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.
Here's something to continue being me. I can relate to it. I can find
acceptance here. So, I think, after that when it came time to settle
down perhaps I'd reached the point where I have to quit seeking escape.
I really got too involved because I was somewhere every weekend. I had
children. My parents had passed away and I realized that I was running
from the reality of the death of my parents who died within twelve
months of each other. I had small children and I didn't have parents to
take care of my children like I had during the civil rights movement and
I think I said "It's time that you've got to realize that you can't run
elsewhere to escape. It's time to take a stand and to start saying 'This
is what ought to be' and doing something about it where you are." So
that's where I've been for the past twenty years is doing what I could
where I could when I could, taking on the system when I could, still
working with the community, still do not perceive myself as a leader,
but I feel a very very heavy sense of responsibility because I've been
fortunate to garner and earn the respect of a lot of people both old and
young and I take my responsibility to my family very seriously because
my first marriage was destroyed and I refuse to destroy a second one, so
my family is sort of first priority and after that comes those issues
and those fights that I want to stick my neck out and put up my hard
shell and do about.