Eleanor Holmes Norton (African-American Leaders)

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS

ISBN 0-7910-7682-2

UPC

EAN

,!7IA7J1-ahgici!:t;K;k;K;k *53849-AHGICh

Marcovitz

www.chelseahouse.com

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

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orn and raised in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., one might say that it was Eleanor Holmes Norton’s destiny to become one of the nation’s best-known political leaders and civic activists. Growing up in Washington in the 1940s meant that young Eleanor would attend segregated schools—“colored” schools, housed in decrepit buildings with old equipment and supplies and, likely, out of date textbooks. Undaunted by the inequalities of a racially segregated society, young Eleanor would rise above her circumstances and prove herself a bright, eager student and natural leader. But it was not until Eleanor found herself immersed in the socially conscious environment of Antioch College that she began to “push” toward her more radical self. It was at Antioch that Eleanor moved away from her plans to pursue a career in medicine and, instead, chose to pursue a law degree at Yale University. Whether chairing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, imploring the Senate to hear the testimony of Anita Hill, Eleanor Holmes Norton continues to distinguish herself as a real American leader.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS

Eleanor Holmes Norton

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS Carol Moseley-Braun Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Benjamin Hooks Eleanor Holmes Norton Condoleezza Rice Cornel West

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS

Eleanor Holmes Norton Hal Marcovitz

CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERS VP, NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Sally Cheney DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION Kim Shinners CREATIVE MANAGER Takeshi Takahashi MANUFACTURING MANAGER Diann Grasse Staff for ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON EDITOR Sally Cheney EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Josh Spiegel PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Megan Emery PHOTO EDITOR Sarah Bloom SERIES & COVER DESIGNER Terry Mallon LAYOUT Jennifer Krassy Peiler

©2004 by Chelsea House Publishers, a subsidiary of Haights Cross Communications. All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

www.chelseahouse.com First Printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0-7910-7682-2

Table of Contents Introduction

1. The Walk to the Senate

6 8

2. Campus Leader and Social Activist

18

3. Nirvana at the ACLU

32

4. The “Chair” Takes Over

46

5. Eleanor Campaigns for Congress

60

6. Crisis in the Capital

76

7. The Fight for D.C. Statehood

88

Chronology

102

Bibliography

104

Further Reading

107

Web Sites

108

Index

109

I NTRODUCTION

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eginning with the publication of the series Black Americans of Achievement nearly twenty years ago, Chelsea House Publishers made a commitment to publishing biographies for young adults that celebrated the lives of many of the country’s most outstanding African Americans. The mix of individuals whose lives we covered was eclectic, to say the least. Some were well known—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example—although others we covered might be lesser known—Madam C.J. Walker, for example. Some—like the actor Danny Glover—were celebrities with legions of adoring fans. It mattered not what an individual’s “star” quality might be, or how well known they were to the general public. What mattered was the life of the individual— their actions, their deeds, and, ultimately, their influence on the lives of others and our nation, as a whole. By telling the life stories of these unique Americans, we hoped to tell the story of how ordinary individuals are transformed by extraordinary circumstances to people of greatness. We hoped that the special lives we covered would inspire and encourage our young-adult readers to go out in the world and make a positive difference; and judging from the many wonderful letters that we have received over the years from students, librarians, and teachers about our Black Americans of Achievement biographies, we are certain that many young adults did just that! Now, some twenty years later, we are proud to release this new series of biographies, African-American Leaders, which we hope will make a similar mark on the lives of our young-adult readers. The individuals whose lives we cover in this first set of six books are all contemporary 6

African-American leaders. As these individuals are all living, the biographers made every attempt to interview their subjects so they could provide first-hand accounts and interesting anecdotes about each subject’s life. After reading about the likes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Cornel West, Condoleezza Rice, Carol Moseley-Braun, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Benjamin Hooks, we think you’ll agree that the lives of these African-American leaders are remarkable. By overcoming the barriers that racism placed in their paths, they are an example of the power and resiliency of the human spirit and an inspiration to us all. The Editor Chelsea House Publishers

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1 The Walk to the Senate “Sometimes, he [Clarence Thomas] has gone even beyond the most conservative members of the Court, as with the case involving cruel and unusual punishment. For some of us [his appointment] turned on its head the whole meaning of putting an African American on the Court. No one on the Court represents anybody, but it seems to me to be a slap in the face to put somebody on the Court who was the antithesis of Thurgood Marshall.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, interview with the author, January 2003

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or Eleanor Holmes Norton, and six of her colleagues in the United States House of Representatives, the time had come to break through the rock-solid wall of stifling protocol and tradition in Washington that separates the House from the Senate. 8

It was October 8, 1991. Just a few days before, the news media reported that Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, told FBI agents that Clarence Thomas, a nominee for associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, had sexually harassed her when she served as an aide to Thomas nearly 10 years before. The FBI report was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held hearings on Thomas’s nomination to the court by President George H.W. Bush. Evidently, not all Judiciary Committee members had read the report when they decided on September 27 to send Thomas’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Now, with the news of Hill’s allegations out in public, the female members of the House closed ranks and demanded that Hill be given a chance to testify before the Senate took its vote on Thomas’s confirmation. Norton, who represents Washington, D.C. in the U.S. House, declared to herself: “This woman is telling the truth!” Yet there is no question that Norton felt torn by the controversy. Hill worked for Thomas while he served as chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency charged with ensuring fairness in the workplace. In fact, Norton herself headed the EEOC for a time in the 1970s; it was during her tenure that she authored the federal guidelines identifying the type of behavior that could be regarded as sexual harassment. Like Clarence Thomas, Norton is an African American. Thomas had been nominated to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Marshall, a long-time advocate for civil rights, was the first African American to serve on the ninemember court. President Bush had reached out to the black 9

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community by offering to replace Marshall with another African American. What’s more, Bush is a Republican—a political party considered in contemporary times to be far less dedicated to civil rights than the Democratic Party. Norton knew there were few opportunities for blacks to become members of the nation’s highest court, particularly during the administration of a Republican president. Norton was hesitant to betray her race by opposing the nomination of an African American. Finally she decided that Thomas’s conduct could not be condoned simply because he was a black man seeking one of the nation’s highest offices. After all, Hill was African American as well. “This man was on the other side of the mountain from us,” Norton said. “This man had taken the EEOC down to its knees. He had stopped enforcing the law; he didn’t even follow Supreme Court decisions. It was a heartbreak for me to see what he had done.” TAKING STRIDES The physical distance between the House and Senate chambers in Washington, D.C. is but a few hundred feet. Still, there is far more than just the grand Capitol dome and the handsome Roman-style facade of the building separating the two entrances. Nearly two centuries of protocol and tradition separate the two lawmaking bodies of the U.S. government. For example, members of the House are not welcome in the Senate unless they are invited for conferences, receptions, or other similar affairs. Since the Capitol was completed in 1829, it had been virtually unheard of for members of the House to demand entry to the Senate without a formal invitation. But, on that crisp autumn day in 1991, that is exactly what Norton and her six colleagues elected to do. 10

The Walk to the Senate

The effort began on the House floor, where Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, attempted to make a short speech calling for the Senate to give Hill a chance to testify. Such short speeches are common in the House and are known as “one-minutes” because they are permitted to last for no more than 60 seconds. When it was DeLauro’s turn to speak, she found herself cut off by parliamentary procedure just 32 seconds into her comments. DeLauro had just been elected to her first term the previous year and didn’t realize that House rules prohibited representatives from referring to the Senate by name, as she had done; instead, the rules of the House required members to refer to the Senate as “the other body.” When DeLauro committed the gaffe, Republican members of the House objected and House Speaker Tom Foley, a Democrat, had no choice but to drop his gavel and order DeLauro to cease talking. Silence fell over the House floor. House leaders huddled to figure out what to do next. DeLauro held her ground, though. She recalled, “I said to myself at that point, ‘DeLauro, something serious is going on here!’” After conferring with colleagues, Foley ruled that DeLauro could conclude her remarks. But Republicans again objected, and demanded a vote by the full membership of the House—435 representatives— before DeLauro could continue. Foley was forced to acquiesce. The vote took more than an hour; when the numbers were totaled, DeLauro had been given an overwhelming vote by the House to conclude her remarks. Still, the Republicans believed they had scored a victory with their delaying tactics. That assessment would prove wrong. 11

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In October 1991, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and several female colleagues urged the U.S. Senate to hear testimony from Anita Hill, alleging sexual harassment by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. This unprecedented move resulted in the reopening of confirmation hearings. Here we see Holmes Norton (third from left) walking with her fellow Congresswomen from the House to the Senate.

“What the Republicans wanted to do was cut off debate on the issue,” said DeLauro. “But what they did was to prolong the debate, and this was on national news. They wanted to deny me my right to speak.” While all that parliamentary procedure was tying up the House, the seven female representatives met to plan their next move. In addition to Norton, they included Representatives Patsy Mink of Hawaii, Patricia Schroeder of 12

The Walk to the Senate

Colorado, Louise Slaughter of New York, Jolene Unsoeld of Washington State, Nita Lowey of New York, and Barbara Boxer of California. They decided that the only way to get the Senate to reopen the Thomas confirmation hearings was to walk over and demand it. The gesture would be unprecedented, certainly, but the seven female lawmakers displayed a measure of political savvy before making the trek: they notified the news media of their intentions. And so, when Norton and her colleagues strode out into the Washington sunshine that day, they led a parade of news reporters from the House steps, past the Capitol dome, to the Senate chambers, where they demanded entry. Specifically, they demanded to see George Mitchell, Senate majority leader. Once inside the building, they knocked on the large mahogany doors of the Senate caucus room where they knew Mitchell was attending a meeting. Ironically, the meeting had been called to discuss how the Senate would respond to the charges leveled by Anita Hill. During the meeting, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, one of the few female members of the Senate, had vehemently argued for Hill to be given a chance to testify. Mitchell dispatched a female aide to tell the representatives that they would not be permitted to enter the Senate meeting room. Norton and the others refused to retreat, though, and sent the aide back to Mitchell with this message: the House members would not leave until they were given an audience with Mitchell. They also made it clear to the messenger that a horde of reporters was waiting outside the Senate side of the building. “Listen,” Boxer said, “there are about a hundred cameras out there and they all took our picture going up the Senate 13

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During her Senate testimony, Anita Hill alleged that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her on several occasions—first when they worked together at the Department of Education, and again at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Despite Hill’s often vivid testimony, the Senate voted by a narrow margin to confirm Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination.

steps. They know what we came over about and they’ll want to know what happened. If we don’t at least meet with the majority leader. . .” The aide said she would take the message to Mitchell. A few tense minutes passed. Finally, the aide returned and informed the seven representatives that she would escort them to a meeting with Mitchell. Mitchell, a Democrat, made it clear to the women that 14

The Walk to the Senate

the Senate Judiciary Committee had done its job, concluded the hearings, and sent Thomas’s name to the floor for a full vote. He was hesitant to reopen the process. “They didn’t want to expose it, have all this stuff come out,” said Norton. The women kept up the pressure, though, and finally Mitchell reluctantly agreed to reopen the hearings. Three days later, Anita Hill stood nervously before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She raised her hand and took an oath to tell the truth. The hearings were broadcast on national television; they mesmerized citizens across the country. During her riveting testimony, Hill said that while she worked for Thomas, first at the Department of Education and then at the EEOC, he often spoke to her in a sexually suggestive manner. While, in general, there is nothing illicit or improper about coworkers dating, in Thomas’s case, according to Hill, his romantic overtures to her were far from harmless. Hill told the senators: My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects or he might suggest that because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very vivid.

Hill stood up to an intense grilling by Republican members of the Judiciary Committee anxious to defend 15

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Thomas. At home, millions of women watching the hearings on television felt the bonds of sisterhood with Hill, and became incensed as the Republican senators tried to break her story. Clarence Thomas also had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He vehemently denied Hill’s allegations, contending that he never displayed improper conduct toward her or any other female assistant. He testified: I have been wracking my brains, and eating my insides out trying to think of what I could have said or done to Anita Hill to lead her to allege that I was interested in her in more than a professional way, and that I talked with her about pornographic or X-rated films. . . . Throughout the time that Anita Hill worked with me I treated her as I treated my other special assistants. I tried to treat them all cordially, professionally, and respectfully. And I tried to support them in their endeavors, and be interested in and supportive of their success.

The reconvened hearings lasted for three days. On October 15, the full Senate debated the Thomas nomination. The next evening, Thomas’s nomination was put to a vote before the Senate. In one of the most contentious votes on a Supreme Court nominee in history, the Senate voted by the razor-thin margin of 52–48 to confirm Clarence Thomas to the nation’s highest court. But the struggle for women’s rights in the halls of Congress was far from over. Those millions of women who sat glued to their television screens during the Thomas confirmation hearings spoke at the ballot box the next fall. 16

The Walk to the Senate

They elected 24 new women to the House of Representatives—the largest class of women ever to enter the House in a single election. In addition, five women were elected to the Senate that year, also an unprecedented number. So successful were their campaigns in the fall of 1992 that the press dubbed it the “Year of the Woman.” And it all started when Eleanor Holmes Norton and six colleagues took their walk up the granite steps of the Senate. Said Norton: “I walked for the guidelines, I walked for the EEOC, I walked for the Supreme Court, I walked for women, I walked for Anita Hill [and for] black women who have had their sexuality trivialized and scandalized; black women who have had their sexuality demeaned just as Clarence Thomas had done to Anita Hill.”

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2 Campus Leader & Social Activist “My first sit-in was right here outside of Washington, in Maryland, which was then a segregated state. I’ll never forget it, because instead of simply going to sit in, we went that Sunday morning to churches and asked the congregation—and these were black churches—if they would go with us. And so the students and the congregants went together, and sat down. I can tell you one thing: the county attorney never prosecuted that case, and I think it was in part because we had gone to get the people of the town with us. And the rest was a series of demonstrations while I was at law school, at Yale Law School, coming home in the summer and going south to Mississippi and involving myself in campaigns as a part of a movement that had spread everywhere and among virtually everyone.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, George Washington University National Security Archive

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leanor Katherine Holmes was born on June 13, 1937, the great-granddaughter of a fugitive slave. In the 1850s, Richard John Holmes ran away from a Virginia plantation and found shelter by hiding among the faceless black population of the nation’s capital. Richard Holmes eventually became a minister and was able to provide a comfortable home for his family. Unlike many black households in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Holmeses always had enough to eat, a roof over their heads, and jobs that paid living wages. Eleanor’s grandfather, Richard John Lewis Holmes, was a Washington fireman; her father, Coleman Sterling Holmes, was one of the brightest students at Cardoza Business High School in Washington. He graduated with a degree from Syracuse University—a most unusual accomplishment for a black man in the 1930s. After winning his degree, Coleman Holmes returned home to Washington to search for a job. Alas, even a man with a college degree found few opportunities for employment in 1930s America; at the time, the Great Depression had forced millions of people out of work, making it difficult for most everyone to find steady employment. Blacks were hit harder than whites because of racism: since most employers were white, they largely preferred hiring whites over blacks, particularly in segregated cities, which included Washington. To make ends meet, Coleman Holmes drove a cab. Later, he found a job as a public health inspector for the city. By then, he had married the former Vela Lynch, whom he met while going to school in Syracuse. Vela had grown up in North Carolina, but as a teenager moved to upstate New York to attend high school and live with an aunt. After finishing two years at a junior college, Vela taught in 19

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the Syracuse public schools. When Coleman graduated, they married and moved to Washington. Vela found a job as a printer’s assistant in the U.S. Bureau of Engraving. Later, she would teach in Washington schools. Eleanor was their first child. Coleman picked her name. He admired the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who had proven herself a friend to the poor and jobless—the people hit hardest by the Depression. Two years after Eleanor’s birth, Coleman’s faith in Eleanor Roosevelt would be confirmed when the first lady used her influence to permit the African-American opera star Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let her sing in the organization’s Constitution Hall. Soon, two sisters would join Eleanor in the Holmes household—Portia, born a year after Eleanor, and Nellie, born a year after Portia. Eleanor entered kindergarten in 1942, enrolling in Monroe Elementary School in Washington, D.C. It was a segregated school, which meant that no whites were permitted admittance. Whites had their own schools. The differences between white schools and “colored” schools were significant. At the white schools, the buildings, the textbooks, the playground equipment, and even the chalk for the blackboards were new and of the highest quality. At the black schools, the books were likely out of date, the boiler probably broke down a lot, and the playground equipment was weathered and likely to be standing in a field of mud. Not until 1954, when the Supreme Court acted in the Brown v. Board of Education case, were such segregated conditions in schools ruled unconstitutional. The Brown decision was still 12 years coming when five-year-old Eleanor Holmes first walked into Monroe 20

Campus Leader and Social Activist

Elementary School. “I remember being very nervous,” she recalled, “wanting to do well in school from the beginning.” Indeed, Eleanor would prove a bright student who excelled in most academic subjects. She became president of the Glee Club and Junior Red Cross, treasurer of the Student Council, and a junior librarian appointee. She earned straight A’s, as well, but she also earned a reputation as a student who constantly questioned her teachers and often refused to accept their explanations. Through it all, though, the shadow of discrimination and segregation hung over Eleanor and the other students at Monroe. “When we went on trips to public buildings, the teachers would say, ‘Now I want to make sure that we behave ourselves, because that’s what they say about Negroes, ill-mannered,’” Norton recalled. “They were trying to make us conform to good behavior by invoking a racial stereotype.” In 1949, Eleanor Holmes entered Banneker Junior High School in Washington, named after Benjamin Banneker, the 18th century African-American scientist. Banneker Junior High, like Monroe, was a segregated school. As for Eleanor, she picked up at Banneker where she left off at Monroe. In her first year in junior high, she was elected president of her class as well as the Honors Club. It was at Banneker that she began thinking of a career, and her thoughts centered on a future in journalism. “I have made the decision to become a journalist,” she wrote in the school newspaper, the Banneker Newsletter, “though knowing that Negroes have not gone in for ‘big writing’ as yet. That is, writing famous books, working for 21

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big newspapers, and play and poem writing is something the Negro has not done on a large scale. This is mainly, I think, because we have not had the opportunity to investigate this profession. . . . However, now that we are getting more advantages every day more of us go into the fields that prohibited us [from entering].” Eleanor Holmes had two heroes at the time. One was her namesake, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was no longer first lady but continued to write a newspaper column titled “My Day.” Eleanor religiously pasted Mrs. Roosevelt’s columns into a scrapbook. Her other hero was Mary Church Terrell, who sued Thompson’s Restaurant in Washington, D.C. because it refused to serve her as well as other African-American customers. Terrell also organized picket lines outside Kresge’s discount store for prohibiting black customers at its lunch counter, and Hecht’s department store for refusing to let black customers use its restrooms. Terrell won the suit against Thompson’s Restaurant in a case that was ultimately decided in 1953 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was at Banneker that Eleanor Holmes had her first taste of politics. Two of Eleanor’s friends ran for student council; Eleanor took over as their campaign manager. She campaigned hard for her friends—making their posters, writing their speeches, and organizing pep rallies for them. When her friends won the election, Eleanor found herself hooked on politics. In the spring of her ninth grade year at Banneker, Eleanor’s teachers picked her to join a student delegation to the convention of the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association in New York City. The event featured workshops for the student journalists, an address by a New York Times editor, and a full schedule of cultural events, such 22

Campus Leader and Social Activist

as a visit to the New York City Ballet and to a Broadway theater to attend a Cole Porter musical. There was also a shopping trip to the world-famous Macy’s department store. That fall, Eleanor entered Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. It was another segregated school, but it was perhaps the finest high school for blacks in America. Its students were so talented that black families from throughout the country would move to Washington so their children could attend Dunbar. Some 90 percent of Dunbar students went on to college, many to Ivy League schools. “If you aspired to go to college, you went there,” Norton recalled. “It was all based on aspiration.” Eleanor had been the best student at Monroe and Banneker. At Dunbar, she found herself competing against the best and brightest African-American students from all over the city. Again, her talent and intelligence set her apart from the others. Academically, she scored straight A’s. She joined the debate team and competed in oratorical contests. She also had a lot of boyfriends at Dunbar. Eleanor enjoyed dancing and going to parties; she wanted a boyfriend who could keep up with her zest for life, but she also demanded that he be her intellectual equal. There weren’t too many boys like that at Dunbar, and Eleanor found herself constantly breaking off relationships. In the spring of 1955, during her last year at Dunbar, she started thinking about college. Coleman and Vela earned respectable salaries, but they would never be able to pay for college. It meant their eldest daughter would have to win a scholarship—a chore that Eleanor found easier than expected. Soon, she found a willing donor in the Ford Foundation, which is financed by the Ford Motor 23

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Company. The foundation had set up a fund to pay for the educations of black students who desired to attend white colleges. Eleanor applied, and was accepted. As for her choice of a college, Eleanor had a friend whose sister attended tiny Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, just east of Dayton. Eleanor was intrigued by Antioch, which had a reputation for radical politics and social consciousness. The school’s history also spoke volumes to Eleanor: it was founded in 1852, in a town known for its dedication to the Abolitionist movement. During the Civil War, the trustees of the school decreed that “Antioch College cannot, according to the charter, reject persons on account of their color.” Eleanor chose Antioch. For the first time in her life, she would be entering a school that was not segregated. A RADICAL MOVEMENT BEGINS She arrived for classes in the fall of 1955 with the vague notion that she intended to become a physician, a career that her father had asked her to consider. College was going to be a far different experience than Eleanor had ever known. Only once before had she lived among white people: when she was 13, she attended a YWCA summer camp for two weeks in upstate New York. Now, she would be living in a dormitory with white roommates for the better part of each year. As Eleanor boarded a plane at National Airport in Washington for the flight to Ohio, her father had two words of advice for her: “Be careful.” Indeed, Eleanor would experience a period of awkwardness at Antioch. She made friends quickly, but was hesitant to ask for their help in making her way around campus or dealing with such trivial tasks as figuring out 24

Campus Leader and Social Activist

After attending several segregated schools, Eleanor chose to enroll at Ohio’s Antioch College in 1955. Antioch’s progressive environment allowed Eleanor to push toward her more radical self, challenging the values of the time. This is Eleanor as she appeared in her 1955 Antioch College class picture.

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the card catalog in the school library. Certainly, Eleanor Holmes could never have been characterized as a shy person, but in this case, she said, “I was the only Negro, I was very sensitive to being in a small minority for a long time at Antioch.” Still, she dove into her studies, finding comfort in Antioch’s liberal tradition, as well as the willingness of her fellow students to accept her as an equal. One of the first friends she made was her roommate, Shelly Eisenberg, a Jewish girl from New York City who was drawn to Antioch because of its left-wing politics. This was the era of the Beat Generation, abstract art, socialist politics, folk singers who denounced authority, and, in the black community, activists who questioned segregation. Eleanor was drawn completely into that movement in college. Back at Dunbar High School, Eleanor had been president of the Junior Elites, a student club that organized Thanksgiving turkey drives for needy families. At Antioch, she was chairman of the Socialist Discussion Club. “Antioch pushed me,” Norton said years later, “allowed me to push toward my more radical self, the part that was already very skeptical about middle-class values. There was a kind of black bourgeois approach to the world, where the next step in life is orchestrated, you were going to marry somebody successful. . . . The black middle class was narrow, proper, and unadventuresome, and I did not want to relive it.” A DEFINING EXPERIENCE Shortly after Eleanor commenced her first year at Antioch, an incident occurred hundreds of miles away that would dramatically alter the course of Eleanor’s life, as well as the lives of millions of other African Americans. 26

Campus Leader and Social Activist

In Montgomery, Alabama, a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white rider. Parks was arrested and briefly jailed for violating Montgomery’s segregation laws. The incident sparked a national protest movement, as well as a boycott by black riders of Montgomery’s public transit system led by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. Ultimately, the Montgomery bus boycott succeeded in tearing down segregation in Montgomery. The boycott would also lay the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. King’s embrace of nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve change empowered Eleanor to seek a career in social activism. The bus boycott, she said, “was a defining experience of my life.” During her first two years at Antioch she had taken many biology and chemistry courses, struggling through most of them as she worked toward medical school. Now, though, she began considering a career in law. On campus, her activities were definitely directed toward social activism—she founded the first Antioch chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and organized a bus trip for students to attend a march in Washington led by King and other black leaders. Ultimately, Eleanor decided to change majors. “I thought lawyers engaged in winners and losers and I hated that, whereas medicine was all doing good,” Norton said. “Ultimately what made me know I was to be a lawyer was the ripening of my civil rights consciousness, and here I was, smack dab in the midst of one of the few colleges in the United States that had any sense of social action, right as the civil rights movement underwent the great transition from law to action. Thurgood Marshall 27

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and the lawyers opened the world. They made the nonviolent revolution occur. So lawyers were the key to the future, not doctors, as much as doctors were needed in the black community.” Eleanor received her undergraduate degree from Antioch and enrolled in Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, in the fall of 1960. Founded in 1701, Yale is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in America. Eleanor found herself one of the few black students at Yale Law School and, in fact, one of the few women students. At the time, women were just beginning to enter college in large numbers, choosing professions that for decades had been dominated by men. During Eleanor’s first year at Yale Law, there was only one other African-American female student. Again, Eleanor had to make adjustments in her life. At Antioch, she had fit in nicely among the campus radicals, wearing blue jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. That would not do at Yale. In the 1960s, law school students at Yale were expected to dress as though they were on the job in a law firm—jackets and ties for the men; smart, conservative suits for the women. Eleanor adapted her look, but there was no way she was going to drop her radical ideas. “I may have been at Yale but I was challenging Yale all the time,” she said. Actually, Eleanor was not alone. At the time, many bright students had been drawn to careers in law by the social activism that was sweeping through the country. They believed they could make a difference. Slowly, the conservative campuses of Yale and other American universities started experiencing a change as students demanded the right to be heard on many important issues. 28

Campus Leader and Social Activist

Eleanor Holmes became involved in radical politics and social activism on the Yale campus. She demonstrated against a New Haven city redevelopment project that threatened to displace poor urban residents in one of New Haven’s black neighborhoods. She also reported for the New American, a local Socialist Party newspaper. In June 1961, shortly after finishing her first year’s classes, Eleanor spent two months working in hospitals in West Africa. Her summer job the next year took her to New York City, where she found a position with Brennan, London, and Buttenweiser, a liberal law firm with a record of providing free legal services for defendants in civil liberties cases. During the summer Eleanor spent in New York, attorneys from the firm helped defend Robert Soblen, a fugitive U.S. citizen charged with spying for the Soviet Union. Even her classroom work reflected a devotion to her social agenda. At the end of her freshman year, Eleanor won a campus mock trial competition in which she argued in favor of free speech in a case involving a suspected communist who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the notorious McCarthy era in America. “Yale was a good place to be if you believed in civil rights,” Norton recalled. “You got a fine legal education and yet you were with like souls, though not very many blacks and very few women.” In the summer of 1963, Eleanor would take her social activism a step further, by joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and traveling to Mississippi to help register voters. By then, the courts had struck down most segregation laws, but some states refused to let go of the old ways. Blacks were still being lynched in the southern 29

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states by Ku Klux Klan members and other white segregationists. In Arkansas, President John F. Kennedy had to dispatch federal troops to ensure that black students were given the right to enroll in Little Rock High School. In Alabama, Governor George Wallace refused to open the doors of the University of Alabama to AfricanAmerican students. In Mississippi, three young civil rights workers—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner—would be murdered by segregationists in the summer of 1964. “My family thought it was very dangerous. But they never said no, it never created such consternation that they stopped me, but my mother was upset and both my parents thought it best not to be involved,” Norton recalled. “The FBI took the position that they could not protect civil rights workers, that there was no federal basis for it—which everybody knows is ridiculous now. . . . It was not a time when people could have confidence that everything was going to go all right.” Eleanor was assigned to work in Jackson, the state capital, and assist Medgar Evers, field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). On her first day in Jackson, Evers drove her around town to meet some of the other volunteers, then took her to his house where she met his wife Myrlie, finally driving Eleanor to the Jackson bus station. From Jackson, Eleanor took a bus to the town of Greenwood, where she spent the night with another family. The next morning, soon after she rose, she was told that Evers had been assassinated the night before, in his driveway, as he was returning from a meeting. A few days later, Eleanor sent a postcard to a friend. “Greetings from Hell,” she wrote. “Have seen everything— 30

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from negroes throwing rocks to negroes being beaten . . . the fight is a revolution down here. . . . Just being a freedom fighter down here is risking death—and I’ve been scared ever since I got here.”

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3 Nirvana at the ACLU “When you are barely 30 you cannot go before the Supreme Court at such a tender age without being nervous and being over-prepared. . . . What gave me any confidence at all was I essentially spent my time since my clerkship, my entire short career, doing nothing but writing . . . briefs to the Supreme Court and courts of appeal. When it came to the writing I felt far more confident than actually getting up there and telling this court what to do.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, interview with the author, January 2003

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ollowing her graduation from Yale in 1964, Eleanor found her legal skills very much in demand. Almost immediately after accepting her diploma, Eleanor was asked to help prepare a legal brief for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was attempting to win credentials for a group of black delegates for that 32

summer’s Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The delegates were members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and they argued that they were the true representatives of Democratic voters in their state. Although blacks generally supported the Democratic Party over the years, and most of the nation’s civil rights legislation was written by Democratic lawmakers, many party leaders in southern states refused to recognize the rights of blacks. Mississippi Democrats continued to be steadfast in their opposition to civil rights; indeed, they planned to send an all-white delegation to the party’s convention, that summer, in which President Lyndon B. Johnson would be nominated for a second term in office. A brief is a legal pleading containing arguments and often citing similar cases in which precedents were set. Most briefs must be thoroughly researched and lay out convincing arguments for a judge to consider when deciding the case. The brief prepared by Holmes and other SNCC attorneys argued that blacks were still being denied voting rights in Mississippi, often barred at gunpoint from the polls or Democratic Party meetings. Meanwhile, on June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner—were reported missing. Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves near Philadelphia, Mississippi; the car they were last seen driving was found on fire in a spot nearby. In late August, members of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party brought the burnedout car to Atlantic City, mounting it on the historic boardwalk near the entrance to Atlantic City’s Convention Hall, the site of the Democratic convention. It would serve as a 33

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grim reminder to the delegates of the murderous behavior of white segregationists in the South. By then, the courts had rejected the SNCC brief. Still, Holmes and other activists hoped the Democratic Party itself would refuse to seat the all-white Mississippi delegation and instead issue credentials to the Freedom Party Democrats. Holmes headed to Atlantic City to help the SNCC lobby party leaders. “We regarded the regular delegates as totally illegitimate,” Norton said. “We believed we’d made the case that they had kept blacks out. It may have been naive to think that something as radical as throwing out the regular delegation would be done, but, given the facts of the situation, it didn’t seem to us to be radical at all.” Lyndon Johnson did not want his convention disrupted by racial dissent. Johnson’s lieutenants attempted to negotiate a settlement in which the Mississippi delegation would be seated, but the Freedom Party Democrats would be granted two honorary, nonvoting seats. The Freedom Party Democrats angrily turned down the offer and left Atlantic City bitter that Johnson had offered them little more than symbolic seats. But the message brought to Atlantic City by the Freedom Party Democrats was loud and clear. The 1964 convention would be the last Democratic National Convention that would exclude African-American delegates. What’s more, that year President Johnson would sign the most sweeping and significant civil rights legislation in the history of the United States. Following the convention, Eleanor headed to Philadelphia, where a job as a clerk on the staff of United States Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. awaited her. Like Holmes, Higginbotham had graduated from Antioch and 34

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Eleanor points to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the spark that ignited her interest in social activism. In 1964, shortly after her graduation from Yale Law School, Eleanor became active in the growing civil rights movement. Here, we see Eleanor’s inspiration, Dr. King, addressing the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Yale. Earlier that year, President Johnson appointed him the nation’s first African-American U.S. District Court judge. Law clerks are employed by judges to help them research law so they can write opinions in cases they are asked to consider. Often, clerks are called on to cull through hundreds of pages of documents, searching for judicial opinions in prior cases that might help the judge make his or her decision. It is tedious work, to be sure, but 35

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few lawyers who have served as clerks would trade the experience because it often gives them a wide depth of experience in the law. Eleanor held the job for about a year. Soon after going to work for Judge Higginbotham, Eleanor met a young law student named Edward Norton. A year younger than Eleanor, Edward was somebody she believed was her intellectual equal. He had entered Yale University as an undergraduate at 16; after graduation, he enlisted as an officer in the U.S. Navy, then entered Columbia University in New York as a law student. The courtship was whirlwind; Eleanor and Edward married October 9, 1965. Now going by the name of Eleanor Holmes Norton, she resigned from Judge Higginbotham’s staff and moved to New York City, where her husband was completing his final year of law school. Norton was 27 years old and in need of a job. She found it at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A FULL-TIME ADVOCATE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE Founded in 1920 to defend the constitutional rights of Americans, the ACLU lobbies for laws that protect freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The ACLU will take cases to court when the organization believes important precedents can be established or feels that an issue merits the type of public attention that ACLU involvement usually guarantees. Although the ACLU has nearly 300,000 members and offices in most of the 50 states, the organization does not have the resources to retain expensive attorneys. Staff lawyers for the ACLU typically earn low salaries. When Norton was hired by the New York office in the fall of 1965, she learned that she would make up half of the 36

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office’s two-person legal staff. The job paid a paltry $8,500 a year, and the hours promised to be long. Nevertheless, since first becoming interested in public activism as a student at Antioch College, Norton had looked forward to the day when she could work full-time as an advocate for social change. This was her chance. “I thought I was the luckiest person in the world,” Norton said. “It was nirvana.” It didn’t take long for Norton to find herself immersed in all manner of constitutional cases. At the time, public opposition to the Vietnam War was just starting to gel. Opponents to the war began speaking out on college campuses, urging students to resist the draft. Many veterans returning from Southeast Asia also spoke out against the war. One of those veterans was brought up on charges before a military court; Norton defended him before the court, arguing that he had First Amendment rights and, therefore, the right to tell people of his belief that the war was wrong. She also helped defend Julian Bond, an African American from Georgia whom she’d met while working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Bond had been elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, but lawmakers in Georgia refused to seat Bond because he told a news reporter that he opposed the Vietnam War. The ACLU took the case; Norton wrote a brief defending Bond’s right to free speech, and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually overruled the Georgia Legislature and ordered that Bond be permitted to take his seat. “It seems astounding from any point of view that they would deny his seat,” Norton said. “That’s what I’m talking about: how First Amendment law in the 1960s and early 1970s got made. People think it was created in the Constitution. But 37

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that was only on paper. Nobody protected First Amendment rights until after I was born, and then only gradually until it really picked up acceleration in the 1960s.” Defending the free speech rights of opponents of the Vietnam War did not pose a moral dilemma to Norton. Indeed, she opposed the war herself and gladly took on the cases. Certainly, she was more than willing to throw herself completely into Julian Bond’s defense—he was, after all, a friend. Soon, though, Eleanor Holmes Norton would find herself standing up for the rights of people whose opinions on race were in conflict with her own—the type of people who kept the schools in Washington segregated, who insisted the Democratic delegation from Mississippi be all white, who would arrest a black woman for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. But the First Amendment is for all Americans. Indeed, the Bill of Rights ensures free speech for all people, regardless of what they may have to say. “Basically, the best way to make a First Amendment point is by representing somebody you don’t agree with, especially if you are trying to educate the public about the importance of the First Amendment,” said Norton. “I’m sure people sneered about the ACLU’s First Amendment cases, but the notion of a black person representing somebody like George Wallace might well make the First Amendment point in a way that representing a black man like Julian Bond, whom I love, does not.” Norton did in fact do just that: represent Wallace. Governor George Wallace of Alabama was an ardent segregationist, who, as it was well known, had blocked the doors to the University of Alabama admissions office in 1963 to prevent black students from entering. He backed down, though, when President Kennedy dispatched federal troops to escort the students on the campus. Still, Wallace 38

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remained a hero to segregationists. By early 1968, Wallace was ready to take his campaign for separation of the races national by entering the race for president. Shortly before the New York State presidential primary, Wallace asked for a permit to use Shea Stadium in New York City for a political rally. New York’s liberal mayor, John Lindsay, flatly refused. Clearly, Lindsay had no right to refuse Wallace the use of the stadium—it is a city-owned building, after all. Enter the ACLU, whose legal experts saw the dispute between Wallace and the city government as a free speech issue. Norton was asked whether she would take the case. She recalled: “A colleague said, ‘Eleanor, you want to represent George Wallace?’ I said, ‘I’d love to.’ He said, ‘You’re joking. You don’t really mean it.’ I said, ‘But I want to do it.’ I just thought it was the greatest opportunity in the world to dramatize the importance of the First Amendment.” “When I walked into court, Wallace had a local counsel . . . but he also had some of his young staff there. I was impressed by the fact that they were clearly Southern, Princeton and Yale-educated types, not George Wallace, man-on-the-street types. They had no idea who the ACLU was sending. To their credit, when I walked in there, no one batted an eye. ‘I’m Eleanor Norton. I’m here to argue the constitutional part of your case . . . ’ ‘Very glad to have you, Mrs. Norton.’ And we went about our business. The case was easy. The law was clear. It never had to go above a local New York City court. We won.” Norton soon argued a similar case. In 1966, a small segregationist group, called the National States Rights Party, held a rally in Princess Anne County, Maryland during which its speakers preached white supremacy and 39

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supported violence against blacks. The party’s speakers also announced plans for another rally for the next night. City leaders, worried that the second rally could turn violent, won a court order known as an “injunction” barring the second rally. Again, the ACLU found itself coming to the defense of segregationists. In this case, the ACLU argued that the city felt itself justified in blocking the free speech rights of the participants out of a fear of what they would say, but such “prior restraint” of speech is unconstitutional. In October 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Norton, now a veteran of free speech cases, was picked by the ACLU to argue its side before the nation’s highest court. Nervously, Norton entered the Washington courtroom on the morning of the argument and faced the nine justices. Norton steadfastly defended the National States Rights Party’s right to free speech, arguing that no government can cut off somebody’s remarks before they are made. Later, Norton explained that she was able to argue so eloquently in favor of free speech for white supremacists because free speech has always been important to blacks. Even in the era of slavery, she said, black voices such as Frederick Douglass spoke up. “In a real sense, speech is the only weapon that black people have consistently had,” she said. On November 19, 1969, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the National States Rights Party case. Writing for the court, Justice Abe Fortas found that the speech made by party leaders was “aggressively and militantly racist.” Nevertheless, the court ruled unanimously to strike down the injunction. The city, the court ruled, had no right to stifle the party’s right to free speech. 40

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The Supreme Court’s decision was reported on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country. Soon, Norton took another case that would also make headlines. The case would introduce her to the cause of women’s rights in the workplace—an area of law that would dominate Norton’s life for the next two decades. WORKING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS At Newsweek magazine, women researchers complained that they were not given fair opportunities to apply for promotions as reporters. Large magazines typically employ researchers to perform much of the background work for the reporters, who actually go out on the assignments, interview newsmakers, and write the stories. The women, Norton found, were highly educated and intelligent employees who accepted the researchers’ positions believing it was the first step up the editorial ladder at Newsweek. In March 1970, 46 women at Newsweek filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that men were given preference for the reporter jobs. For representation, they had turned to the ACLU. Norton was assigned to the case. It was an unusual accusation because Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post Corporation, which at the time was headed by a woman, Katharine Graham. Ironically, the complaint before the EEOC was filed the same day Newsweek published a cover story on the growing feminist movement, headlining the piece “Women in Revolt.” Newsweek editors were embarrassed to admit that the one female reporter on staff at the magazine at the time had not been assigned to write the story. Katharine Graham was torn by the accusations of the women. On the one hand, she felt a certain empathy 41

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for them. Graham took over the Washington Post Corporation following the suicide of her husband, Philip Graham. At the time, few major American corporations were headed by women. Katharine Graham fought hard against the perceptions of a male-dominated corporate world that a woman could not handle such an important job. Still, she felt the researchers’ issues could have been handled within the company with no need to file a formal complaint. “Of course, I can see in hindsight that they probably discussed the issues repeatedly with people at a lower level and unbeknownst to me,” Graham said years later. In August 1970, Newsweek agreed to settle the complaint by promising to promote more women. Norton, working out of her tiny office at ACLU headquarters in New York, had been able to shake the corporate foundation of one of America’s most powerful media companies. Unfortunately, however, her efforts weren’t enough. Two years later, 59 women at the Washington Post filed a similar complaint against the management of the newspaper, claiming men received preference for promotions. By then, Norton was not available to represent them. Shortly after filing the case against Newsweek, she was approached by aides for Mayor John Lindsay in New York and offered the job as chairman of the city’s Commission on Human Rights. Her work in civil liberties cases brought her to the attention of the mayor, who wanted her to investigate all cases of discrimination in the city. Lindsay himself had fallen under criticism for failing to offer top-level jobs in the city government to women. A month before Norton was hired, a group of women demonstrated in front of city hall to call attention to Lindsay’s record on hiring women. 42

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“You might consider my appointment as an answer to their demands, mightn’t you?” Norton told reporters. Norton was 32 years old and seven months pregnant at the time of her appointment. For decades, women who worked were expected to drop their careers when they became pregnant so they could stay home and raise their children. Norton decided she would be a working mother. There were few day-care centers in the early 1970s; Norton was lucky because Edward’s mother had agreed to look after the baby while the parents were at work. The baby was born July 8, 1970. Katherine Felicia Norton would be the first of the couple’s two children. Their son John was born two years later. Certainly, Eleanor and Edward were delighted with the birth of Katherine, but they soon learned that the baby was afflicted with Down’s Syndrome—a birth defect that limits the intellectual and physical development of its victims. The syndrome, which was first recognized by British physician John Langdon Down in the 1800s, is believed to be caused by a genetic imbalance. “The greatest trauma I’ve ever had was having a child with Down’s syndrome,” Norton said. “That was a great shock. But instinctively I knew what I was going to do: raise her and love her.” Norton returned to the Human Rights Commission soon after Katherine’s birth, eager to continue the work she had started just three months before. Her first job was to look into the accusations made by the women who had picketed city hall and to investigate New York City’s record on hiring and promoting women. Norton ordered her staff to survey all city departments. The investigation revealed that only eight percent of the 43

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300 highest-ranking jobs in the city government were held by women. Mayor Lindsay was stunned by the findings. “It is nothing less than tragic that the full energies of women, who are a majority in our population, are not being used,” he said. “Instead, tradition, discrimination, and in some cases, the law, consign women to an inferior economic and occupational status to the lasting disadvantage of all.” Under Norton, the Human Rights Commission convened a hearing on discrimination against women in the workplace not just in city government, but among all employers in New York. On September 22, 1970, more than 20 witnesses testified at the hearing that men were routinely given preference for promotions over women. During her tenure at the Human Rights Commission, Norton tackled other issues as well. Her office was one of the first municipal agencies in America to fight for the rights of gay people. She won concessions from employers to recognize the religious rights of their workers; many Orthodox Jews, for instance, are unable to work on Fridays or Saturdays because of their strict observance of the Sabbath. And of course, cases involving racism were always on the commission’s agenda. But the one issue Norton kept finding herself coming back to was the rights of women, particularly the rights of women in the workplace. Said Norton: “I spoke to groups of feminists, asking, ‘Where are you? Why aren’t you filing complaints!’ Almost half worked outside the home for pay, a leap of 10 percent in a single decade. But their pay averaged only fifty-nine cents for every dollar a man earned. Inequality cut across the board. “If you broke your leg, then your Blue Cross or whatever paid for the entire amount. But if you had your 44

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This photo was taken at Eleanor’s second swearing in as chair of New York City’s Human Rights Commission. From left to right are Shirley Chisholm (first African-American women elected to the United States Congress), Correta Scott King, and Norton.

baby, you might have gotten a few hundred dollars rather than the thousands it cost. All of that was just routinely accepted.” Certainly, Norton realized that the problem of women’s rights in the workplace was not an issue of concern just in the city of New York. Indeed, women everywhere in America felt the pain of discrimination. It was a national issue, and Norton knew it would have to be fought on a national level. Soon, she would be leading the fight. 45

4 THE “CHAIR” TAKES OVER “I am flabbergasted to think that anybody could question the notion that diversity in great universities is a compelling interest. If it is not a compelling interest to make sure that at a young age, young people have meaningful and important contact with one another and exchanges that assure racial harmony and peace, then I don’t know what a compelling interest is. . . . The culprit has been the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has done real damage to affirmative action, not the Congress. . . . We’ve been able to hold our own in the Congress, and I think the courts should be careful not to reverse its role and become the ultimate destroyer here.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, interview with the author, January 2003

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he 1964 Civil Rights Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson did more than just outlaw segregation in public places such as theaters, department stores, and restaurants. It also ensured that minorities would have equal rights in the workplace. To enforce the new law in the workplace, Congress created the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Now, if people felt they had been unfairly denied jobs, promotions, or equal pay for reasons based on race or gender, they had a place to take their complaints. The EEOC was charged with the task of investigating the cases and, if it determined the employees were victims of bias, approaching the employers to work out a solution. That was supposed to be the way the system worked. Unfortunately, the EEOC floundered from the day it opened for business on July 2, 1965. For starters, the agency soon found itself swamped with complaints—many, many more than anyone had predicted. During the agency’s first year, it was expected that some 2,000 cases would be brought to the EEOC; instead, complaints filed during the first year totaled 8,852. There were already more than 1,000 complaints awaiting caseworkers on opening day. From the beginning, the staff of just 100 people was overwhelmed with the caseload. A backlog immediately developed. By the mid-1970s, even though the staff had grown to some 2,500 employees, the backlog grew to more than 130,000 cases. People often had to wait years for a resolution to their case. And the resolutions themselves often meant little to the clients. Although Congress established the EEOC to enforce the equal employment laws contained in the Civil Rights Act, it gave the agency few powers to make violators obey the laws or assess penalties if they refused. Frequently, 47

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In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act—officially outlawing segregation in public places and ensuring that minorities would have equal rights in the workplace. Enforcement of equal rights in the workplace eventually became the responsibility of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). When Norton joined the EEOC in 1977, it was an organization under siege — overwhelmed by complaints, lacking proper enforcement power, and often at odds with other federal agencies.

the only resolution the EEOC could offer its clients was assistance in filing lawsuits against their employers. That solution was often of little help to most clients; frequently, the clients faced high-powered corporate attorneys in court who were able to tie up the cases for years and wear down the hapless plaintiffs, who could ill-afford to wait that long 48

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to have their cases heard. Around Washington, the EEOC was known as the “toothless tiger.” There were other problems as well. The EEOC often found itself tangling with other federal agencies. Indeed, over the years 18 other federal agencies had been given responsibilities to investigate abuses in the workplace. Frequently, EEOC staff members would launch investigations into a case only to find that the incident was more appropriately under the purview of the Labor Department or the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Those agencies were loathe to give up their authority to the EEOC; as a result, turf wars were not uncommon. The EEOC itself had been accused of racial bias. In one year alone, 74 EEOC employees filed discrimination complaints against the agency, claiming they were denied jobs or promotions because of race. For an agency whose staff was more than 60 percent black or Hispanic, it was a most embarrassing statistic. Mostly, though, the EEOC suffered due to a lack of leadership. During its first decade of operation, no fewer than seven chairmen had headed the EEOC. In other words, no one stuck around long enough to make some sense out of the terrible mess the EEOC had become. That was the situation facing Eleanor Holmes Norton when she arrived at the EEOC on June 17, 1977, appointed to head the agency by President Jimmy Carter. Norton had spent nearly seven years as head of the New York Human Rights Commission. She had done such an effective job heading the agency that when Abraham D. Beame replaced John Lindsay as mayor of New York following the election of 1973, he asked Norton to stay on at the Human Rights Commission. 49

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In the fall of 1976, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, was elected president. His election ended eight years of Republican administrations in Washington. A staunch believer in human rights, Carter called on Norton to take over the agency and set it on the course that Congress had intended when it was created more than a decade earlier. For Norton, it would mean an opportunity to return to the city where she grew up. She took the job. Edward and Eleanor sold their home in the Harlem section of Manhattan and moved their family to the nation’s capital. Edward Norton found a job as a staff attorney at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Eleanor Holmes Norton brought change quickly to her troubled agency. To show that the EEOC would be a place where bias was nonexistent, Norton ordered that her title be stenciled on her office door not as “Chairman” or “Chairwoman” but simply as “Chair.” “When I came to the EEOC, the employees were ready for a change,” Norton said. “There had not been a chair in the agency for over a year. The agency had been crucified in the press for its processes and so the employees wanted somebody to take charge. “The first day I was there I said, ‘I want to speak to the staff.’ ‘All of them?’ ‘Yes.’ Apparently, the headquarters staff had not ever been spoken to all at one time. ‘There’s no place big enough,’ I was told. ‘Now, if bad comes to worse, I’m going to speak to them outdoors.’ Well, they came back and said, ‘Would you like to speak at three in the cafeteria?’ When I spoke to them I was very clear that I thought I couldn’t do it by myself, that I had a lot of ideas and they were going to be carried out with unseemly haste, that it had to be done that way. . . I also made it clear that I knew 50

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I had to do it with them. At the same time I tried to be very determined that there was no stopping me.” Changing her title to “Chair” was a symbolic gesture. Soon after arriving at the agency, Norton made many substantive changes that would go a long way toward making the EEOC effective. THE “CHAIR” TAKES ACTION First, Norton had to cut the backlog. For starters, she instituted a new screening process designed to weed out frivolous complaints before they became new EEOC cases, thus adding to the backlog. Before the agency agreed to accept the complaint, an EEOC caseworker was now assigned to sit down with the applicant to assess the issues and determine whether or not it was a legitimate case of racial bias. If the caseworker decided that a legitimate case of bias existed, the second step required the staff member to bring the two sides in for a face-to-face meeting to see if the differences could be resolved by talking them out. Very often, under the guidance of the EEOC caseworker, the two sides would be able to put aside their differences and seek a resolution. A typical resolution occurred in the EEOC’s Chicago office. An African-American woman filed an EEOC complaint against a real estate sales company, contending she was turned down for a sales associate’s job because of racial bias. The caseworker invited a representative from the company for a face-to-face meeting with the woman. During the meeting, the company representative insisted that racial bias had nothing to do with the company’s decision—the woman simply lacked a license to sell real estate. The woman 51

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immediately produced her license, and the company representative responded by offering her a job. In this case, a simple misunderstanding had threatened to grow into a full-fledged EEOC racial bias investigation. Said Martin Slater, director of the EEOC Chicago office: “The cleansing effect of that meeting of the minds is most important.” Soon, the backlog disappeared. In the Chicago and Dallas offices, Norton’s new procedures helped eliminate some 30 percent of the backlog within three months of her arrival. New cases were resolved within a month, rather than the several years it had been taking. Meanwhile, Norton convinced President Carter to raise the agency’s budget and add nearly 1,000 jobs to the EEOC’s staff, and to sign an executive order transferring all job discrimination investigations to the EEOC. No longer would those tasks be spread throughout the federal bureaucracy. The turf wars were over. Meanwhile, Norton took a wider view of the agency’s role. In 1972, Congress attempted to give teeth to the toothless tiger when it passed the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. The act gave the EEOC power to sue employers, labor unions, and employment agencies that exhibited racial bias; in the past, the agency had simply been empowered to help its clients file their own lawsuits. With that newfound power, the EEOC attacked discrimination by taking a single complaint and expanding it into a class-action lawsuit, meaning that it sought permission by the courts to seek compensation for all people who may have been victims of bias at a particular company, not just the individual who filed the case. In truth, class-action lawsuits often take years to resolve. Many times, part of the battle is proving who belongs in the “class” and who doesn’t—a dispute that has 52

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In June 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Norton to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Here we see President Carter meeting Norton in the White House.

to be settled by the court before the substantive issues of the case can be raised. The EEOC did occasionally score victories. In 1973, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) agreed to settle a class-action suit by paying its minority employees $52 million in raises they felt they had been denied because of racial bias. As part of the settlement, AT&T also agreed to produce an affirmative action plan—a blueprint of how it planned to enhance minority hiring and promotion. Another large company that made a similar settlement was 53

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General Electric Company. The EEOC also filed similar class-action cases against Ford Motor Company and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a labor union that controls its own hiring halls—meaning the union decides which workers to supply to building contractors. Norton had no intentions to drop class-action lawsuits, but she intended to make a tactical change in how the EEOC used them as a weapon. She proposed using the agency to uncover “systemic patterns and practices” of discrimination by keeping watch over corporate behavior. If the EEOC suspected bias by employers, it would not wait for a complaint by an individual, it would file a class-action suit on its own against a company or even the whole industry. “I am convinced that only by an effective attack on entire systems that discriminate can we have any significant impact,” Norton said. Among the corporate and labor giants sued by the EEOC during Norton’s years were General Motors Company and the United Auto Workers union, which agreed to pay $42 million to resolve what the EEOC said was a pattern of race and sex discrimination at automotive manufacturing plants; Southern Pacific Railroad and 13 of its unions, which provided $3.4 million in back pay as well as new jobs for blacks, Hispanics, and women, which the EEOC alleged they had been denied; Leo Burnett Company, an advertising agency, that the EEOC claimed discriminated on the basis of age by forcing workers over 62 to retire; United Airlines, which took its case to a jury but lost and was forced to pay $18 million in damages to 112 former pilots and flight engineers who said they were forced to retire at the age of 60; and Westinghouse Electric Company, which the EEOC claimed had discriminated against pregnant women. 54

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Meanwhile, Norton found herself drawn more and more to the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. The problem was not new, certainly, but by the 1970s few women were willing to make formal complaints. Many women were too embarrassed to step forward. Others were too frightened to complain about their bosses, believing they would be fired if they publicly accused their supervisors of seeking sexual favors from them in exchange for promotions or raises. In many cases where companies knew their supervisors were abusing their female employees, attempts were made to settle the matters in-house, keeping the incidents quiet. Often, it would be the woman who would lose in those cases; she may have been transferred out of a department while her former boss was allowed to remain in charge and in a position to abuse other female workers. By 1979, Norton had decided to “grab hold of sexual harassment law and shape it, because women were so reluctant to come forward.” Norton found herself immediately handicapped because neither the Civil Rights Act of 1964 nor the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 contained language regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. It meant there were no legal precedents established that would guide Norton in what she intended to do. Norton decided to author guidelines at the EEOC that would set down on paper exactly what type of behavior in the workplace was not regarded as acceptable by her agency. The guidelines, she decided, would encourage companies to set their own policies so they could make it clear to their employees what sort of behavior would not be tolerated. Norton believed employers would welcome the opportunity to adopt their own policies because it would protect them in court if they were forced to fire a supervisor for harassing workers. The supervisor could not claim the company had 55

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no sexual harassment policy and therefore was unjustly fired because he couldn’t possibly have broken a policy that didn’t exist. “I issued the guidelines in such a way that not only outlined the prohibited conduct; they made it clear if employers took action they would have defenses,” Norton said. She explained to employers that “this is your burden. Chase it from the workplaces. If you don’t, these guidelines will help a woman prove sexual harassment.” Indeed, the far more important message contained in the guidelines was the signal the EEOC hoped to send to women that there was now law on paper regarding sexual harassment, and they shouldn’t feel helpless in such cases. The federal government would now be on their side. Although it took Norton and her staff several weeks to write the guidelines, the final version of the new rules turned out to be simple, direct, and uncomplicated. The guidelines read: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.

Further, the EEOC defined under what circumstances harassment could occur. The guidelines state: The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex. 56

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The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a coworker, or a nonemployee. The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct. Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim. The harasser’s conduct must be unwelcome. It is helpful for the victim to directly inform the harasser that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. The victim should use any employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.

The EEOC’s new sexual harassment guidelines were an enormous accomplishment for a federal agency that just three years before had been mired in a morass of backlogged cases, low morale, and poor leadership. By now, Norton proved that her agency could tackle any sort of discrimination case—even cases where there were no laws written to guide them. LEAVING WITH DIGNITY By early 1980, though, Norton started realizing that her tenure at the EEOC would soon come to an end. Since President Carter took office in early 1977, the nation had struggled through a severe economic recession. People were out of work; they were unable to afford homes and cars. They were demanding change in Washington. In addition, Carter was unable to solve an embarrassing international crisis; in 1979, fundamentalist Muslim students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took 53 American diplomats hostage. The students, aided by the anti-American government in Iran, held the hostages for more than a year, refusing 57

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all offers from Carter to resolve the crisis. As Carter struggled to find a solution, he slowly lost the confidence of the American people. In the presidential election of 1980, Carter lost in a landslide to the conservative Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan. Reagan made it clear that things would be done differently in Washington once he moved into the White House. To help rescue the nation from the recession, the federal government would become a partner to business. In other words, federal agencies would be discouraged from taking corporations to court. The signal was clear to Norton—it was time to resign. Actually, she had other reasons for wanting to give up her post. The job of chair of the EEOC was timeconsuming; it involved days at the office that often started before dawn and lasted well into the night. There was extensive travel. Even when she made it home for dinner, Norton would usually bring a pile of work with her that would keep her occupied well into the evening hours. She found herself spending little time with her family. There was no question that her relationship with her husband was suffering. In Washington, when an administration changes, highranking officeholders are expected to step aside to enable a new president to bring his own people on board. Norton knew president-elect Reagan would want to appoint a new head for the EEOC. “A president should have somebody who can carry out his policies,” Norton said. “I cannot. You don’t hang on to a job simply because you have a term; you leave with dignity, when, by understanding who you are, you know your time has come.” On January 22, 1981, Norton submitted her resignation to President Reagan, who had taken office just two days 58

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before. Soon, Reagan would replace her with Clarence Thomas, who would eventually have to stand up to the astonishing charge that while heading the EEOC, he violated the sexual harassment guidelines Eleanor Holmes Norton had worked so hard to write.

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5 Eleanor Campaigns For Congress “When the [issue of back] taxes first occurred, I didn’t think of ending the marriage at all. I thought just the opposite. He [Edward Norton] was paralyzed. I’m sure he never intended what resulted, but that paralysis and whatever caused it destroyed the marriage. The marriage wasn’t so strong that it could withstand that kind of blow. It was very painful to finally decide, after twenty-five years, that it was gone. Especially since this marriage would probably have held.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, from Lester’s Fire in My Soul

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n 1973, when Eleanor Holmes Norton was still heading the Human Rights Commission in New York City, she helped found the National Black Feminist Organization. When the group held its first conference that year, Norton was asked to make the introduction 60

for the keynote speaker, U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress. More than 400 black women attended the conference and crowded into the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York to hear Chisholm’s speech. As Norton walked onto the stage to make her remarks, she was introduced to the crowd by Carolyn Reed, an organizer of the city’s first housekeepers’ union. “I met Eleanor two years ago and I was in such awe of her,” Reed told the audience. “I didn’t know what this person was, this black woman who had come so far. . . . I was lying in bed last night, thinking of what I could say to her today, and all I can say is that I just hope . . . I just feel—Beame [New York City’s newly elected mayor], you’d better watch out. Eleanor for Mayor!” The crowd broke into an enthusiastic applause. Many women in the audience jumped to their feet and started chanting, “Eleanor for Mayor! Eleanor for Mayor! Eleanor for Mayor!” An embarrassed Eleanor Holmes Norton raised her hands, shook her head, and tried to get everybody quieted down. When audience members finally stopped chanting, Norton said wryly, “I’m glad Carolyn sat down before I had to sit her down.” The fact was, throughout her long career in social activism, first in New York City and then in Washington, Norton had never given any thought to actually running for elective office herself. But in 1990, things began falling apart in the city government in Washington. Long-neglected problems became major disasters. Popular political figures suddenly found themselves ensnared by scandal. The city was badly in need of 61

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reform. It was time for some new voices to enter the political scene in Washington. Norton would be one of those voices. A CITY IN NEED OF A LEADER Washington, D.C. is unlike any other city in America because it is not located in a state. In 1783, soon after America’s victory over the British in the War of Independence, Congress decided that a permanent capital was needed for the new country. At the time, Congress was meeting in Philadelphia; later, the capital would be moved to New York. After seven years of debate, compromise and planning, Congress passed the Residence Act, which established the capital of the United States in a 10-mile square tract of land along the Potomac River that would be donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia. All the nation’s important buildings would be erected in what Congress would name the District of Columbia, in honor of Christopher Columbus. Congress made plans to build a Capitol, President’s House (which would eventually be known as the White House), Supreme Court, Treasury Department, and other buildings to house the federal government. In 1800, shortly after the death of George Washington, Congress voted to rename the city Washington, D.C. From the start, Congress made it clear that it would look after the city. Most cities are administered by a mayor and council members who are elected by the residents. Not until 1974, though, would Washingtonians have the opportunity to elect their own mayor and council. Until that time, a committee of federal legislators oversaw the administration of the city and its budget. 62

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In the meantime, Washington grew into one of the nation’s largest, and poorest, cities. By the 1980s, the population of Washington had grown to more than 600,000— larger than that of the states of Alaska, Wyoming, and Vermont. What’s more, the city was overwhelmingly black. In 1960, the U.S. Census determined that blacks made up a majority of city residents; by 1990, blacks composed 70 percent of the population. Washington had more than its share of urban problems. By the late 1980s, violent crime and drug use ran rampant on city streets. Much of the middle class moved to the suburbs. Infant mortality was twice the national average. As for Washington’s representation in Congress, for nearly two centuries the city had none. Since the District of Columbia is not a state, it is entitled to no members in the Senate. In 1971, Congress created the position of “delegate” so that Washingtonians, as well as citizens in the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, would at least have representation in the House. Although the delegates are regarded as members of Congress and are given offices and staffs in the House office buildings, their powers are limited. They may address the House from the floor. They may hold leadership positions in the House—even the top post of speaker. They may serve on committees and vote on legislation that is before their committees, but they are prohibited from casting votes on legislation that reaches the floor. As for the city government, the Home Rule Act passed by Congress that took effect in 1974 gave the city a stronger voice in the management of its own affairs than it had known since Congress and the president officially took up residence in the District in 1800. Starting in 1974, city voters could elect their own mayor and 13-member council. 63

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After the adoption of the Home Rule Act, one man had dominated city politics more than any other individual in the city’s history. His name was Marion Barry, and he was first elected mayor in 1978. Barry spent the next 12 years building a constituency among the city’s poor urban residents, and making friends among the District’s powerful union leaders and real estate developers, so that he could remain atop the city seemingly forever. But in 1990, it all came crashing down for Marion Barry. That’s the year the mayor was caught, on videotape, smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room. Other scandals soon followed. Eleven aides to the mayor were indicted on such charges as fraud, bribery, and extortion. Barry was on his way to drug rehabilitation and, eventually, prison. A large field of potential candidates emerged to replace the embattled mayor. One of the first candidates to step forward was Walter E. Fauntroy, the District’s delegate to Congress since 1972. With Fauntroy a candidate for mayor, his seat in Congress was open. At the time, Eleanor Holmes Norton was teaching at the law school at Georgetown University, a position she accepted shortly after resigning from the EEOC. Within hours of Fauntroy’s announcement, friends approached Norton, urging her to run for the seat. At first, Norton shrugged off the idea about running for Congress, but soon found herself intrigued by the idea. “It was one of the most difficult decisions of my entire life,” she said. “We did a poll and it showed I didn’t have as much local name recognition as I should. But I’d been thinking about public policy since I was a child. People said, ‘A seat comes open, you’re a Washingtonian, you’ve been an administration official, you’re nationally known. What are you going to do about this city?’” 64

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Despite her active role in civil rights and her work at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Norton spent most of her career giving little thought to running for elected office. All this would change, however, in 1990, following the arrest of Washington Mayor Marion Barry, and the subsequent District of Columbia House seat vacancy that arose when Congressman Walter Fauntroy decided to campaign for the D.C. mayoral spot. With the House seat vacant, Norton decided to declare her candidacy.

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Edward Norton opposed his wife’s candidacy, which Eleanor found puzzling because he had always supported her in her career choices in the past. Throughout the spring of 1990, she wavered on what to do. Finally, on April 20, she walked into the Federal Election Commission in Washington and filed the required papers, officially declaring her candidacy on the Democratic ballot for Congress in the District of Columbia. Most urban blacks register and vote Democratic. As such, the real contests in most cities is in the Democratic primary; with such an overwhelming majority of party members, the winner of the primary rarely has to worry much about the Republican opponent in the November campaign. Certainly, that has been true in Washington politics over the years. In the election of 1990, some 90 percent of the voters were registered Democratic. Norton joined a crowded field for the Democratic primary, which was slated for September. She was one of six candidates seeking the party’s nomination for the office. Some of them, such as Councilwoman Betty Ann Kane and Sterling Tucker, a former chairman of the city council, were long-time political leaders in the District with devoted constituencies. Kane was the lone white candidate in the race. Black political leaders worried that with five African Americans in the contest, the black political vote would be split five ways, giving Kane the victory. CAMPAIGNING UNDER A CLOUD Norton campaigned hard. The biggest hurdle she had to overcome was how to appeal to the city’s low-income residents. True, she had grown up among them and attended their schools during the era of segregation, but she had 66

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also graduated from Yale and was now earning more than $300,000 a year on the Georgetown faculty and as a member of several corporate boards. Norton overcame that obstacle by drafting an army of volunteers who knew Washington neighborhoods and were willing to organize meetings, door-knocking campaigns, and other events that would give the candidate a chance to meet the people. Meanwhile, she took advantage of her national reputation as a feminist and civil rights leader to meet wealthy white liberals, whose money was needed to fuel the campaign. “We campaigned during the day in the black community and raised money in the white community at night,” said Donna Brazile, Norton’s campaign manager. “We worked it all, we exploited every part of Eleanor’s past: the civil rights struggle, Georgetown, her New York years. It was a great campaign, with a wonderful precinct organization intact.” Candidates who run for office often need large sums of money to run effective campaigns. Advertising on television, radio, and in the newspapers is expensive. So is direct-mail advertising—sending letters or brochures through the mail to every voter in the District. Candidates may choose to hire polling companies to call voters to find out what’s on their minds and gauge the popularity of contestants. Professional consultants may also be hired to lend their expertise to the campaigns. Finally, on Election Day, a candidate may want to make use of street money: cash given to volunteers who travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, helping people get to the polls or actually working the entire day in front of a specific polling place, making sure the voters know the identity of the candidate and where to find his or her name on the voting machine. 67

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Midway through the race, Norton had been able to raise about $117,000—far more than any of her rivals. Her contributions came from Washington residents, to be sure, but also from national groups that were interested in her campaign. Mostly, those groups included pro-women’s rights organizations, such as the National Abortion Rights Action League and EMILY’s List, a political action committee established to back female candidates as well as males who support prowomen issues. Meanwhile, her opponents did not intend to let her run away with the race. Kane emerged as Norton’s closest competitor, charging that Norton had walked away from Washington voters decades ago, and was now out of touch with their needs. She pointed out that Norton had not voted in the past 13 local elections in Washington. “Norton has done nothing of substance on local issues,” Kane told reporters. Elsewhere, other races in Washington were heating up as well. In the mayoral race, Fauntroy was locked in a close contest against Sharon Pratt Kelly, a former utility company executive, and City Council members Charlene Drew Jarvis and John Ray. Even Marion Barry had surfaced again in political circles. The disgraced mayor, convicted on a charge of drug possession but out of prison on bail while his appeal was pending, had decided to run for an open council seat. While it may seem inconceivable that a man who would soon begin a six-month jail term could be regarded as a serious contender for elective office, Barry found an unbelievable amount of sympathy for his position on the streets of Washington. 68

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“I never abused my office, only my body,” Barry told voters as he made the rounds in the city. “I had a medical problem, not a legal problem.” “You’re a good man,” said Bobbie McMahon, a Washington resident who met Barry on the candidate’s travels through the city. “I’m with you. You haven’t been treated fairly. There’s too much racism in this city.” The primary was set for September 11. By the first week in September, all the city’s political pundits were declaring Norton the likely winner in the delegate’s race. On September 7, an article in the Washington Post stated: “The Democratic primary campaign to succeed Walter E. Fauntroy as the District’s delegate to Congress has turned into a feisty referendum on Eleanor Holmes Norton, and whether she can use her credentials as a national civil rights leader to restore the city’s tarnished image on Capitol Hill.” But the next day, the Post published a far different story about the delegate’s race. The newspaper, as well as other media in the city, reported that Edward and Eleanor Norton hadn’t paid local taxes for seven years, and that they owed several thousands of dollars in taxes, interest, and fines. It was a shocking revelation, and the fact that it came so late in the campaign made Norton and her supporters believe that it was leaked to the press by one of her opponents. The fallout was immediate. First, the media attention on the race suddenly intensified. During the summer, press interest in the race had trailed off when it appeared Norton would be the prohibitive winner. Instead, reporters had flocked to the hard-fought mayoral and council races. Now, though, Norton found reporters and television crews facing her at every campaign stop. 69

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Norton’s well-oiled campaign machine started coming undone. Polling done that weekend reported that her support among voters was falling. The Washington Post, the city’s most powerful media voice, endorsed Betty Ann Kane, saying Norton’s failure to pay her taxes was “not just disabling, it is disqualifying.” Volunteers left the campaign. So did political leaders who had endorsed Norton. Washington Councilman James Nathanson, for one, said he would withdraw his support for Norton and instead endorse Kane. “The message I am receiving, from my constituents, is that we cannot elect someone who has a cloud over them,” Nathanson told reporters. Said delegate candidate Sterling Tucker: “I don’t possibly see how she can stay in the race.” That was the big question facing Norton as primary day approached. Regardless of how the media obtained the information on the Nortons’ delinquent taxes, the fact remained that the couple still owed the city thousands of dollars. The question remained whether Norton could ask the city’s voters to cast their ballots for somebody who had been so negligent about her own responsibilities as a citizen. That weekend, Norton huddled with her campaign aides. They encouraged her to remain in the contest. Norton made up her mind. The campaign would go forward. On the Sunday before primary day, Norton called a news conference to announce her intentions to stay in the race. “I hope that the people of the District, who have been exceedingly generous to me during this campaign will understand the matter for what it is—a human failing and not a deliberate attempt to circumvent responsibility,” she said. 70

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As for the issue of the back taxes, Edward Norton took full responsibility for the error. The candidate’s husband said the error resulted from a dispute over a bill of $10,755 in city wage taxes that the couple had been assessed in 1982. Each year, the tax bill came due along with penalties and interest. The Nortons said at the news conference that they would repay the taxes to the city. Eventually, the amount came to more than $90,000. The campaign now found itself in damage-control mode. With just two days left before the election, Norton had to work hard to salvage the race. “Now we really had to hit the pavement,” said campaign worker Rene Redwood. “We were in sixth gear on a five-gear bike. Now we had to re-establish her integrity.” Norton hit the streets of Washington, campaigning hard in the black neighborhoods. She spent all day Sunday on her feet, and then repeated the strategy on Monday. At a rally that day in the city’s Freedom Plaza, Norton proclaimed: “No dirty tricks can drive Eleanor Holmes Norton out of this race! Those who thought they could chase this woman out of this race with some anonymous faxes after the close of business Friday don’t know a fighter when they see one!” Tuesday, September 11 finally arrived. Norton and the rest of her campaign team rose before dawn so the candidate could make the rounds to the polling places, greeting voters as they arrived to cast their ballots. In the white neighborhoods, Norton was greeted by hostile voters, angry over the wage tax issue. But in the black neighborhoods, she found warm greetings from most everyone she met. Hundreds of Norton’s volunteers flooded onto the streets, rounding up reluctant voters and driving them to 71

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the polls. Said campaign worker Howard Croft: “We looked like an army.” Still, the dynamics of the campaign were troubling to Norton. Although white voters are clearly in the minority in Washington, they carry a disproportionate amount of influence on Election Day because they are loyal voters— people who can be relied on to go to the polls. Black people traditionally vote in low numbers, therefore often costing themselves the type of influence they should enjoy. To add to Norton’s woes, she would be splitting the black vote with four other African-American candidates. Indeed, when the polls closed that night, Norton’s followers feared that the overwhelming support in the white neighborhoods for Betty Ann Kane, coupled with the five-way split among black candidates, would result in a Kane victory. Early returns showed Norton trailing. For two hours after the polls closed the results indicated Kane was in the lead. Meanwhile, in the ballroom of the Washington Plaza Hotel, hundreds of Norton’s volunteers started gathering for what they hoped would be a victory party. Upstairs in a hotel suite, Norton started working on her concession speech, but her campaign advisers told her to sit tight—the numbers that had been reported were mostly from the city’s white wards. At 10 P.M., the numbers from the black neighborhoods starting pouring in. Norton was overwhelming the competition. At 10:45 P.M., political commentators on television declared Norton the winner. She made her way down to the ballroom to speak to her supporters, and was greeted by thunderous applause. As it turned out, Norton had swept the city’s six black wards but lost to Kane in Washington’s two white wards. The results were troubling to Norton, because it made her realize that race was still very much an issue in 72

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Throughout her career, Norton has remained a steadfast champion of human rights. Here we see Norton (center) in 1992 marching for women’s rights with civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson (left) and National Organization for Women president Patricia Ireland (right).

Washington politics. Throughout her professional career, she had always made an effort to reach across color lines. Had she not represented segregationist Governor George Wallace in a free speech case? Had she not represented the women researchers at Newsweek, most of whom were white? Had she not stood up for the rights of women— black and white—at the EEOC as well as the New York Human Rights Commission? 73

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Of course, the race was not over. The general election still loomed on the horizon. Harry Singleton, a former Reagan administration official, won the Republican primary. A third candidate also entered the race: independent George X Cure, a member of the Nation of Islam. Both opponents were African-American. Ordinarily, in Washington, the Democratic candidate should be the prohibitive favorite in the general election, but this time Norton felt Singleton posed a genuine threat. Her tax problems with the city continued to haunt her throughout the campaign; many leading Democrats in the city refused to endorse her. The Washington Post, which backed Kane in the primary, now endorsed Singleton in the general election. For his party, Singleton kept up a barrage of attacks on Norton, focusing mostly on the issue of her unpaid wage taxes. “She refused to pay her taxes year after year, with an apparent arrogance that she was somehow better than the rest of us working stiffs,” he huffed to reporters. “How could she get away with placing herself above the law?” Perhaps Singleton kept up the attack too much. In politics, candidates who are the victims of vicious and negative tactics by their opponents often receive a sympathy vote. Voters may not agree with the candidate’s positions on the issues, but they believe it is unfair for an opponent to go on the attack with such gusto. That may be what happened in the Norton/Singleton race. Turnout for the Fall campaign was unusually high, and later analyses showed that nearly 60 percent of the voters were women. They delivered Eleanor Holmes Norton an overwhelming victory over Singleton. George X Cure was never a factor. 74

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On Capitol Hill, congressional leaders said they welcomed the opportunity to work with Norton on the many problems that faced the District of Columbia and its citizens. As Norton was soon to learn, those problems would prove to be much more serious than anyone had anticipated.

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6 Crisis in the Capital “I park my car on the Senate side so I can get some extra walking time. The Capitol and the office building are separated by a fair amount of distance. I also walk upstairs rather than take an elevator. All of that is in the category of using natural opportunities for exercising and there are many of them. . . . It certainly stabilizes your weight and it invigorates you. And with racewalking, it’s easier to get motivated. Race-walking is a civil way to get your exercise in.” —Eleanor Holmes Norton, from Jeffers “How Top Women Stay in Shape,” Ebony, October 2002

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ugust 2, 1995, turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year in the nation’s capital. Still, some 2,000 Washingtonians braved the heat and boiling sun to wait in line for hours for a chance to tell House Speaker Newt Gingrich what was on their minds. 76

The auditorium inside Eastern High School in Washington could accommodate just half the people who wanted to attend the meeting with Gingrich. While the atmosphere outside was hot and muggy, the atmosphere inside the auditorium was fiery and raucous. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton arranged the meeting. For years, the city government of the nation’s capital had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Congress, growing increasingly hostile to the city’s municipal leaders, had been threatening to wrest control of the government from the mayor and council and appoint federal overseers to run the city. City leaders reacted with horror toward the threatened federal takeover. Most residents opposed it as well, insisting that the city be given a chance to iron out its own problems. Norton wanted Gingrich, one of the most powerful lawmakers in Congress, to have the opportunity to hear for himself the people’s concerns. Many people in the audience regarded Gingrich as an unlikely ally in their time of crisis. Just a year before, he led a Republican sweep through Congress that gave the Republican Party its first majority in the House of Representatives in four decades. Gingrich, a white man from suburban Atlanta, Georgia, had trumpeted his “Contract With America”—essentially, a blueprint for how white, conservative, middle-class Americans expected the government to be run. With its emphasis on denying welfare benefits to poor citizens, strong anti-crime measures, advocacy for the death penalty, tax cuts for middle-class families, and aid to businesses, the Contract With America included few advantages for the average Washingtonian who was poor and black. Certainly, there were few Gingrich fans pressed shoulder 77

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to shoulder in the Eastern High School auditorium that steaming summer night. “Tonight is a beginning,” he said. “I can’t assure you that as a group, we’ll make a big difference. I can’t give you a date or even guarantee that it will happen. But we will reach out and do everything we can to improve resources and safety to have a healthy Washington.” Also standing on the stage that night was Congresswoman Norton. Despite Gingrich’s pledges to work toward a resolution of the city’s problems, Norton knew that only by cutting millions of dollars out of the city budget would Washington’s government be able to return to solvency. And if the mayor and city council couldn’t do it, Norton said, “Somebody else will be making those decisions for the city.”

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When Sharon Pratt Kelly took the oath as mayor of the city of Washington in January 1991, she discovered that the years of waste, mismanagement, bloated bureaucracy, and scandal under the administration of Marion Barry left the city some $330 million in debt. Things didn’t get any better under Kelly. Indeed, the new reform mayor proved she was not up to the task of slashing expenses and cleaning house. Within four years, the debt had grown to $700 million. When cities get into that much trouble public services often break down. With no money in the budget, the city has to go to banks to borrow money so that police officers, firemen, sanitation workers, teachers, and other municipal employees can be paid. Other city services suffer, too. Maintenance in parks is canceled. Public libraries don’t receive new books. Potholes in city streets aren’t fixed. Nobody replaces the bulbs in the street lights when they burn out. 78

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Sometimes, the banks are hesitant to lend the city money because the city government has proven itself a bad credit risk—it makes no changes in the way it does business, and the deficits continue to grow. So if the city wants to borrow money from the banks, it is forced to pay high interest rates—higher rates than it would normally pay if it were on sound financial ground. Since the interest rates are high, it means the debt of the city increases even more, and the deficit gets still bigger. Cities with financial problems are also hurt when they seek to issue bonds. Bonds are typically sold by the city to raise money for specific projects, such as a new sewage treatment plant or a new city office building. Private investors buy the bonds; they are repaid over a long-term period, usually 20 or 30 years, and the investors expect to receive interest payments from the city over that term. But when a city is a poor financial risk, and the government needs to issue bonds, investors demand a very high interest rate in return for buying the bonds. Such high-interest bonds are known in investment circles as “junk bonds” because they are considered risky investments. Investors worry that the city will find itself so strapped for cash that it can’t make the interest payments on the bonds. When that happens, the city defaults on its payments, and is officially declared bankrupt. Whenever a city has found itself in such a bind in the past, it has often relied on a state government to help out. State legislators have been willing to pass emergency aid packages providing cash assistance to the city, or the state government agrees to stand behind the city’s bonds, guaranteeing their payment. That way, the bank can be convinced to lend money to the municipality at lower interest rates. With the state government 79

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guaranteeing payment, bonds can be rated well above junk status. Of course, the District of Columbia had no state government to turn to during its financial crisis. The only sources of revenue for the District were its residents, who paid taxes, and the federal government, which provided an operating subsidy. In most cities, the value of real estate provides most tax revenue. Homeowners pay property taxes based on the value of their homes. Owners of businesses pay taxes, too, usually at rates much higher than what homeowners pay. The most heavily taxed real estate is property used for factories and other industrial purposes. Indeed, in most cities commercial and industrial real estate provides what is known as the “tax base” for the city. In Washington, though, there is little industrial property. Washington was, after all, a city designed and laid out for the purpose of establishing a national government for the United States. In fact, the federal government owns nearly 60 percent of the real estate in the District, on which rests the White House, State Department, Capitol Hill, the Mall, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and hundreds of other federal facilities. None of that property is subject to Washington real estate taxes. But that doesn’t mean the federal government doesn’t help pay for the city government. Instead of providing tax revenue for the city, Congress appropriates an annual subsidy. In 1995, the year Newt Gingrich stood on the stage of Eastern High School, the city received $3.4 billion in aid from the federal government. And clearly, members of Congress were not happy with how the city chose to spend the money. In a city of 80

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some 600,000 people, an unbelievable total of 46,000 residents held city jobs. It meant that one out of every twelve citizens of Washington drew a city government paycheck. Despite all those people on the city payroll, Washingtonians could rely on few public services. In addition to the rampant crime and drug use that plagued the city streets, Washingtonians found their water polluted and their trash piling up in front of their homes. The poor quality of the schools drove middle-class families— both white and black—to the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. In 1994, in response to the crisis, Washingtonians took to the voting booth. Sharon Pratt Kelly stood for re-election and was soundly defeated, garnering just 12 percent of the vote. Instead, Washington voters returned Marion Barry to the office of mayor. His bid for council in 1990 failed as miserably as his appeal to his drug conviction. The disgraced mayor went to jail, did his time, and emerged with the resolve to rebuild his political career. The fact that he was able to return so quickly to the most prominent position in the city government shocked members of Congress, who were loathe to trust him again with a free reign to spend billions of dollars a year in federal subsidies to the city government. Congress was quick to act. In July 1994, even before Barry won re-election, the House slashed $150 million from the city’s operating subsidy. The Senate soon asked for another $100 million in cuts. Norton fought hard against the cuts, but soon found herself overwhelmed by the hostile attitude of Congress toward the city’s political leaders. 81

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“It is inherently difficult to represent the District in this Congress because everybody else gets into your business,” Norton huffed. In reality, Norton was no happier with the District’s municipal leaders than any other member of Congress. During hearings before a House committee on the city’s finances, Norton grilled Mayor Kelly on her management of the city finances. Soon, it became apparent to Norton that Kelly (and, later, Barry) would not have the ability to rescue the city from its financial mess. When the General Accounting Office—the auditing arm of Congress—predicted that the District of Columbia would face bankruptcy unless it made significant budget cuts, Norton knew it was time for Congress to act on its own. She huddled with congressional leaders and hammered out a bill that would preserve full federal funding for Washington, but only if the mayor came up with $150 million in budget cuts within 30 days of the bill’s adoption. “I never envisioned that the day would come when the District would be compelled to submit to such a compromise and I would have to accept such a compromise,” said Norton. “But it is either this compromise or we risk greater sacrifice. And I emphasize: getting no appropriation at all.” Mayor Kelly was gone by January 1995, replaced by Mayor Barry. The new mayor pledged to cut the budget, but he hardly had the confidence of Congress. In February, the city’s bonds were downgraded to junk bond status. Now the city had moved to the very edge of bankruptcy. Just a month before, Gingrich and the new Republican majority took control of Congress. Norton knew they aimed to take over the city government and run it their way, meaning they would slash city services with no regard to the impact on the people. She knew the best strategy was 82

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to work out a compromise with the Republicans. Federal control was inevitable; all that remained now was to soften the blow. A PLAN TO BAIL OUT WASHINGTON On February 16, 1995, Norton proposed the Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, a five-member board appointed by Congress that would take over most of the authority for running city services. Norton intended to help structure the Authority and its role and have a major voice in who would serve on the board. Gingrich and the other Republican leaders welcomed her input; they knew she was an immensely popular political figure in the District and that they would need her to help sell the Authority to the mayor, council, and other city leaders who would have to live under the Authority’s actions. “She was a major player,” said U.S. Representative Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia who sat in on the negotiations. “Gingrich and I saw she needed to be in the room. The Newt people understood her utility in this. Getting Eleanor in the room helped the city, helped the castor oil go down easy.” On April 7, Congress approved the oversight authority. It was composed of five city residents appointed by Congress. At Norton’s insistence, four of them were African American. Norton also helped negotiate the board’s powers and was able to salvage a lot of authority for the mayor and council. Still, Congress insisted that the board review all financial matters and that it work toward a balanced city budget within three years. Finally, the board was given power to overrule city officials if it believed they were acting improperly. 83

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Though home to the world’s most powerful national government, the city of Washington, D.C. found itself in a dire financial crisis during the mid-1990s. Unable to sell bonds to raise money, the city faced a virtual takeover by the federal government. Here, President Bill Clinton and Washington Mayor Marion Barry meet to sign the Financial Responsibility Assistance Act of 1995. Through the actions of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the office of mayor was able to save some of its powers from federal control.

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Barry and other city officials were hostile to the oversight board, openly fighting with its members. Alas, finances would continue to erode in Washington. In July 1996, financial analysts told Congress that if the city tried to issue bonds, no one would buy them. “It is my belief that the district cannot, at the current time, complete a long-term borrowing of any significant size, at any reasonable interest cost,” said William Hayden, an investment banker who testified before Congress. In early 1997, congressional leaders once again made plans to bail out the city’s finances. This time, Norton and other members of Congress structured a plan that would add some $5 billion to city coffers over 10 years. About $4 billion of that funding would come from a federal plan to assume the pensions of city employees. Back in 1974, when the city was granted limited home rule, federal employees who had been performing city services were transferred to the city payroll. It meant that their pensions—the money paid to them in their retirements—would now be the responsibility of the city government. Other federal responsibilities—such as the operation of the prisons in Washington and payment of health costs for elderly Washingtonians—were also added to the burden of city taxpayers. Under the federal bailout, the U.S. government would now be responsible for the pensions, the prisons, elderly health care, and similar expenses. But Congress insisted on even more control over the city government. When President Bill Clinton signed the bailout plan known as the “Revitalization Act” in August 1997, it included a provision to strip the mayor and council of virtually all their powers, placing them under the authority of the oversight board. Norton knew that Barry 85

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as well as the city’s residents would protest, but even she was now convinced that Washington could not solve its problems on its own. Norton did manage to once again salvage some local autonomy. The mayor was able to keep his power to appoint heads of city agencies. Also, she was able to put the brakes on a plan by some members of Congress to appoint a city manager who would actually run the city government on a day-to-day basis. Norton called the Revitalization Act “a big win” for Washington and “an extraordinary deal for the District.” She added: “It [was] a major victory for home rule that I was able to avoid the imposition of a congressionally imposed city manager. However, during the process, provisions were forced into the bill requiring the mayor to share some of his authority with the control board.” The legislation provided for the mayor to slowly regain his powers as the city met certain levels of financial responsibility. As expected, Barry reacted with hostility toward the federal takeover. He called it a product of the “mean-spirited, conservative and anti-self-determination Republicans.” Other critics in Washington also denounced the new law, claiming it robbed them of the few powers of self-determination they had been able to achieve in the years since Washington was awarded home rule in 1974. Certainly, Norton was not immune to the criticisms. As one of the architects of the Revitalization Act, she was denounced by many of the city’s political leaders as well as civic activists. Shortly after the Revitalization Act was passed, Norton spoke at a convention of the Urban League, the national civil rights organization. As she arrived at the convention to make her speech, she saw a 86

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group of protesters carrying signs. One of the signs read: “Eleanor sold us out.” Many of the people who opposed the Revitalization Act were active in the “Free D.C.” movement—a group of Washington residents who believed the District should be granted statehood. For them, the fight was just beginning.

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7 The Fight for D.C. Statehood “I always promised myself, if I could do anything for this city I would, because it was plainly, in some ways, the most beautiful capital in the entire world. It was full of people from all over the world. It had a rich and textured history that deserved to be nourished, a lot of things people didn’t even know about. . . . So when I became president, before I was inaugurated, I took a walk down Georgia Avenue. And I talked to the merchants there, and I talked to the people on the street. I was always looking for things I could do. Eleanor and I were joking—she went jogging in a campaign event for me in 1992. In the pouring rain, we were running up Pennsylvania Avenue together. I never will forget that. And because she’s been where she’s been, it’s been possible for me, I think, to be a pretty good friend and a pretty good citizen of

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Washington, D.C. . . . I hope someday that she’ll actually have a real vote in Congress, too. And that we’ll have representation in the other House of the Congress. I hope that will happen.” —Bill Clinton, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 19, 2000

J

ust before 8 A.M. on February 8, 2001, dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of the District of Columbia Superior Court on Indiana Avenue Northwest in Washington and started chanting “Free D.C.! Free D.C.!” They staged the protest to support the defendants in the D.C. Democracy 7 trial. Six months before, seven people were arrested in the gallery of the House of Representatives for interrupting a session of Congress by demanding that the District be given full representation in the House and Senate. The seven defendants were charged with disorderly conduct. Later that morning, they would go on trial in D.C. Superior Court. If convicted, they faced six months in jail and $500 fines. The protest in front of the Superior Court building was organized and supported by a number of groups that endorsed statehood for Washington or, at least, full representation in Congress. They included the D.C. Statehood Green Party and D.C. Vote, coalitions composed of activists who believed it was unfair for the District’s 600,000 residents to be underrepresented in Congress. “What we’ve seen this morning is an action for truth,” Washington civic activist Marilyn Preston Killingham said during the rally. “These people who call themselves the Democracy 7 are brave people who have fought for our 89

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representation in D.C. We have come in support of them this morning because they raised their voices. We know that we need attention to this matter. . . I want all of you to take every avenue so that we can in our lifetime have democracy in D.C. Free D.C.! Free D.C.!” “Free D.C.! Free D.C.! Free D.C.!” the crowd echoed back. Eleanor Holmes Norton was, of course, the District’s representative in Congress. As discussed before, though, Norton simply held “delegate” status in the House. Although she could serve in House leadership posts, serve on committees, and vote on legislation in committees, she was prohibited under House rules from voting on legislation as it reached the floor, which was, after all, the most significant vote that would be taken on the bill as it headed toward passage. What’s more, the District had no representation at all in the Senate. Under the terms of the U.S. Constitution, each state is entitled to two senators. But since the District of Columbia is not a state, it has no legal authority to elect senators. To Norton as well as many other political leaders in Washington, the answer was to win statehood for the District. Since 1800, when the federal government moved into the District of Columbia, there had been some 150 attempts by various members of Congress to establish statehood for Washington. Those attempts always failed. Norton herself tried in 1993, when she introduced the “New Columbia Statehood Act” in the House. The act would have established the District as the 51st state. She managed to win the support of President Bill Clinton as well as many other key leaders in Washington, including 90

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Although Eleanor Holmes Norton represents Washington, D.C. in the House, her post is that of “delegate”—meaning she can be a member of key committees but cannot vote on legislation. A small but vocal faction has for years insisted that the District of Columbia be given full representation. In this 1993 rally, Reverend Jesse Jackson (seen here in center, holding the banner) and others march in favor of D.C. statehood.

U.S. Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, a future presidential candidate himself. “Washingtonians pay taxes with us and they serve in wars with us. . . . And when we voted two years ago to send our young people to war in the Persian Gulf, I wondered to myself what it would feel like to be a father here in the District of Columbia and have a son and daughter go and have no vote on the floor of this 91

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House,” Gephardt said in a speech supporting D.C. statehood. Norton managed to guide her legislation to a House vote. On November 21, 1993, the New Columbia Statehood Act was placed before federal lawmakers for a vote. It was symbolically designated House Resolution 51 in hopes it would result in creation of the 51st state. Alas, it went down to defeat by a vote of 277 to 153. Although many Democrats cast ballots against the law, it was the Republican Party that stood fervently against the law’s adoption. Indeed, just one of 175 Republicans cast a ballot favoring D.C. statehood. The reason for the GOP’s overwhelming hostility toward the law was partly political. With some 90 percent of Washington’s voters registered in the Democratic Party, it meant the District would most assuredly send two Democratic members to the Senate as well as one Democratic representative to the House. At the time, the Republican Party was on the eve of taking over both houses of Congress. It needed every seat it could get and was loathe to concede any seats to the opposition. Politics wasn’t all that was on the minds of the Republican House leaders. Certainly, by the fall of 1993 they were well aware of Washington’s mounting financial problems and knew Congress would soon be called on to take over management of the city’s government. “The District hasn’t even shown the ability to govern itself as a city, let alone as a state,” said Representative Tom Delay of Texas. “The District is a liberal bastion of corruption and crime. Let’s take it back and clean it up.” Despite the setback in the House, Norton felt the statehood issue had taken a giant leap forward. She believed it to be a considerable accomplishment to have just moved the 92

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issue to a full House vote. Norton knew statehood for the District was ripe for reconsideration and looked forward to the challenge ahead. “I’m ready to declare victory,” Norton said shortly after the vote was taken. “I had to go about getting those votes without being able to vote myself. That tells you something about the breadth and possibilities of our support.” The next bid for statehood came from the city government itself. In September 1998, the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel along with 57 residents of Washington filed a lawsuit seeking full representation in the House and Senate. The lawsuit pointed out that while residents of the District paid federal income taxes they had no ability to send true voting members to the legislative body of the federal government that levied those taxes. Also, the lawsuit pointed out, the residents of Washington were permitted to vote in the presidential election. “It is a completely intolerable anomaly that must be dealt with,” said Norton, who supported the lawsuit. “This is a serious challenge to the purgatory status of our citizens, and I am focused on maximizing representation and government. I’ll never let up; it is a clear case.” By then, Congress had stripped virtually all powers to run the city from the mayor and city council, handing those duties to the oversight board. Members of Congress reacted bitterly to the lawsuit. They quickly passed legislation prohibiting attorneys from the Office of Corporation Counsel to pursue the case in their city offices or use city funds to prepare their arguments. Such a prohibition severely handicapped the lawyers, making it impossible for them to do the research and other background work necessary for the case. 93

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Instead, a group of private Washington lawyers stepped in and agreed to take on the expense of the lawsuit. “This is a substantial legal effort,” insisted attorney Thomas S. Williamson Jr., one of the attorneys who agreed to argue the city’s case. “It addresses the fundamental right of citizens to be represented in a democracy.” The next punch in the fight was thrown by the city. Council members authorized a redesign of the license plates that are issued to city residents who own cars. Under the redesign, each license plate carried the motto “No Taxation Without Representation,” a reference to the chief complaint made by the American colonists who eventually took up arms against the British. Clearly, residents of the District saw many parallels between their struggle for statehood and the struggle of the colonists more than 200 years ago. Now, the 25 million tourists a year who visited the capital would know exactly where D.C. residents stood on statehood. Tempers over statehood and full representation next flared when Congress appeared willing to rescind several local measures. Among them was a plan by Washington to permit the use of medical marijuana for patients with severe or terminal illnesses, as well as a program to provide free and sterile intravenous needles to drug users so they would not use needles tainted with the AIDS virus. Those were controversial measures, to be sure, and while they may have made sense in the poor black Washington neighborhoods, conservative Republicans in Congress were appalled to see them receive the official sanction of the city government. On July 26, 2000, Congress scheduled a vote on the District of Columbia Appropriations Bill—the act that provides the city with its annual federal subsidy. Attached 94

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Always the passionate speaker and dedicated public servant, Norton brings her brand of political zeal and enthusiasm to everything she does. Here we see Norton pumping up the crowd at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California.

to the bill were several so-called “riders”, additions that are typically thrown in by members at the last minute, affording opponents little debate on the measures. In this case, the riders included prohibitions on the needle exchange program as well as the use of medical marijuana in Washington. Quietly, seven people made their way into the visitors’ gallery overlooking the floor of the U.S. House. Their names were Martin Thomas, Karen Szulgit, Tanya Snyder, 95

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Queen Mother ShemaYah, Debby Hanrahan, Bette Hoover, and Steve Donkin. Just as the vote on the Appropriations Bill commenced, the seven activists jumped to their feet and started shouting “D.C. Votes No!” on the Appropriations Bill. They continued their outbursts, shouting “Free D.C.!” as police officers moved in and arrested them. They were charged with disorderly conduct and released on bail. News of the arrests spread quickly. Around Washington, the D.C. Democracy 7 found enormous support for their cause. “The inability for representatives to effectively govern the nation’s capital from afar is painfully obvious to anyone who lives in D.C.,” said Democracy 7 defendant Tanya Snyder. “In many ways, the city represents a Third World country. In the shadow of Capitol Hill, many Washingtonians go to bed homeless or hungry.” D.C. DEMOCRACY GOES TO TRIAL The case against the Democracy 7 would be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District, ironically by attorneys whom Norton helped recruit. A trial date was set for October 16, 2000, in D.C. Superior Court. Shortly before the trial was to commence, prosecutors sought to take the case out of the political realm by asking the court to deny witnesses the right to talk about “voting representation” or “D.C. statehood” during the trial. “This motion to ban political speech during the trial is another attempt to deny D.C. residents their rights,” complained defendant Martin Thomas. Ultimately, Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby ruled against the prosecution’s motion and permitted the use of those phrases by the defendants. 96

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After several delays, the trial convened in D.C. Superior Court. Immediately, prosecutors announced they had dropped charges against Thomas, leaving just six defendants to stand trial. The prosecutors presented evidence attempting to prove that the remaining defendants had disrupted the deliberations of Congress during their July 26 outburst. Testimony was brief, and soon the case went to the jury. The panel deliberated four hours then returned guilty verdicts against all six defendants. But when attorneys for the defendants polled the jurors, one of them cast doubts on the verdict. Asked whether he thought all defendants were guilty, he answered yes, but “with reservations.” In a criminal case, all jurors must be convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When the juror expressed doubt, Blackburne-Rigsby asked him if the prosecution had met that burden. “Not in my opinion,” he said. When the juror made that admission, BlackburneRigsby sent the panel back to continue its deliberations. After meeting for another eight hours, the jurors said they could not come to a verdict. At that point, the judge declared a mistrial. A retrial was scheduled for February 2001. Meanwhile, the lawsuit filed by the city and 57 residents seeking full representation in Congress was on its way to defeat. A three-judge panel dismissed the case in March 2000. That decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also ruled against full representation for the District. Members of the high court said that Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution clearly prohibited voting representation in Congress for residents of the District, stating that Congress shall be composed of “members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” The decision by 97

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the justices said they were not “blind to the inequity of the situation,” but said it would be the responsibility of Congress to act. Again, after delays, testimony in the Democracy 7 trial commenced on February 12, 2001. Again, prosecutors alleged that the emotional outburst from the visitors’ gallery disrupted Congress. Defense attorneys responded that by the time the defendants initiated the outburst, deliberations had concluded and that all that remained was for the legislators to vote on the Appropriations Bill. The lone witness for the defense was Eleanor Holmes Norton. Norton told the jurors that the commotion in the gallery had no effect on the vote on the floor. She also testified extensively about her role in the House, how she represents Washingtonians—including the 12 jurors hearing the Democracy 7 case—but is not permitted to vote on the budget for their city, the federal taxes they pay, and the decisions to send their sons and daughters in military service off to war. As for the outbursts, well, Norton said Americans would do well to welcome nonviolent civil disobedience. She said the defendants acted “in the Martin Luther King, Jr. tradition of civil disobedience, where citizens are willing to take personal risks and punishment for a higher cause, in this case, statehood and voting rights for D.C.” After two days of deliberations, the jury found the defendants in the D.C. Democracy 7 trial not guilty of all charges. There is no question that the activism of the Democracy 7 showed that Washingtonians, including the woman who represented them in Congress, were not willing to go meekly about their lives while outsiders ran their city. 98

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Indeed, following the D.C. Democracy 7 trial, statehood activists continued to call attention to Washington’s cause. In January 2003, City Councilman Jack Evans introduced a bill scheduling the presidential primary in Washington for the second Saturday in January. Ordinarily, in years in which the presidential election is held, District voters don’t cast their ballots in a primary until May. Frequently, the party nominations are all sewn up by then, so the District's votes in the Republican and Democratic primaries have little value. “We are last and we don't want to be,” insisted Evans. Certainly, there is much more emphasis on the early contests, particularly the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, both of which are held in February. By scheduling Washington’s primary before New Hampshire and Iowa, Evans and other supporters of the bill hoped to give D.C. voters enormous clout in the presidential race. Such an early primary would ensure the candidates for president would make frequent campaign appearances in the city’s neighborhoods, meaning political leaders would have many opportunities to extract pledges of support for statehood from them. “Should D.C. play a leading role in the nominating process for our next presidential leader, our city could raise the issue of full D.C. voting rights and self-government to the nation by informing candidates and others of our lack of fundamental privileges,” said Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who replaced Marion Barry as mayor in 1999. Williams signed Evans’ bill into law on March 24, 2003. Whether a District of Columbia presidential primary would be held in January 2004 remained very much in doubt because the national Democratic and Republican committees refused to endorse the early primary date. Party 99

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leaders did not want to offend officials in New Hampshire and Iowa, which have long enjoyed the fruits of influence that their early election dates provide. What's more, Democratic leaders were loathe to move up the primary because they feared the candidate with the most to gain in the 2004 presidential race was the Reverend Al Sharpton, a firebrand New York City minister not given much chance to win the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, Sharpton, an African American, was likely to have overwhelmed the mainstream opponents because of his obvious appeal to the city's huge black population. While city politicians debated the merits of the early primary, events on the national level shifted toward the coming war with Iraq. In the District of Columbia, nearly 1,500 members of National Guard and military reserve units were called up to active duty and dispatched to posts in the Middle East. With city residents called up to active duty, Norton believed the time was once again ripe to press for full voting rights in the House and Senate for the District. On March 13, 2003, she introduced the “No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2003” in the House. Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who planned to run for president in 2004, introduced a companion bill in the Senate. In a news conference announcing the legislation, Norton asked several veterans who live in D.C. to stand alongside her while she outlined details of the bill to reporters. Norton told the press that nearly 50,000 veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts live in the city. She said: “Since I have been in Congress, I have participated in ceremonies that have sent D.C. residents to the Persian Gulf War, to Afghanistan, and now to the Iraqi 100

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border. I have never been able to vote in their name, and our residents are without any representation in the Senate. Yet, in today's military, each is a volunteer who has willingly taken on most weighty of all obligations of citizenship. . . . I introduce our voting rights bill today for all D.C. residents, but particularly for our residents serving in the military today and the nearly 50,000 veterans who live in our city.”

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Chronology 1937 Eleanor Katherine Holmes born in Washington, D.C. 1942 Enters Monroe Elementary School in Washington. Like

all schools in Washington, Monroe is segregated. 1955 Enrolls at Antioch College in Ohio, and resolves to seek

a career in social activism. 1960 Enrolls in Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. 1963 Spends the summer helping to register voters in

Mississippi. 1964 Graduates with a degree in law from Yale; works as an

attorney for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, seeking to unseat the segregationist delegation from Mississippi at the Democratic National Convention; following the convention, joins the staff of U.S. Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. as a law clerk. 1965 Meets and marries law student Edward Norton, moves

to New York, and finds a job on the legal staff of the American Civil Liberties Union. 1968 Represents Alabama Governor George Wallace and

other segregationists in free speech cases. 1970 Accepts her first women’s rights case when she represents female employees at Newsweek magazine, who

claim they were denied promotions because of gender; accepts a job offered by New York Mayor John Lindsay as head of the city’s Commission on Human Rights. 1977 Appointed by President Jimmy Carter to head the U.S.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). 1979 Writes guidelines at the EEOC, identifying conduct

regarded as sexual harassment in the workplace. 102

Chronology 1981 Resigns from the EEOC and accepts a position on the

law faculty of Georgetown University. 1990 Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a

nonvoting delegate. 1991 Following allegations of sexual harassment leveled by

Anita Hill, Norton and six House colleagues demand the Senate reopen the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas. 1993 Introduces “New Columbia Statehood Act” in Congress,

hoping to win statehood for the District of Columbia; the act is defeated in the House by a vote of 277 to 153. 1995 Norton’s bill establishing a five-member oversight board

to manage the city government of Washington approved by Congress. 1997 Congress extends its authority over the Washington city

government, stripping the mayor and council members of most of their authority. 1998 The city government and 57 residents sue in federal

court seeking full representation in the House and Senate; ultimately, the suit is dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court. 2000 Seven protesters arrested in the gallery of the U.S.

House of Representatives for demanding voting rights for the District of Columbia in Congress. The protesters eventually come to be known as the D.C. Democracy 7. 2001 Testifies during the trial of the D.C. Democracy 7

defendants and helps win their acquittal on all charges. 2002 Re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 93

percent of the vote. 103

Bibliography Anderson, Mark H., and Alex Keto. “Negotiators Agree on Aid Package for Washington.” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 1997. Asseo, Laurie. “Top Court Says DC Residents Not Entitled to Vote in the House.” The Associated Press, October 17, 2000. Ayres, B. Drummond, Jr. “Another Race Catches the Capital’s Eye.” The New York Times, November 3, 1990. Ayres, B. Drummond, Jr. “House Soundly Defeats a Proposal On District of Columbia Statehood.” The New York Times, November 22, 1993. Ayres, B. Drummond, Jr. “Marion Barry's Toughest Campaign: A Bid for Respect as Well as Office.” The New York Times, November 3, 1990. Chan, Sewell, and Hamil R. Harris. “Former Mayor Pratt Replays Statehood Protest.” The Washington Post, April 5, 2001. Chideya, Farai. “Shaping the Black Agenda.” Essence, May 2000. Clinton, William J. “Remarks at a Reception for Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 19, 2000. Clinton, William J. “Remarks on the Observance of National Equal Pay Day.” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 15, 2000. DeParle, Jason. “Newcomer Elected to Replace Barry, Who Loses Council Bid.” The New York Times, November 7, 1990. De Witt, Karen. “District’s Delegate to Congress Builds Bridge Between Capital and Capitol.” The New York Times, July 29, 1994. Donkin, Steven. “Prosecutors Seek to Censor Political Speech During Trial of D.C. Democracy 7.” D.C. Statehood Green Party News Release, September 29, 2000. Eidinger, Adam. “D.C. Democracy 7’s Second Trial Underway.” D.C. Statehood Green Party News Relase, Feburary 12, 2001. Eidinger, Adam. “Democracy 7 Trial Goes to Jury.” DC Statehood Green Party News Release, February 14, 2001. Eidinger, Adam. “Will Seven D.C. Citizens go to Jail for Supporting Democracy?” D.C. Statehood Green Party News Release, February 6, 2001. Funderburg, Lise. “Power Moves.” Essence, August 1998. Fosburgh, Lacey. “City's Record of Hiring Women Assailed by Mayor at Hearing.” The New York Times, September 22, 1970. Gilbert, Lynn, and Gaylen Moore. Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Have Shaped Our Times. New York: Clarkson N. Potter Publishers, 1981. 104

Bibliography Graham, Katharine. Personal History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Greenhouse, Linda. “White House Plans to Aid Washington, Official Says.” The New York Times, January 12, 1997. Haywood, Richette. “Eleanor Holmes Norton Takes DC Seat.” Ebony, January 1991. Hunter, Charlayne. “Many Blacks Wary of ‘Women’s Liberation’ Movement in U.S.” The New York Times, November 17, 1970. Janofsky, Michael. “Budget Deal Creates Heat for District of Columbia’s Delegate.” The New York Times, August 12, 1997. Janofsky, Michael. “Capital Delegate Seeks Tax Cut to Lure People.” The New York Times, April 16, 1996. Janofsky, Michael. “Gingrich Bears the Lions at Capital Town Meeting.” The New York Times, August 3, 1995. Janofsky, Michael. “Local Governing in Capital to be Transformed.” The New York Times, August 1, 1997. Jeffers, Glenn. “How Top Women Stay in Shape.” Ebony, October 2002. Lester, Joan Steinau. Fire in My Soul. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Levy, Elizabeth. Lawyers for the People. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. McAuliffe, Terry. “DNC Chairman McAuliffe to Meet with Majority Leader Tom Daschle About Voting Rights for Washington DC.” Democrtic National Committee News Release, May 14, 2002. Miller, Bill. “D.C. Voters’ Bid Fails.” The Washington Post, October 17, 2000. Norton, Eleanor Holmes. “And the Language is Race.” Ms., January/February 1992. Norton, Eleanor Holmes.“Norton Testimony Helps Acquit Democracy 7.” Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton News Release, Feburary 15, 2001. Peterson, Iver. “Woman to Be Head of City Rights Unit.” The New York Times, March 24, 1970. Puente, Maria. “Delegates Have Few Votes But Plenty to Spend.” USA Today, October 1, 1992. Ritter, Scott. “Crisis in District of Columbia Continues to Cast Doubt on Its Long-Term Credit.” Wall Street Journal, July 22, 1996. Williams, Dennis A., Diane Camper and Deborah Witherspoon. “Cleaning Up a Mess.” Newsweek, January 16, 1978. “Candidate Owing Back Taxes Won’t Quit Race.” The Associated Press, September 10, 1990. 105

Bibliography “House Candidate in Capital Pays Back Taxes to the City.” The Associated Press, September 23, 1990. “House Votes to Return Capital Mayor’s Duties.” The Associated Press, February 9, 1999. “Democracy in the District.” Boston Globe, August 27, 2000. “Firing Up the Attack on Job Bias.” Business Week, June 25, 1979. “The Troubled Drive for Efficiency at the EEOC.” Business Week, December 19, 1977. “Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton Introduces Ron Brown Tort Bill.” Jet, May 3, 1999. “Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Files Suit for Separation From Husband of 25 Years.” Jet, March 25, 1991. “Eleanor Holmes Norton Campaigns for Seventh Term in Congress.” Jet, June 10, 2002. “Three Black Women May Replace Three Black Men in U.S. Congress Next Year.” Jet, October 22, 1990. “The Task for Eleanor Norton.” The Nation, May 28, 1977. “In Defeat, a Victory for DC.” The New York Times, November 23, 1993. “Judge Declares Mistrial in Case of Six Protesters.” The New York Times, November 1, 2000. “Jury Acquits Six Who Sought Vote for Washington in Congress.” The New York Times, February 16, 2001. “The State of Misgovernment.” The New York Times, July 21, 1992. “Washington Residents Seek Action on Vote Suit.” The New York Times, December 20, 1998. “Democratic Convention Speakers.” USA Today, August 16, 2000. “Bill of Goods.” Washington City Paper, May 24-May 30, 2002.

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Further Reading Gilbert, Lynn, and Gaylen Moore. Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Have Shaped Our Times. New York: Clarkson N. Potter Publishers, 1981. Graham, Katharine. Personal History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Lester, Joan Steinau. Fire in My Soul. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Levy, Elizabeth. Lawyers for the People. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Smith, J. Clay Jr., editor. Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

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Web Sites http://www.aclu.org (American Civil Liberties Union) http://www.nortonforcongress.org (Norton for Congress Campaign Committee) http://www.sinkers.org/dcsuperiordemo/Feb0801/index.html (D.C. Democracy 7) http://www.dcvote.org (D.C. Vote: The Coalition for D.C. Representation in Congress) http://www.gwu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviws/episode-13/holmes1.html (George Washington University National Security Archive, Interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton) http://www.norton.house.gov (Congressional office of Eleanor Holmes Norton) http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/GenderIssues/Sexual Harassment/hill-thomas-testimony (Transcript of the U.S. Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas maintained by the University of Maryland.) http://www.ndss.org (National Down Syndrome Society) http://www.eeoc.gov (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html (Contract With America) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/sfeature/myday.htm l (“My Day” Columns by Eleanor Roosevelt)

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Index Abolitionist movement, 24 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 36–42 American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), 53 Anderson, Marian, 20 Antioch College, 24–26, 34, 37

Croft, Howard, 72 Cure, George X, 74

Banneker, Benjamin African-American scientist, 21 Banneker Junior High School, 21–22 Barry, Marion, 68–69 Washington, D.C.’s mayor, 64–65, 78, 81–82, 84–86, 99 Beame, Abraham D. mayor of New York, 49, 61 Bill of Rights, 36, 38 Blackburne-Rigsby, Anna, 96–97 Bond, Julian, 37–38 Boxer, Barbara, 13 Brazile, Donna as campaign manager, 67 Brown v. Board of Education case segregation of schools ruled unconstitutional, 20 Bush, George H.W., 9–10 Cardoza Business High School, 19 Carter, Jimmy, 49–50, 52–53, 57–58 Chaney, James, 30, 33 Chicago, Illinois, 51 Chisholm, Shirley, 45, 61 Civil Rights Act (1964), 47–48, 55 Civil Rights Movement, 9–10, 27, 29–30, 33–35, 42, 65, 67, 69, 73 Civil War, 24 Clinton, Bill, 84–85, 88–90 Columbia University, 22, 36 Columbus, Christopher, 62 Commission on Human Rights (New York City), 42–44, 49, 60, 73

D.C. Statehood Green Party, 89 D.C. Vote, 89 Daughters of the American Revolution, 20 Davis, Tom, 83 DeLauro, Rose, 11–12 Delay, Tom, 92 Democracy 7, 96–99 Democratic Party, 10–11, 14, 33–35, 38, 66, 69, 74, 93, 95, 99 Department of Education, 14–15 District of Columbia Appropriations Bill (2000), 94,96, 98 District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel, 93 Donkin, Steve, 96 Douglas, Fredrick, 40 Down, John Langdon, 43 Dunbar High School, 23, 26 EEOC. See United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Eisenberg, Shelly, 26 EMILY’s List, 68 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 52, 55 Evans, Jack, 99 Evers, Medgar, 30 Fauntroy, Walter E., 64–65, 68–69 Federal Election Commission, 66 Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority and the oversight board, 83, 85, 93 Financial Responsibility and

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Index Management Assistance Act (1995), 84 First Amendment law, 37–38 Foley, Tom, 11 Ford Motor Company, 23–24, 54 Fortas, Abe Justice, 40 Freedom fighters, 31 Freedom of speech, 39

Home Rule Act (1974), 63–64 Hoover, Bette, 96 House Un-American Activities Committee, 29 Human Rights Commission. See Commission of Human Rights (New York) International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 54 Iran hostages, 57–58 Iraq, 100 Ireland, Patricia, 73

General Accounting Office, 82 General Electric Company, 54 General Motors Company, 54 Georgetown University, 64, 67 Gephardt, Dick, 91–92 Gingrich, Newt, 76–78, 80, 83

Jackson, Reverend Jesse, 73, 91 Jarvis, Charlene Drew, 68 Johnson, Lyndon B., 33–35, 47–48

Goodman, Andrew, 30, 33 Graham, Katharine, 41–42 Graham, Philip, 42 Great Depression, The, 19–20 Hanrahan, Debby, 96 Hayden, William, 85 Higginbotham, A. Leon Jr. first African-American United States Judge, 34–36 Hill, Anita, 17 accusations of, 9–16 Holmes, Coleman Sterling (father), 23 as public health inspector, 19 Holmes, Nellie (sister), 20 Holmes, Portia (sister), 20 Holmes, Richard John (greatgrandfather) as fugitive slave, 19 as minister, 19 Holmes, Richard John Lewis (grandfather) as fireman, 19 Holmes, Vela Lynch (mother), 23 as teacher, 19

Kane, Betty Ann, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74 Kelly, Sharon Pratt, 68 Washington D.C. mayor, 78, 81–82 Kennedy, John F., 30, 38 Killingham, Marilyn Preston, 89 King, Correta Scott, 45 King, Martin Luther Jr., 27, 35, 98 Korean War, 100 Ku Klux Klan white segregationists, 30, 34, 39 Labor Department, 49 Leo Burnett Company, 54 Lieberman, Joseph, 100 Lincoln Memorial, 20, 80 Lindsay, John New York City’s mayor, 39, 42, 44, 49 Lowey, Nita, 13 Marshall, Thurgood, 8, 10, 27 advocate for civil rights, 9

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Index McCarthy era, 29 McMahon, Bobbie, 69 Mikulski, Barbara, 13 Mink, Patsy, 12 Mississippi, 18, 33 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 33–34, 38 Mitchell, George Senate majority leader, 13–15 Monroe Elementary School, 20 Montgomery, Alabama, 27 Montgomery bus boycott, 27 Nathanson, James. 70 National Abortion Rights Action League, 68 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 27, 30 National Black Feminist Organization, 60 National Organization for Women, 73 National States Rights Party, 39–40 New Columbia Statehood Act (1983), 90, 92 Newsweek, 41–42, 73 New York City, New York, 36, 43, 61–62 New York Times, 22 “No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2003,” 100 Norton, Edward (husband), 36, 43, 50, 66 and unpaid back taxes, 60, 69–71, 74 Norton, Eleanor Holmes at ACLU, 36–41 and unpaid back taxes, 60, 69–71, 74 birth of, 19 campaign for Congress, 64–73

as Chair of the EEOC, 9, 17, 48–59, 64–65, 73 chronology of, 102–3 at Commission on Human Rights, 42–45, 49 and D.C.’s fight for statehood, 90–94, 98, 100–1 as District Columbia’s House representative, 9, 17, 74–75, 77–78, 82–87, 90–94, 98, 100–1 and the Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, 83, 85 heroes of, 22 as law school teacher, 64 as lawyer, 32, 36 and politics, 22, 26, 29, 34, 61–62, 64, 66, 73–74 school years of, 20–31 and social activism, 26–31, 34, 37, 61 on Clarence Thomas, 8, 10, 15, 17 Norton, John (son), 43 Norton, Katherine Felicia (daughter) and Down’s syndrome, 43 Parks, Rosa, 27 Persian Gulf War, 100 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 33–34, 62 Porter, Cole, 23 Racism, 19, 44, 69 Ray, John, 68 Reagan, Ronald, 58–59, 74 Redwood, Rene, 71 Reed, Carolyn, 61 Republican Party, 10–12, 15–16, 58, 66, 74, 77, 83, 92, 94, 99 Residence Act, 62 Revitalization Act (1997), 85–87 Roosevelt, Eleanor

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Index as first lady, 20 influence of, 20, 22 “My Day” newspaper column, 22 Schroeder, Patricia, 12 Schwerner, Mickey, 30, 33 Segregation, 18–21, 23–24, 27, 29, 34, 38, 40, 47–48, 66 Senate Judiciary Committee, 9, 15–16 Sharpton, Reverend Al, 100 ShemaYah, Queen Mother, 96 Singleton, Harry, 74 Sit-in, 18 Slaughter, Louise, 13 Snyder, Tanya, 95–96 Soblen, Robert, 29 Southern Pacific Railroad, 54 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 29, 32–34, 37 Supreme Court. See United States Supreme Court Syracuse University, 19 Szulgit, Karen, 95 Terrell, Mary Church, 22 Thomas, Clarence at EEOC, 59 Norton on, 8, 10, 15, 17 and sexual harassment charges, 9–12, 14–16 Thomas, Martin, 95, 97 Tucker, Sterling, 66, 70 United Airlines. 54 United Auto Workers Union, 54 United States Bureau of Engraving, 20 United States Civil Service Commission, 49 United States Constitution, 90, 97 United States Department of

Housing and Urban Development, 50 United States Equal Employment Opportunity Council (EEOC), 9–10, 14–15, 17, 41, 47–50, 58, 64–65, 73 cases of, 51–57 and sexual harassment guidelines, 55–57, 59 United States House of Representatives, 8, 10–13, 17, 46–47, 52, 62, 77, 80–83, 85, 89, 91–95, 97–98, 100 United States Navy, 36 United States Senate, 8, 10–13, 76, 81, 89–90, 93, 100 United States Supreme Court, 9–10, 12, 17, 20, 22, 32, 37, 40–41, 46, 89, 97 University of Alabama, 30, 38 Unsoeld, Jolene, 13 Urban League, 86 Vietnam War, 37–38, 100 Wallace, George, 30 as white segregationist, 38–39, 73 War of Independence, 62 Washington, D.C., 8, 13, 18–20, 23–24, 38, 49–50, 57–58, 61, 66–69, 71–72 fight for statehood, 88–101 financial crisis in, 76–87 government of, 62, 74–75, 78–79 history of, 62–63 representation in Congress, 63, 89–91, 93, 97 urban problems in, 63 Washington, George, 62 Washington Memorial, 80

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Index Washington Post Corporation, 41–42, 69–70, 74 Westinghouse Electric Company, 55 Williams, Anthony A. mayor of Washington, D.C., 99 Williamson, Thomas S. Jr., 94 Women’s rights, 16 and discrimination, 44 in the workplace, 41, 45 World War II, 100 Yale Law School, 18, 28, 32, 35–36, 39, 67

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Picture Credits Cover: Courtesy Eleanor Holmes Norton, photo by Rhoda Bear 12: Associated Press, AP/ Marcy Nighswander 14: Associated Press, AP/John Duricka 25: Axel Bahnsen Negative Collection. Image courtesy of Antiochiana, Antioch College 35: Associated Press, AP 45: Courtesy Eleanor Holmes Norton

48: 53: 65: 73: 84: 91: 95:

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Associated Press, AP Official White House photo, courtesy Eleanor Holmes Norton © Jacques M. Chenet/CORBIS Courtesy Eleanor Holmes Norton Associated Press, AP/ J. Scott Applewhite © Wally McNamee/CORBIS © Reuters NewMedia Inc./CORBIS

About the Author Hal Marcovitz is a journalist for The Morning Call, a newspaper based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He has written more than forty books for young readers, including biographies of Robin Williams, Ron Howard, Al Sharpton, and Cesar Chavez. He lives in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Gail, and daughters Ashley and Michelle.

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