Separatism in the civil rights movement in comparison to the women's liberation movement
Woods describes the evolution of her political activism over the course of the 1960s and 1970s. Initially involved with the civil rights movement, Woods's focus gradually shifted to the women's liberation movement. In particular, Woods focuses on the role of separatism within the civil rights movement and argues that she favored women's liberation later on because she saw it as being about women speaking out collectively, rather than as distinctive groups.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ruth Dial Woods, June 12, 1992. Interview L-0078. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ANNE MITCHELL COE:
-
Could you talk a little more about your interest in women's
issues? Did that come out of your involvement in the civil rights
movement sort of logically? I know a lot of women felt that
they'd awakened to discrimination against women while they
were in the civil rights movement. How did you feel that you became a
person that was interested in feminism?
- RUTH DIAL WOODS:
-
You have to realize that people join movements just as they join clubs
and organizations for different reasons. I guess you have to go back and
examine my psyche which you couldn't examine if I
didn't care to share it with you. You have to grow up in an
isolated culture that on the one hand is supporting you and nurturing
you to feel good about yourself, to strive to achieve, to excel, to
accept responsibility, to meet the expectations that are held for you
and then, on the other hand, interact with another culture that says
that you don't look Indian, you don't act Indian
and always having to justify that you're Indian but
you're not federally recognized, that you've never
had a treaty with the federal government. You go through all these
explanations of having to justify your very being, your very birth
right. That creates a big void of self-confidence, a big void that
allows you to develop an ethnic pride to which you have a birth right.
So you grow up wanting to belong, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be
a part, and yet there's always some kind of hurdle you have
to overcome. If it isn't justifying why you're
Indian or having to explain that you are Indian or if it
isn't trying to excel so that you can access some
opportunity, just a whole series of hurdles. So, the civil rights
movement, that supportive climate, that nurturing climate of
"We are about the business of humanity." became that
place for me to find that acceptance, that sense of belonging, that
sense of freedom. As I said, toward the end of the civil rights movement
in the last few years, as you know, we started moving toward separatism.
We dealt with black separatism. The interestingߞquote
interestingߞphenomenon about the American Indian is that the
American Indians would not get involved with the civil rights movement
because they believed in separatism and until black separatism evolved
the Indians would not support the concept of civil rights. But then
that's a deeper psyche you'd have to deal with
because another friend says "He who questions the identity of
another is insecure within his or her own identity." So
I'll leave that and let it rest where it falls. This black
friend of mine, I remember we were in Washington at some meeting. I
don't remember which one now. We had worked together eight or
nine years and they called a black caucus and, of course, I just
proceeded to go walking into the black caucus and he looked at me and he
says, "Ruth," he says, "you can't
go in here." I said "Why?" He says
"It's a black caucus. I'm sorry. You
can't go in here." And I guess that's
what sort of shocked me into reality, to take off my rose-colored
glasses and turn the tint down a little and look at things a little bit
differently. It did not impair our relationship because we are thirty
years down the road now and still maintain a very close relationship,
but it got to the point where he had to say, "Ruth, I love you.
I love you like a sister, but I am about the business of black
people." and when you've been on the battle line
with people for seven, eight, ten years and you realize that
that's what happens. So, I tried my best to accept separatism
as a means to an end, but that's contradictory when you
believe in pluralism and then also foster separatism. So I found that
conflict. So, you see, when the women's movement came along,
we were not into ethnicity. We were into a common goal. We broke it down
and I really do think that the women's movement contributed
more to those who chose to understand cultural
diversity because women went about the business of "What is the
mission? What is the goal?" And you knew we were black and
white and red and brown and Asian and we didn't get bogged
down into ethnicity. It was "We are women. These are problems
and issues that effect women." We never did that in the civil
rights movement. We dealt with race, you know, the white against the
black, squeeze the Indians where we could. We never talked about Asian
Americans, never talked about Hispanic Americans, never talked about
Alaskans and native Eskimos and Hawaiians or anything. So, I think the
women's movement, although I don't think it was an
outgrowth of civil rights, I think its time was right. I can sit back
forty years now and tell you that there's no hope, but you
see at that time it was just another vehicle.