Commentary: MLK, Jr. & Roe v Wade

The person I would most like to interview on this holiday celebrating the life and work of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is Alma Powell. It was just over a decade ago that her husband, Gen. Colin Powell, declined to run for president because Mrs. Powell feared he would be assassinated. Has there been a change in the country in these past ten years or so that makes it more permissible for an African American to seek the highest political office? Is the change merely a younger generation whose members do not remember King’s death very well, if at all?

The person I would most like to interview tomorrow on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade is Patricia Schroeder. In the book she wrote after leaving Congress, she voiced the opinion that legal abortions are very much about women’s rights to participate equally in society. In the 1970’s Schroeder literally had to share a chair on the House Armed Services Committee with Ron Dellums because the chairman of the committee thought half a chair was good enough for a woman and for a Black.

Barack Obama is a new type of African American leader. I say this because he did not rise to his position through methods common to older leaders. He did not lead a religious congregation. He did not earn fame as a basketball player. He did not gain experience in the military. Instead, he took an intellectual approach and was able to make that choice because of all the breakthroughs made by other African Americans. Hillary Clinton is not a new type of feminist leader. While she, too, valued an intellectual approach, she gained acceptance through the power of her husband. Interestingly, women’s military experience is starting to appear as a new channel for moving women into political office. Even though Obama and Clinton are getting the nation’s attention as likely nominees of a major political party, I was much more excited by the possibilities of Pat Schroeder and Colin Powell running for president.

 

The first year in which Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday was celebrated as a national Monday holiday was 1986. Iowa has celebrated the day since 1989. While I am more familiar with the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women and the assorted organizations and programs for women in the state, there is just as rich an environment for education, advocacy, and outreach through the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans.

The ICSAA works with several organizations to strengthen African-Americans in Iowa. These include Creative Visions in Des Moines and the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, located in Cedar Rapids. The latter organization held the second annual “Laying Claim to Our Spirit: Iowa African American Women’s Leadership Conference” in September 2007. The museum is currently hosting a temporary exhibit on George Washington Carver, through August 4, 2008. A virtual tour of the exhibit is available on the museum’s web site.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.