During Spring Semester '96, as The September 29th Movement began its drive to rename Carrie Chapman Catt Hall, we heard many students, faculty and staff members ask questions and express opinions about why the Movement was doing what it was doing.

A newspaper columnist accused us of having self-serving motives and said the Movement's goals would pit African-Americans against white women. Other critics pointed to Catt's achievements and said the Movement was holding a woman to a different standard than past racist leaders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom have myriad streets, schools and even cities named after them. Catt was not a bad person, simply a product of her time, when racism was acceptable (!) to people (presumably white Americans of her day), some said. Still others said all leaders are flawed, and so on.

We hope this paper will clarify the position of The September 29th Movement and explain our motives. We hope open-minded observers of the conflict over the name of Catt Hall will come away from these pages with clarity, understanding and possibly even support for our position. Staunch supporters of keeping Catt's name on the building will probably not be swayed.

Catt Hall will be renamed in the very near future. The only question unanswered is the date.

Catt Hall was dedicated on Oct. 6, 1995. During the year preceding the dedication, one voice on the Women's Week Committee planning the dedication ceremonies raised a crucial question - and for the Movement, a relationship-defining one: SHOULD IOWA STATE STUDENTS, FACULTY AND STAFF BE CONSULTED ABOUT CATT'S VIEWS BEFORE GOING AHEAD WITH THE DEDICATION?

For Celia Naylor-Ojurongbe, the lone voice who raised the question, the answer was a resounding and unqualified "yes." Naylor-Ojurongbe, the director of the Sloss House Women's Center, felt strongly that naming the building after Catt would send a negative message that ISU didn't intend.

During her successful campaign to get the 19th Amendment passed, Catt made many racist, xenophobic and classist remarks as part of a "Southern strategy" that was discussed at length in the August 1996 issue of UHURU!. (Nineteen years after the amendment's passage, she made degrading remarks about immigrants that indicated she hadn't changed all that much, that her xenophobia was alive and well.) Naming the hall after Catt would be offensive to many students, faculty and staff, Naylor-Ojurongbe told the organizers, even if $5 million had been raised in Catt's name.

The organizers didn't listen. To put it bluntly, raising $5 million in Catt's name had a higher priority than the feelings of the ISU community. This decision to forego discussion was made at a time when the ISU administration trumpeted loudly to anyone who would listen that they encouraged and supported racial diversity at the university.

The September 29th Movement says the ISU administration erred in two ways. The first mistake was arrogance. They arrogantly ignored reasonable requests - not demands - for public forums to discuss the wisdom, or lack thereof, of renaming Old Botany after Catt. Only in the Spring Semester 1996 did the administration get around to sponsoring public discussions, after the birth of The September 29th Movement and the resulting agitation. It should be noted that President Martin Jischke failed to make an appearance at any of the forums. Apparently the issue was not - and is not - important enough to warrant his attention.

The second mistake was hypocrisy, and it preceded the first. While stating the university's intention to promote and increase racial diversity, the administration deliberately chose to honor a woman who, despite her considerable accomplishments, demeaned virtually anyone who wasn't a white U.S. citizen.

The September 29th Movement firmly believes the administration's arrogance and hypocrisy must be checked immediately, or both ugly traits will continue to raise their ugly heads in the future.
 
 

OUR RESPONSE TO DR. JISCHKE
 
 

... [M]y view remains firm that the building shouldcontinue to bear Carrie Chapman Catt's name. Asan Iowan, an important national historical figure, and an alumnae of Iowa State University, it is appropriate forthe building to bear her name. In doing so, we are not endorsing every view she held. Nor are we ignoring theregrettable words she uttered during the women's suffrage movement. Dr. Martin Jischke
 
 
 
 

As far as we know, Dr. Jischke has refused to recommend a name change for Catt Hall based solely on the reasons stated above.

The September 29th Movement has never denied that Catt is an important historical figure, nor have we minimized her contributions. For us, this is a non-issue. We have stated - correctly - that her considerable work on behalf of the 19th Amendment was beneficial only to disenfranchised white women. Disenfranchised women of color waited nearly an additional half century for the right to vote, the 19th Amendment notwithstanding.

Catt did not help all women to vote. She did not help American Indians, who were reeling from the genocidal onslaught of the U.S.' "Manifest Destiny" - a euphemistic phrase suspiciously similar in sentiment to Nazi Germany's "Final Solution." She did not help African-Americans, who risked being lynched for going to the polls, especially in the South. She did not help Latinos and immigrants, who were degraded (and still are) by those in Catt's social strata.

As far as Catt being an Iowan, we must ask: so what? There are Iowans of all colors who don't feel she should be honored. Is she the only Iowan woman ISU could find?

Further, is Dr. Jischke telling us this is the only female alumnae who can be so honored? Why not the first American Indian woman to graduate from ISU? Why not a progressive white woman? Why not the first Latina? Why not the first African-American woman? Why not all women who have graduated from ISU?

Dr. Jischke's words may say they are not endorsing Catt's views, but the administration's behavior says otherwise. The administration knew of Catt's racist, xenophobic and classist views when they dedicated the building in her name. When they deliberately chose not to gauge the opinion of their constituency - students, faculty and staff - this was tantamount to an endorsement of Catt and a curt dismissal of the feelings of the ISU community.

As far as not "ignoring her regrettable words" goes, Dr. Jischke and the administration tried to do exactly that during Spring Semester 96. But The September 29th Movement wouldn't let them.
 
 

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT WAS "A PRODUCT OF HER TIME"
 
 

"Give the woman a break," some people say. "White supremacy and racism was a way of life in the United States then." When The September 29th Movement marched to Catt Hall last March 6, the ISU spokesman told a Channel 8 reporter that racism was more acceptable in Catt's time, not realizing his own racism was showing.

"The leaders of the [women's suffrage] movement had to make some difficult choices and they did indeed employ some strategies that would be considered racist by today's standards," said ISU spokesman John Anderson. "But that was in yesterday and that was not today."

Because Anderson was undoubtedly speaking for white privilege, he seemed to say that Catt's abominable strategies were not racist by yesterday's standards. Well, if you're talking about acceptable to the Ku Klux Klan, her strategies were probably not considered racist. If you extend his logic, Adolph Hitler's genocidal practices were fascist by today's standards, "but that was in yesterday and not today." Make no mistake, white Americans in Catt's time were viewed by people of color the same way Nazis were viewed by Jewish people in the 1930s and 1940s.

White supremacy and racism have never been acceptable to black, red, brown, yellow and progressive white peoples. Never. During the worst days of slavery, conquest or imperialistic domination, WHITE SUPREMACY AND RACISM WERE ABHORRENT AND UNACCEPTABLE!

Catt may have been a product of her time but she had a choice, and her choice said getting the vote for white women was more important than standing united with her sisters of color. She could have done what Jessie Daniels Ames did.

Ames, a white woman from Texas, worked in the woman's suffrage movement, too, and, along with Catt, helped get the 19th Amendment passed. Ames, whose story is told in the book, Revolt Against Chivalry, was also active in the League of Women Voters that Catt helped found. In the early 1920s she helped found the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in her vicious home state, which had the second highest amount of lynchings of black people in the nation. That took courage.

Ames was also a product of her time.

John Brown, the fiery abolitionist who took up arms against slavery, was also a product of his time.

Senator Charles Sumner and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, who unsuccessfully tried to obtain forty acres and two mules for every freed slave, were products of their time.

Lucy Stone, who led the American Woman Suffrage Association and endorsed suffrage for Black men, was a product of her time.

Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and Viola Liuzzo, who gave their lives in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, were products of their time, too.

Catt, like Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh - who has precious few, if any, buildings named after him - is someone who sullied her accomplishments with a vile political stance.
 
 

WOMEN ARE BEING HELD TO A DIFFERENT STANDARD - LOOK HOW MANY BUILDINGS AND STREETS ARE NAMED AFTER RACIST MEN
 
 

The September 29th Movement has never said Catt Hall should not honor a woman, or women collectively. In fact, we support this.

However, we do point out that Jack Trice was held to a different standard when it came time to name ISU's new stadium. Trice, an African-American, is the only ISU athlete ever to die in an athletic contest while representing the university. When it was suggested that the new stadium be named after him, somehow it became necessary to compromise and name the structure Cyclone Stadium-Jack Trice Field. How many other stadiums can you find in the nation with a split name? Why was it necessary to compromise?

Many buildings at ISU may very well be named after men with racist views; we haven't bothered to research this. But we do know they were named at a time when there were few people of color, and probably few progressive and/or poor whites, on Iowa State's campus. They were not named at a time when the ISU administration was loudly proclaiming an interest in promoting racial diversity. Claiming to promote diversity while offending those you say you want to attract is a major contradiction.

If the administration wishes to promote diversity, it needs to act like it. The naming of Catt Hall is not the only area where they come up short. The cultural studies programs are insulting; retention has dropped in the past two years; after being accepted, more minorities refuse to attend than decide to come to ISU, and so on.

If the university's upper-echelon administrators want to promote diversity, they must walk it like they talk it. And if they don't know how to bring about change, they should admit it and ask those who do know. The Movement will show them how. It's not enormously complicated, you just have to care about what you're doing.

They don't.
 
 

THE SEPTEMBER 29th MOVEMENT IS DIVISIVE AND PITS BLACK PEOPLE AGAINST WHITE WOMEN

We hope not. If we are pitting ourselves against white women, it may be that those white women who feel that we're divisive are being insensitive to their sisters of color. If they maintain we are opposing womanhood, or feminism, or whatever, it means they simply don't know the history of The September 29th Movement.

Celia Naylor-Ojurongbe, the director of the Women's Center, first raised her voice and asked for public discussion of the issue over a period of almost a year preceding the dedication.

It may be more accurate to say that the women who planned the dedication of Catt Hall and chose to ignore Naylor-Ojurongbe's requests were being divisive, not The September 29th Movement because we chose to point out their mistake. Those women chose to stand against their sisters of color, as well as African-Americans, American-Indians, Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans in general.

On September 29, 1995, Meron Wondwosen and Janet Uche Nnadi published a special edition of UHURU!, a newsletter funded by the Black Student Alliance. The newsletter extensively documented Catt's statements and history. Although the newsletter received wide media coverage, the ISU administration chose not to respond to their concerns. AT THIS POINT, NO CALL HAD EVEN BEEN RAISED TO RENAME CATT HALL.

These are the origins of the movement. Women only. Today, five women sit on The September 29th Movement's Central Committee.

To say that The September 29th Movement opposes women is just plain silly.

The ISU administration made a mistake, plain and simple.

They should have gauged the opinion of the ISU community before they named Catt Hall. They compounded their mistake by minimizing the importance of Catt's insensitive and politically expedient views, and chose what they thought was a politically expedient route themselves in naming the hall.

If the administration wishes to promote diversity, they cannot continue doing business as usual. "Business as usual" means making economic interests paramount over everything: students, the emotional well-being of the community, education, and so on.

The September 29th Movement stands opposed to business as usual.

The September 29th Movement stands committed to change, to progress that embraces all communities, and to an ISU that CARES about the well-being of all those committed to racial diversity and harmony.
 

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