pole above the crowd. I can’t see the stage at all. Back to the gazebo. We keep singing, the people keep coming. Finally the crowd thins, then the last few stragglers go by and we pack up. Some go to lunch, but I brought and ate mine and I’m ready to go home.
The BART entrance on the Plaza is blocked by an employee who says to go to the 12th street entrance. On the way I pass a group doing western swing dancing on the wide sidewalk, then a capoeira group. At the BART entrance, a long line. The station is too crowded to let anybody in. I climb back up the stairs (none of the escalators are running) and find a bagel shop open where I can wait sitting down. They are out of bagels but I just want something to drink. I sit with friends who sang with us and we chat. When I get back to BART the wait is over and I can go right in. I wait on the platform with a woman I see at various demonstrations and ride across from a guy I see at various demonstrations. I get home and go online to find the numbers. 100,000 in Oakland. Amazing, but I believe it. Probably about 99,800 of those are perfect strangers but they don’t feel like strangers today.
Comment from Nancy Schimmel posted 5-23-2017:
Yes, John, Malvina definitely wrote "Little Boxes." Elsewhere on this site you can find the parody of it my partner and I wrote about tax shelters called "Little Shelters."
Comment from Nancy Schimmel posted 1-24-2017:
Here is Betsy Rose's report on singing while marching, starting at the beginning of the march near Lake Merritt.
I want to thank each and every person who came and sang with us, or TRIED to! Despite all our efforts, many could not find the banner- and with 60,000-100,000 people, its small wonder. I hope you sang wherever you found yourself-and had a great, great day.
My hands are sore from 3+ hours of playing guitar and singing as we marched in Oakland, with hordes of eager women and a few great men, singing our hearts out. We Shall Not Be Moved, This Little Light of Mine, Bella Ciao, so many more. Betsy Blakeslee and the World Harmony Chorus swelled the ranks, someone chimed in with a clarinet, willing helpers took turns carrying the small speaker (thanks James Baraz, Matt Stark, Edie Hartshorne) and powerful young women helped lead the songs with the megaphone, or carrying our gorgeous banner (thanks, Lynne Prather). Elise Peeples kept an eye on me, making sure I drank water frequently, carrying my raincoat and lunch, being that kind of quiet support that makes it possible to keep the energy up and the music going.
It all concluded with a beautiful circle of singing near the entrance to Oscar Grant Civic Plaza, with passersby stopping to join the circle, sing a few songs, and move on, to be replaced by more. A small girl danced in the center of our circle, and after each song, looked up at me and asked "Do you know any more songs?" Oh yes, little one, WE DO! We ended with arms crossed, hands held, singing We Shall Overcome. "We will stand our ground", We are not afraid, We will stand together".
Favorite T-Shirt: So you thought I was a nasty woman before? Buckle up, Buttercup!
Too many great signs to pick a favorite.
My apologies to ALL the women who hoped to join us at 19th St. BART. The changes in the march route scotched our well made plans, and the sheer numbers made it difficult to find each other. But what matters is we all SHOWED UP, with fabulous signs, pussy hats, songs, children and babies, girlfriends, partners, outrageous and spot-on slogans, and complete commitment to being loud, proud and active. This is how it's gonna be, sisters (and allies)--all together, fierce and loving and fun and creative and KIND.
Comment from John Jerpe posted 5-1-2017:
To Nancy:
Your mother is Malcena Reynolds!!!!!!! I think she wrote "Little Boxes"!!! I love that song; I first heard it done by Pete Seeger and the lyrics are wonderful. I have what is CALLED a banjo, but its really a six string guitar with a banjo soundbox made by Dove. I love to play "Little Boxes". I read the story about how the song was written in your parents' car. I would love to hear from you and sing with you guys soon; hopefully, May 16th.
Peace,
John Jerpe
Thousand Oaks, Ca.
Comment from Richardtom posted 8-22-2017:
Jerry Lewis Was the Quintessential American Jew - He wanted to believe he was an ordinary American. But his success came from the tension his difference created.
Comment from BrianZet posted 8-21-2017:
For decades, Wunsiedel, a German town near the Czech border, has struggled with a parade of unwanted visitors.
It is the birthplace of one of Adolf Hitler’s deputies, a man named Rudolf Hess. And every year, to residents’ chagrin, neo-Nazis marched to his grave site there.
Tuesday, Jul 12, 2016: This Black Lives Matter Demonstration Just Grew
Writing Prompt: What is your relationship to social media?
Funny you should ask. I just went to a demonstration I found on NextDoor. A Black Lives Matter demo where Alcatraz dead-ends into San Pablo, Actual Cafe on the east side, St. Columba Catholic Church on the west. I arrived a few minutes early and didn’t see anybody looking demonstration-like. But by the time I parked and walked back, I saw four or five people clustered in front of the cafe, one wearing a sign. A middle-aged white man was the organizer and a younger black woman seemed to be in charge of sign-making, using the cafe’s outdoor tables to work on. I had borrowed Judy-down-the-block’s Black Lives Matter window sign so I stood on the curb with it, facing the cars on San Pablo stopping for the light. More people kept coming, mostly white, all ages including a couple of kids with their parents. As they came and made signs if they hadn’t brought their own, people gradually filled up the two corners and lined up in front of the church. One woman stood on the wide median strip across from me. I was the only one with a printed sign. A couple of signs said “White silence = violence.”
A young woman drove up in a hippie bus and parked in a green zone blocking where I was standing so I joined the people at the corner. She came up to me and said she needed to talk. She needed to talk about the Orlando shooting. She said it was faked, nobody was really killed or injured. The shooting in Baton Rouge wasn’t real either, because there was no blood on the officer’s uniform when he got up from holding the “victim” down—I could hear the quotation marks in her voice. I reminded her that she was in a ten minute zone and would get a ticket. “Don’t you want to hear this?” she asked. She kept talking.
It was all a conspiracy, she said, to convince us that the police were no good, then they would be replaced by United Nations police. I said I didn’t think the UN was powerful enough to take over this country. “Oh, they are just a front group. It’s the multinational corporations behind them that have the power.” Then she left.
I moved to the median and started talking to the demonstraters there. The guy who organized the demo came to interview us on his phone camera, live-streaming it to Facebook. I told him (and the camera) about Occupella and our BLM sings at BART stations and gave him a card. The three women I was standing with all wanted to know more about Occupella, so I gave them the two cards I had left. One of them knew Hali. One had been in the Raging Grannies but couldn’t find a group here. One had to leave because she was going to a writing group after, as was I.
We were getting a lot of honks, waves, thumbs-up signs, applause and a few mouthed thank-yous from people driving by. I saw only one driver, white male, give us a thumbs-down and make throwing-up motions. Another paused in the middle of a left turn to tell us earnestly that there wasn’t any racism any more, he didn’t see any at all. Then he drove on. But on the whole we enjoyed a lot of approval. The young black woman joined us on the median strip and I asked her if this was backed by some organization. No, the guy who started it just wanted to do something so he sent out notices on Facebook and Nextdoor and about forty people showed up. And that is my relationship to social media.
Epilogue
The forty people weren’t showing any signs of breaking up when I left the demo at six to grab a bite to eat at home and head for the Writing Cabaret at the Marsh. I had not gone to the monthly Writing Cabaret before—I think I found out about it when I went to Tell It on Tuesday to hear a storyteller friend perform. The writing prompts were printed and placed at each table, and the first one on the list was “What is your relationship to social media,” which led right into what I wanted to write about anyway. About a dozen of us, mostly young—I was probably the only one over sixty—writing on paper or laptops. The woman in charge came to the microphone and said newcomers would get first dibs on reading aloud at the end. I was the fourth one to read, I think. One of the prompts was “summer job” and elicited a funny description of the joy and disillusionment of a first job. Someone wrote about death. I read mine (without the epilogue, which I wrote later at home) got a few laughs, applause.
Afterwards three young women came up to me and one said, “You are the coolest person here tonight.” Another said, “We want to be you when we grow up.” “You don’t have to grow up,” I said. They wanted to know more about Occupella. I hadn’t thought to replenish my supply of cards, but I told them about the website. I’m thinking this will go on my Occupella blog. I got on Facebook to publicize my blog (and my gigs) so this, too is part of my relationship to social media.
Wednesday, Nov 18, 2015: Occupella Enters History
Or at least a Stanford history class
Historian Estelle Freedman invited Bonnie and me to come to Stanford today to talk to her class on Social Movements through Song in Modern America (1900 to the present). She wrote to us: “I was trying to explain in class this week that social protest songs did not end after Vietnam. You are both living proof!”
A baker’s dozen students file in, mostly first-year, for whom the twentieth century is ancient history. We go chronological order so I go first, with an anecdote from my father about singing in jail after a demonstration against Herbert Hoover in 1932:
About the first question asked in a situation like this when one sits down next to another prisoner is, “What are you in for?” True to form, the prisoner next to Walter said, “What are you in for?” and Walter replied, “Non-support.” The other guy said, “Who, your wife?” and Walter replied, “No, the President.”
That was a singing period, and Walter and the leaguers were in good voice. Walter started out singing with some of the old American standards that everybody knew, and gradually nearly everybody joined in. Then he shifted to the work songs, such as ‘Solidarity,’ ‘Hold the Fort’ and others, and ended up with Walter and the leaguers singing the ‘Internationale’ and every prisoner marching around between the benches with his fist in the air.
I tell the class I grew up with the Almanac Singers’ Talking Union album (1940) and Paul Robeson singing Ballad for Americans (1940). The students have heard some of this music in class and seen the film about my mother, Love It Like a Fool (a film about Malvina Reynolds). I tell them how I had been propelled into the peace movement by seeing the post-nuclear-holocaust film On the Beach in 1959. A nameless group of six of us sang and led singing at peace rallies and marches, much as Occupella does now. I bring in a topic the class hadn’t covered, oppression of children. I mention Free to Be You and Me and we sing Stuart Stotts’ “So Many Ways to Be Smart,” about high-stakes testing. The students join in easily.
Bonnie introduces herself as growing up in conservative Orange County and being electrified hearing the Freedom Singers singing songs of the Civil Rights Movement on KPFK in 1964. “I didn’t know that some 20 years later I’d be on a folk festival stage—admittedly overawed—singing right next to Bernice Johnson Reagon, one of those very Freedom Singers; and I’d be leading my song, 'Still Ain’t Satisfied' (1971), a song owing a large debt to the Black Gospel music I’d first heard through the Civil Rights Movement.” Bonnie leads the class in her update to that song from the Occupella songbook. She talks about the confluence of conditions that opened her way into singing for social justice:
1) The growing anti-war movement with roots in the Civil Rights and Labor Movements which both had a history of singing
2) The youth culture of the late sixties that valued music as much as anything
3) The women’s movement. Women had been shut out of the music industry except as singers, and were now playing instruments, forming bands, becoming engineers, managers, distributors. There was a pull toward the commercial music world women had just broken into that made for more emphasis on stars and recordings and less on communal singing than in the earlier singing movements, but the festivals did bring women together.
Bonnie and I met in a workshop on children’s songs at the National Women’s Music Festival in Champaign-Urbana around 1979 and found that we lived about five blocks from each other in Berkeley. She talks about the blacklist forcing political musicians like Pete Seeger off television and out of the larger nightclubs and concert halls and into children’s music, which produced that sixties generation that embraced social justice music and brought it into the charts. I tell about going cross-country on the CORE bus to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and stopping at a bus station cafe out in the middle of nowhere and seeing “Blowin’ in the Wind” on the jukebox.
Then we talk about Black Lives Matter and lead “I Can Hear My Neighbor Sayin’ ‘I Can’t Breathe” and I sing my song about coal trains in Oakland, “Cry in the Night”:
There’s another kind of “I can’t breathe,”
A grip on the throat that needs relief
When the air is full of dust and smoke
And little children begin to choke...
We talk about the environmental justice movement, which combines environment, race and class.
The students have good questions. Two I remember are, “Were there any social movements you regret not being involved in?” and “Was there a period when music didn’t seem to be part of the movement?” which gives me an opportunity to talk about event organizers who don’t get it, who schedule fifteen speakers with one singer at the end when people are worn out and leaving.
Bonnie leads “Who Were the Witches,” Estelle leads other women’s songs, the day’s topic. We leave handouts with songs and the whole of my father’s story, Occupella cards, and flyers for the Climate Mobilization this Saturday.
Estelle didn’t anticipate it when she scheduled us, but a sit-in for divestment is going on right now in the main Quad at the Stanford campus. We go by before class; a man is giving a talk on Gandhi and non-violence. After class, one of the students, wearing a Divest Now! teeshirt, takes us back to the Quad and introduces us to some of the students in charge at that moment. A planning meeting is going on, but we are invited to set up in another area. A young man spreads a big cloth in front of us and others come and sit down. They seem happy to join in on a couple of songs from our No Fossil Fuel songbook and when I offer them our copy, they are eager to have it. We leave feeling satisfied with the day.
Comment from Williamfack posted 7-19-2016:
I am curious to find out what blog system you are using? I’m having some small security problems with my latest website and I would like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any solutions?
Comment from Nancy posted 8-16-2016:
Williamfack, my daughter designed our website and blog, so it's not on a public system.
Comment from Marcia Pratt posted 11-22-2015:
Loved reading this and loved finally singing with Occupella at Climate Rally today. Hope to do it again.
Friday, May 15, 2015: Four Demonstrations in Two Days
Four demonstrations in two days. Thursday morning I take BART to Grant/Ogawa Plaza for the 8:30 action against building a coal port on the old army base on Alameda which would bring coal in open train cars through West Oakland, an area with extremely high rates of childhood asthma. I had asthma as a kid. I go to these things. The rest of Occupella is working at this hour, so I’m just here as me, not to sing.
Today is also Bike to Work Day so the paved part of the plaza is full of bikers eating free pancake breakfasts, chatting, picking up bike info at booths. At first I can’t find the demonstration. I do see lines of police blocking the two entrances to the Rotunda Building where the developer’s office is, so I figure I’m in the right place. I see Kristina, who hasn’t found it either. She’s a biker, so she’s earned a breakfast. She goes off with her pancakes to hear the biker’s raffle.
Then I see the banners up on the steps to the lawn. I go up and stand next to the end guy, who turns out to be Jack Fleck, who has written some parodies we use. He tells me about a Bike Music thing that will be part of a Lake Merritt celebration on Sunday, September 20. He’ll be providing the political part of the program, and would Occupella like to sing? I think we would.
I see my neighbors, Jean and Henry, with their daughters and grandchildren. I tell Jean I like to be at a demo where I know a few people but most I don’t. Lots of young people at this one. Several groups have organized this—some doing banners, some doing the street theater, which we parade over to the Rotunda Building entrance to see. A bunch of young folks in hazmat suits spread out a big tarp and proceed to dump barrels of “coal” on it. The wind blows the black dust. They stick a “Coal—hazardous to health” sign in the pile and surround it with yellow caution tape, then walk around asking us to please avoid breathing. You can see it here along with the day’s best teeshirts: SEIU on the front, a cobra on the back captioned “Will strike if provoked.” The crew cleans it all up as we disperse.
I head for BART but am stopped by some interesting flyers in a window facing the plaza and realize it’s the new location of Laurel Books. It opens at 10:00 and it’s 9:40, so I go into Talavera Cafe for a latte but see a sign for a hot plantain drink, atol de platano. I’ve never heard of it, so I order a small one. I like it. I ask what’s in it. Plantain, water, sugar and cinnamon.
I head for the bookstore and am greeted by a familiar face from their old location on MacArthur. This store is bigger and lighter. I find my current favorite writing notebooks, Decomposition Books (100% post-consumer recycled paper, pretty covers) and buy one with a sloth on the cover. I write about the demonstration on the way home on BART, have a quick lunch and nap, and head out for the next one: postal workers at the West Oakland Post Office at 2:00. It’s supposed to thunderstorm so I take the car. It rains for about five minutes as I drive, but the sun comes out for the action. This is a union action; there are free bandanas and buttons and food. We are the only music, and we get asked for encores. Hali sings her parody of “Mr. Postman” and Bonnie has brought some relevant phrases for the zipper songs. Some folks sing along, and two of our regulars show up on short notice from facebook. This is a good gig.
Friday is one non-Occupella gig and one of ours. At 11:30, Hali and I are scheduled to sing with Max Ventura for the annual raising of the peace flags on the flagpoles at Berkeley’s city hall and civic center park in honor of Conscientious Objectors and War Resistors. It’s our Ain’t Festival, “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” and “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.” When I was telling Claudia about this, I couldn’t remember one of the songs, and she said, “Ain’t Misbehavin’”? I think I might write a parody to that. I get there way early and have half an hour to kill, but then I remember that the annual quilt show is up at the main library a block away, so I end up getting there barely on time. We sing as the flag goes up, then between speeches by men who were COs or burned draft cards back in the day, and a report from a woman who is in correspondence with Chelsea Manning. A small but earnest group shows up for this every year. It’s timed to coincide with lunch hour at Berkeley High School, which is right across the street.
I meet Leslie and Bonnie at Lafayette BART station for a Black Lives Matter sing; Hali and a different two regulars show up later. I’m still not singing much after my cold so I hand out the new leaflets Leslie and Sally made up. Most people rush past but then the station agent comes by and says “I can’t believe this music! When I heard it I almost cried!” She is black. Then a white woman asks, “Why Lafayette?” I explain that we go to a different station every month. She says, “There are no brown people in my town.” I say, “We’re the ones that need the message, not them.” She takes a leaflet and goes on. When we finish I tell the others what the station agent said. It makes our day. On the way back on BART I tell Hali about Claudia’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’” question and she immediately sings, “Ain’t misbehavin’, I’m savin’ this world for you,” and says, “I think I’ll write that.” Fine with me.
Comment from Margaret Jackson posted 5-19-2015:
Linda's dad was a CO and did alternative service during WWII. Both of her brothers likewise in the late sixties.
Friday, Apr 10, 2015: Report from 1971
Malvina Reynolds Attends the Vancouver Indochinese Women's Conference
Twice during the period of US participation in the war in Vietnam, Indochinese women came to Canada to meet with Canadian and US women. “At the first conference in 1967, the Indochinese women asked that there be a second conference to include third world women since none of the participants there were third world. The conference in April of this year [April 1-6,1971] was set up expressly for the purpose of having third world women participate in a conference dealing with the wars in Indochina.” From Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, edited by Alma M. Garcia.
My mother was invited to the second conference. I went with her. We stayed with her friends the Ingleses in Vancouver. She went on to the sister conference in Toronto; I did not. When we were both home, my mother tape-recorded her recollections in my presence. To understand the economics of the conference and her participation, you need to remember that according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, $100 in 1971 dollars is equivalent in purchasing power to $579.56 in 2015 dollars.
Malvina: In April I was called to Vancouver, to a conference of Voice of Women, the Canadian peace organization, working together with U. S. Women for Peace. It would bring together women from western United States and Canada to meet with women from North and South Vietnam, from Laos and Cambodia. [The Cambodian women were unable to come, but two each came from the other countries, each pair accompanied by a male interpreter.] We couldn’t have been with them otherwise, since they wouldn’t have been permitted into the States.
The University in Vancouver charged the conference a token dollar for the use of excellent modern facilities.
Later in the week there would be a final meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Theater; I was to sing there.
For a good change, this time most of the conferees would be Third World people and women’s liberation militants. The white middle class women who had had charge of these conferences up till now were pushed, sometimes rudely pushed, into the background. We were frisked. If we didn’t have special buttons indicating that we represented the minority groups, we were kept out of some sessions.
Women who had come at their own expense from as far away as Hawaii found themselves floating around the halls, angry and at a loss. The old timers, who had the organization, the experience and the sources of money, were sidetracked.
I was classed with them, but I watched curiously, a bystander. I’ve had conferences enough in my lifetime to last me forever.
Kay [Ingles] and the others were very much upset. Among the new people there were some who were so provocative in their actions one could believe that it was their intention to divide and disrupt the conference. If one of the Third World women would say, “Gee, it isn’t fair to treat these sisters so,” one of the aggressive ones would say, “We’ll use them and kick them in the face.”
Each evening one group would take responsibility for the main meal, to entertain the Asian visitors. One evening it was, for instance, the Chicanas, who made a Mexican style dinner and served it in one of the special dining rooms they had available in the Student Union. Money for the materials, and for daily sandwiches for the delegates, came from a special account.
One of the Third World groups, instead of getting materials and preparing a dinner, got together the Asian visitors plus a large number of their own group and took them all to an expensive Chinese restaurant. They ran up a bill for three hundred dollars and simply turned it over to the food fund to pay. They hadn’t cleared the matter with anyone. And although the Canadian women had put their cars at the disposal of the conference, these delegates rented cars and gave the bill to the committee.
The finance group had been having trouble raising money for the conference—the usual problem. There were quotas for the women’s organizations in each of the big cities and the money wasn’t coming in. People were saying to me, “Kay is drawing on their personal account.” They weren’t rich people.
[There seems to be a gap in the transcription here. I think Malvina is referring to one of the conference organizers, probably Muriel, whom she mentions elsewhere.]
She is one of these people that you meet once in ten years—authority, good nature. She speaks and stands and looks and everything is right about her. And she was able to kind of hold things together. She was absolutely in personal charge of the [Indochinese] visiting party and wouldn’t be separated from them. Because these other guys [the US and Canadian delegates] would keep them up all night, every night talking. And they were tired.
When I was on stage I called Kem Phet to the microphone, and she sang. And I know she was pleased. And they saw the audience reaction to it. I was a person who was doing a job and doing it well and I was special to the Indochinese. They were very fond of me. I’ll give you a couple of examples. We got into a discussion—kind of a little thing—just a few of us standing around. Vo Ti The happened to be standing next me and she said, “We don’t need the men.” I don’t know that she was even there when it [the incident under discussion] happened, but somehow she picked up that phrase and it happened that it was just right. And then when we were coming in to Toronto,we could look down from the air and see the houses. Kem Phet said, “Oh, oh, petites boites, petites boites!” They had laughed spontaneously at this song [“Little Boxes”] when I sang it for them.
The Queen Elizabeth Theatre [in Vancouver]—they had called me for two things, to sing and give the pitch. And everything was so heavy and factual-- it was hard to get the Indochinese to talk about their personal story. They had to tell you what the world was like. . .what was going on. So we did get their stories, but it was hard partly because they don’t think that’s important and in the second place it’s painful, for many of them it’s very painful to tell the story. So with all this heaviness I come on with my satirical stuff and get the audience singing and they just love it. They love it better than if I had just come on under ordinary circumstances. There everything is pain and they can get this release of singing. So it goes very well and I did serve a very good function.I made a very good pitch. I said, “I have been called here to sing for you. I’m glad to do it, but I really can’t think about my songs because my mind is on that wallet. Take it out. These people have come a long way and the expenses are high...” and so on. I made it about this long and they made a collection of over $700 and it wasn’t a full house and there were a lot of young people there who didn’t even pay to get in, let alone put money in the collection. So they said, “You’ve got to come on to Toronto.” I hadn’t planned it. So I called Bud [her husband], and Ruth [her business manager] was on the phone. And we fixed up the calendar and called off a few small things and I went off to Toronto.
The opening night I sang two songs and they went very well. They made me sing another one. Someone else made the pitch, but I added, because I had learned this in the meantime, I said, “Two of the women on stage here walked for three months to get to the plane to get here, with forty pounds on their backs, and one of those two women had spent years in South Vietnamese jails being tortured. And she’s here and it’s incredible the kind of torture she went through.” I said, “No, it’s not incredible. The incredible thing is that she is sitting here fairly well and smiling.” I said, “In view of that, I know when you open your wallet you’ll look very carefully at what’s in there. So please take it all out and put it in the collection and if it looks too small please write a check.” And that was all. So I did my job.
But that was the first night and there were a couple of days of conference and then a cultural evening the last night which was taken charge of by the Third World and Women’s Lib. And so when there was a kind of organizers’ conference in the lobby I said to Muriel, “I don’t know what’s expected of me. If I have no further function I’m going back to San Francisco.” So they consulted and right away they decided I should be in on the cultural thing. The girl who was in charge figured out the time when I should be in. So I stuck around for another two days of more of the same. I kept out of quite a lot of what was going on there too, because I’d heard the story in Vancouver. I came to this cultural evening...
Nancy: The same kind of thing was going on as in Vancouver.
Malvina: That’s right, conferences, seminars.
Nancy: But people being kept out, the security, the whole bit.
Malvina: That’s right, but the feeling was that it had tapered off a little. The experiences over there had carried over here to the extent--because even in Vancouver toward the end the security was let down; they allowed everybody in to the last meetings. It was easier. I was trying to explain this to Kay and to the others. That this is the cutting edge of the first time that these elements have come together and it’s a very valuable thing and even if it costs a lot it has to happen and it has to work itself out, but Kay can’t see that far. She is just so furious I don’t know what’s going to happen to her related to the movement. She’s in a very bad frame of mind. She just can’t stop talking about it. We’re going up there next summer...
Nancy: Well, but she has to think it over and get away from the emotional impact of the situation.
Malvina: There is a certain rigidity about her. She had lovely kids. I stayed at the house two times and so I got very well acquainted with the youngsters and very fond of them and they of me. And one of them is named Hugh. They are all very handsome, very self-contained and they are under a pretty heavy hand. The discipline in that house is pretty strict. And Hugh loves to cook and he likes to get in the kitchen and mess around and she pushes him out. So many kids nowadays don’t know what they want and he loves to cook.
Here they were going to have this great big roast beef dinner for the [Indochinese] guests and a few other people--no Blacks, I discovered after the thing was set up. This was the typical Canadian dinner in her house and Hugh wanted to make a Yorkshire pudding. So he and I looked in the book and found a recipe, but it was getting awfully near dinnertime. Well, it’s the kind of thing like biscuits, you can make it awfully quickly. But Kay just got angry. She got angry at the whole idea of the way he wants to fool around, so I let him help me make French dressing in the blender and I made it with two hard boiled eggs and it was very, very good. That boy will be a cook someday. He’ll be good. Well, it’s just how up-tight they can get.
There’s a great big building there in Toronto that’s a weekend vegetable market, but with walls and windows. It’s a regular building, but it’s kind of a big cold room. The night of the big cultural meeting was in the Market. Everything was cleared out and they had chairs in there. When we came to the door they wouldn’t let us in. We had our buttons. Everybody had to have buttons. I had my badge, but that wasn’t it, they wouldn’t let us in. And one of our leading women from Voice of Women said, “They want to frisk us. They won’t let us in.” I said, “They can frisk me, I don’t mind, it’ll be a new experience.”
So I laughed and walked right in amongst these girls that were standing there very grim. But I had the guitar and I just walked in and the others finally got in, but we had thought we wouldn’t be able to get in to this cultural meeting. And you can imagine what this must do to people who are this way and that way about the whole movement. And some of them are. One woman said to us when I was sitting with Muriel and Kay, “What does Third World mean?” That’s how little she is into the movement. Some of them were very uneasy about it.
Well, I got in there and one of the girls who was in charge who is a kind of a moderate of whatever it was--whether it was women’s lib or Third World--I think it was women’s lib because she was white--said, “Malvina, I hope you won’t be too disappointed, but it looks as though they are not going to put you on the program tonight.” So, okay, here I had stayed over, two extra days. I had paid my own fare there and when I saw that Kay was going on her own bank account, I cleared with Bud and gave her a $100 donation and I paid my own way. You know that damn thing must have cost us close to $500, my going up there. I had hung around there longer than I had wanted to just to sing a couple of songs and they said no. But okay. I went in.
It was very interesting to watch the meeting. It was full of young women who put up the fist at every possible occasion, shouting slogans, but on the other hand. . .this is something that the Voice of Women folks didn’t realize--though some of them did--this is the first meeting on war in which the majority of the audience were Black. Now that--whatever price, you say whatever price, it may have been tough, it may have been nasty, mean or whatever, but it was a great first. And the people who spoke at the microphone gave greetings from Blacks, people from Venezuela, from Cuba, from Mexico, from China, from Japan--and they had a little kid, Chinese, who sang an anti-war song. And some of them sang. . .it was damned interesting, it was damned interesting to see these young very militant women of all colors including whites. And then after a number of acts had gone by, the chairman said, “Our Indochinese friends have requested that Malvina come up and sing.” That’s one of the nicest things that has happened to me in all my life.
So I came up smiling and I sang two songs, “You’ll Be a Man” [about the Vietnam War] and “Daddy’s in the Jail” [about the Civil Rights Movement]. Amazingly, the audience sang with me and they cheered and they wanted me to sing some more. There was no more hostility not only toward me, but also toward the people I represented: Voice of Women, Women for Peace, Women’s International League [for Peace and Freedom].
Afterward I sang I was as usual kind of hanging back, afraid. So they came up to me. A young reporter from one of the liberation papers wants this song, and this one wants some more songs. She wants to learn them. And they have the Women’s Liberation Rock Band which is a good rock band and they want my songs. So they played at the end of the session. When they were finished I grabbed my guitar, asked them to wait a minute and they improvised as I sang “We Don’t Need the Men” and “We Hate to See Them Go.”
When I was typing this, spellcheck said Chicanas wasn’t in their dictionary. Chicanos was.
