“Our time is now – we need to seize it,” Senator Mikulski says
SENECA FALLS, N.Y. -U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), along with Billie Holiday and former Health and Human Services Department Secretary Donna Shalala, were inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame on Saturday, October 1st, 2011.
“We’re here today to honor and learn from the past,” Senator Mikulski said. “The founding mothers of Seneca Falls had the passion and determination to seize the day and to make a difference. They lived and acted in the present. They understood the power of now. This is our lesson…our time is now- we need to seize it.”
Senator Mikulski was the first Democratic woman Senator elected in her own right. On January 5, 2011, she became the longest serving woman Senator in American history. As a United States Senator, Mikulski puts her values into action to make a difference in people’s lives, fighting for access to quality education, standing up for America’s seniors, working on the side of cures and research, leading on women’s health, fighting for America’s veterans and military families, and supporting volunteers and national service.
Senator Mikulski was among 11 of the Hall’s 2011 inductees, who include: Dr. Loretta C. Ford, an internationally renowned nursing leader; Helen Murray Free, a pioneering chemist; Lilly Ledbetter, a pay equity advocate; Dr. Donna E. Shalala, a groundbreaking educator and politician; and Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially enter the Boston Marathon. Acceptors will be on hand for the following historic inductees: Coretta Scott King; Abby Kelley Foster; Dorothy Harrison Eustis; Billie Holiday; and Saint Katharine Drexel.
Senator Mikulski’s remarks, as prepared for induction ceremony, follow:
“We are gathered here tonight to honor and learn from the past, to live and act in the present, and to inspire the next generation. I am so proud to be with you today in such an historic place. Seneca Falls is the home of one of the greatest social movements of our time. In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott stepped up to meet the challenges of their times. They mobilized and organized the American women’s rights movement. They called for a convention, and they called for action. They acted in their time; they seized the day. In doing so they made history, and they changed history.
“They year 1848 was a year of revolutions. The campaign against slavery was strengthening, and Dorthea Dix had persuaded Congress to introduce the first bill to provide federal support for mental hospitals. Together, with a close knit group of friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott carried out their plan for a woman’s convention. It was held down the street at the Wesleyan Chapel. A crowd of 300 men and women gathered to discuss the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of women. Some came in carriages and wagons, some came on horseback, and some came on foot. They didn’t know what awaited them or who they would find there. These women put their lives on the line to sign up and declare their sentiments. They were not just attending a meeting—they were joining a movement to determine their own destiny, along with the destiny of American women for generations to come.
“They were there to debate and vote on The Declaration of Sentiments. It was a symbolic adaptation of the Declaration of independence that added the two words ‘and women’ to a well known sentence. It said: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal…’ They had the audacity to include a ninth resolution calling for women to secure for themselves the right to vote. Frederick Douglass – another Marylander – played a central role in the movement by joining his voice to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s. His participation came to the surprise and delight of those in attendance, and to the shock of the press, who reported on it harshly. The Declaration of Sentiments was approved by a slim margin on the second day of the convention. Today you can read that document on the wall of the Wesleyan Chapel. But in 1848, it was revolutionary.
“Tonight we continue that revolution. I am so honored to join so many women of course, grit, and determination in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Hillary Clinton put 18 million cracks in the tallest glass ceiling of them all when she ran for president. Her role now shows the power of one to help so many. Henrietta Szold, like me, a daughter of Baltimore, and the daughter of a rabbi, played a prominent role in Jewish settlements. She invented night school, and went on the found Hadassah. And Billie Holiday, the famous ‘Lady Day,’ who struggled with her own demons while she took on national scourge of lynching.
“I’ve always enjoyed studying history. I never thought of myself as historic. To me, history is powdered wigs and crinolines. It’s Abigail Adams, who operated from the White House, ad Jane Addams, who worked out of Hull House. Not Barbara Mikulski. But when I arrived in the Senate in 1986, I was the first Democratic woman elected in her own right—and only the 16th woman to serve. Just 15 women served in the Senate before me. Up until now, only 39 women have been U.S. Senators. Yet today, 17 women serve in the Senate at one time. One January 5 2011, I was honored to become the longest-serving female Senator.
“Growing up in my ethnic neighborhood in Baltimore, I never dreamed of becoming a U.S. Senator. Only in America would my story have been possible. Only in America do we have this incredible right to speak your mind. I took on City Hall to stop a road from destroying Baltimore’s ethnic and black home ownership neighborhoods. In other countries, they put protesters in jail. In American, they elect you to the City Council, then to the U.S. House of Representatives, then to the U.S. Senate, and then to the Women’s Hall of Fame!
“As we celebrate the story of Seneca Falls, we also celebrate the history of America. We celebrate the history of our social movements that have grown to guarantee the rights of women, African Americans, and of working people. As we study our history, we realize how much these movements have in common.
“They start with a small meeting. A meeting at the Wesleyan Chapel in 1848, right here in Seneca Falls to talk about Women’s Rights. African American students in North Carolina deciding that they would insist on the right to sit down at a lunch counter. A petite lady named Rosa parks who, when she sat down on a bus, made the whole world stand up. For me, a meeting at a community center about a 16-lane highway that would destroy ethnic neighborhoods and take away residents’ homes and livelihoods. From that first meeting a group of people emergences, ready to stand up and to say “NO!” To organize around felt needs, and to work together to make a difference.
“Asking for the right to vote was controversial at the first Women’s Rights meeting. In fact, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s husband told her that if she did something that daring, he would leave town. She went ahead, and yes, he left. But women won the day. Whether it was the working women of New York’s sweatshops marching on picket lines alongside uptown-society women for protection from brutality and assaults. Or if it was the college students who went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer…social movements grow by forging coalitions.
“When we were organizing in Baltimore to stop the highway, I reached out to people I had worked during the Civil Rights Movement. We built a coalition that reached across neighborhoods. Our people power was stronger than the economic forces that wanted to pave us under!
“Every social movement faces opposition and setbacks. The most important thing is to keep on going. Three years ago, when we lost the first vote in the Senate on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, I went to the floor and said, ‘As Abigail Adams wrote her husband John, “Do not forget the ladies, for we will foment a revolution of our own.” This is our Abigail Adams moment. Women of America- put your lipstick on, square you shoulders, and suit up.’ We didn’t give up, we didn’t give in. The next year we passed that bill, put change in law books, and also in womens’ checkbooks.
“And last year, we fought to end gender discrimination in health insurance, so that women no longer pay 40 percent more for the same health care a men…and so that simply being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.
“In the middle of that fight, when they tried to take our mammograms away, I said, ‘No! You are not going to take our mammograms away.’ I introduced the women’s preventive health amendment to the Senate health reform bill to guarantee coverage of preventive car and screenings. Included was coverage for mammograms to women under age 50 at no additional cost. Man and women of the Senate banded together. We suited up again and went to the floor. Women wore pink jackets, and guys wore pink shirts and ties. We looked like we were racing for a cure. We didn’t give up, and we didn’t give in. We passed it as part of the Senate health reform bill.
“We’re here today to honor and learn from the past. The founding mothers of Seneca Falls had the passion and determination to seize the day and to make a difference. They lived and acted in the present. They understood the power of now. This is our lesson…our time is now- we need to seize it.
“We honor the legacy of Seneca Falls by acting now on our agenda for the future. We do so by eliminating discrimination in our paychecks, our premiums, and our workplaces. Equal pay for work can still be achieved. We do so by recognizing that “honor thy father and mother” is not only a great commandment to live by—it’s good public policy too. That means protecting the social safety net through Social Security that’s a guaranteed lifetime benefit and Medicare that’s there when you need it. And we also do so by ending violence against women here and around the world, because children should not be worried about being beaten and abused, or bought and sold.
“I am so proud to be here with you; such a dynamic and dedicated group of women. We must not only honor the past—we must learn from it. We must commit ourselves to seize the day and to live and act right now. It is imperative that we women must be at the table and on the agenda. And if we are not, as Abigail Adams said “Do not forget the ladies, for we will foment a revolution of our own.” Never forget the ladies. Goodnight night, and God bless.