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We've known each other now for decades.

0:47

It's hard to believe it's been decades. It's gone

0:49

fast for me anyway. Yes, and

0:51

we've had lots of phone conversations,

0:54

We've had many in person conversations,

0:57

and every time that we've

0:59

gotten to gather for an interview, you've

1:01

interviewed me. So

1:04

now it is both my pleasure

1:06

and privilege to interview you to

1:09

I'm outset with that, but I think it'll

1:11

be a conversation, but that would be good. This

1:15

is what I know about Beverly. If

1:18

you want someone to direct

1:20

you, Beverly is the person

1:22

you want. So this is

1:24

going to be our conversation. Yes,

1:28

we're letting people eavesdrop on absolutely.

1:32

That's my long time friend, Beverly

1:35

Guy chef Doll. She's been at the

1:37

forefront of the black feminist movement,

1:39

teaching and heading the Women's Research

1:42

Center at Spellman College.

1:44

Another one of my friends and co conspirators

1:47

is Emma Coleman Jordan. Emma

1:50

was a colleague of mine back in the nineteen

1:53

eighties. We were part of a

1:55

very small group of black

1:57

female law professors. I

2:00

always wanted to be a lawyer. I

2:02

thought of myself as a lawyer lawyer,

2:05

somebody who is going to be in

2:08

law to make money, but really

2:10

to change the equality equation

2:14

in my society.

2:17

Amma and I have written and edited

2:19

a book together and planned numerous

2:21

conferences. I sit on the

2:24

board of the center that Beverly

2:26

created at Spellman College, and

2:28

I've spoken there often. At

2:30

times, all three of us have collaborated.

2:33

These friendships have sustained

2:36

and strengthened me for decades.

2:47

I'm Anita Hill. This is

2:50

Getting Even my podcast about

2:52

equality and what it takes to get there.

2:56

On this show, I've been talking with

2:58

people who are improving are imperfect

3:00

world, people who took risks

3:03

and broke the rules. In

3:05

this last episode of the season, I'm

3:08

sitting down with two change

3:10

makers who are also my

3:12

friends. We remind

3:15

each other to keep going when

3:17

change seems impossible to achieve.

3:21

First, I'm talking with Emma Coleman

3:23

Jordan, who's an author and

3:25

professor at Georgetown Law.

3:29

She was there for me in nineteen ninety one

3:31

during the Thomas hearing. Emma

3:33

helped organize my legal team.

3:38

What made you want to

3:40

support me? What made you go to that

3:42

extra effort to

3:45

become really actively involved?

3:47

Well, actually I started just

3:49

like asking you if you needed some law students

3:52

to help out, and then when I

3:54

saw that wasn't going to be adequate to

3:56

the task, I became personally involved

3:59

myself. I had some

4:01

experience in Washington. I had

4:03

been a White House fellow. I had been

4:05

a special assistant to the

4:07

Attorney General, and

4:10

during that time, one of my responsibilities

4:14

was to prepare for

4:16

the confirmation hearing

4:19

for Justice Sandra

4:21

d O'Connor. So my eye

4:23

and Tenna were up. I thought,

4:26

oh, she's going into

4:28

a bus saw And I could

4:31

see the posturing that was being done

4:33

in the news even though Democrats

4:36

were in the majority.

4:38

I could see the positioning

4:41

in public statements that the

4:44

Democrats were going to attack you. So

4:47

that was just my reading of

4:49

the Tea leaves based upon my experience

4:53

in Washington. Well, that's all

4:55

the more reason I want to ask, well, I in the world,

4:57

ten that you decide that you were going

4:59

to step into that mess

5:01

because I could see and I'm sure there were

5:03

many people and that fit this category

5:06

that you would have just walked away.

5:09

There were others who did just walk

5:11

away. Yes, I know, but

5:13

you decided that you were

5:15

going to be not only active

5:18

you were really essential

5:21

to the formation of the legal

5:23

team, but also you

5:26

were essentially really in connecting

5:29

me and understanding

5:32

who I was. And one of

5:35

the things that you did involved

5:38

faith and our shared

5:41

faith. Can you talk about that?

5:43

Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that. It's something

5:45

that's not widely known. But

5:49

I'm a Baptist. You also

5:52

and I thought, we're

5:55

going into the lions Den,

5:58

we need to pray. And

6:00

I called my minister

6:03

h Beater Hicks, who was then the

6:06

minister in charge of Metro,

6:09

called and Baptists and asked

6:11

him would he come and pray with us

6:14

the night before the hearings. And then

6:16

on the day of the hearings he

6:19

came to the hearing room. So

6:21

we were in an anti room,

6:23

you me and Charles

6:26

Ogletree and Reverend

6:29

Hicks, and he

6:32

held our hands in a circle.

6:34

We held hands in a circle, and

6:38

he said, let us pray,

6:41

and I remember feeling

6:45

that whatever happened,

6:48

I had the faith

6:52

of my parents and

6:54

my grandparents with me,

6:57

and I thought,

6:59

this is the right thing

7:02

to do. Identified

7:05

with you as a young

7:07

woman, law professor, teach cover visual

7:09

law, and I thought,

7:12

this is not going to be a fair

7:14

fight. There

7:17

were so many powers

7:20

stacked against you, all

7:23

of the powers of

7:25

the presidency going

7:27

to be against you. It wasn't just

7:29

Clarence Thomas. I

7:32

cared about fairness

7:34

and equality, opportunity

7:37

for an African American woman

7:39

who'd achieved at a very

7:42

high level, and I thought,

7:45

let's get in there and do it.

7:48

I still wonder if it was my personality

7:50

or my legal training that

7:53

helped me to do the

7:55

testimony. Part of

7:57

what we know about these public

8:00

hearings now, and what

8:02

we learned really from nineteen

8:05

ninety one was how the person

8:07

presents herself is important. Part

8:11

of my ability to testify had

8:13

to do with the fact that I had

8:15

been trained as a lawyer. I

8:18

had been trained in part

8:20

to see the

8:22

law as a as

8:25

a mediator, but

8:27

also to see it as separate

8:30

from personal interest and to

8:32

take almost a detached approach.

8:35

Do you see that as part of

8:38

how I used my voice on that

8:40

day. I think there was a fusion

8:43

of identities there, your

8:46

religious belief, your

8:49

family connections. The

8:51

most vivid moment for me was

8:54

when your family came into

8:56

the hearing room. You had

8:59

that confidence that

9:02

you don't learn in law school, a

9:05

confidence in the

9:08

rightness of your being,

9:11

and I had that too.

9:14

But we are definitely sisters in the law

9:17

in that respect. Yeah,

9:19

yeah, that's a good way to put it. After

9:23

the break, you'll hear from

9:25

Beverly guy cheft Hall. In the months

9:27

following the hearing, she helped me

9:29

navigate the fallout for

9:32

my testimony. I'm

9:45

Anita Hill, and this is getting egan.

9:48

In the first half of this episode, you

9:51

heard from my friend and colleague,

9:53

Emma Coleman Jordan. Now

9:55

I'm speaking with longtime friend Beverly

9:58

guy cheft Hall. Beverly is

10:00

a black feminist scholar, writer

10:02

and editor. She's taught at

10:04

Smelbourne College for most of her career.

10:08

We didn't know each other when I testified

10:10

before Congress in nineteen ninety one, but

10:13

she was watching the hearing at home in

10:15

disbelief. As

10:17

soon as it was over, she took

10:20

action. She joined a collective

10:22

called African American Women in defense

10:24

of Ourselves. That group

10:27

took out an ad in the New York Times

10:29

in response to my testimony. The

10:32

ad is striking. It's an

10:34

open letter surrounded by

10:36

sixteen hundred signatures. Before

10:41

I ask you to talk about that, I

10:43

want to say it just went such a long

10:45

way in restoring

10:48

me and assuring me that

10:50

my black identity and my black

10:53

identity as a woman was

10:55

not going to be forgotten. You

10:58

signed the ad, So tell

11:00

me more about why you signed it, why it

11:02

was done, and what

11:04

it meant to the sixteen hundred women

11:07

who signed onto it. Okay,

11:09

so let me let me just say that

11:12

not only did I sign it, but I got it framed

11:14

and it's in my office. I'm looking at

11:16

it now. It is to my writing, so I see it

11:18

every day that I come into my office,

11:20

and students also see it. So

11:24

that mobilization, that mobilization

11:27

of primarily black

11:30

feminist academics, in terms of

11:32

its a genealogy. We

11:35

were trying to decide

11:37

what can we do publicly, what

11:40

can we do publicly to disrupt

11:43

this racial script that

11:46

goes back to the nineteenth century that says

11:48

that black women cannot out

11:51

African American men

11:54

that our primary loyalty is

11:56

to race, and

11:58

that any kind of loyalty, any

12:00

kind of gender politics, or any kind of gender

12:02

loyalty, is something that we

12:05

cannot do. This is this is a script that

12:07

we get and we learn, and

12:09

so black feminism emerges

12:12

going back to the nineteenth century because

12:15

of an intersectional lens

12:18

and an intersectional politics

12:20

which says that we are committed to

12:22

the eradication of all isms

12:24

racism, sexism,

12:26

heterosexism, classism,

12:29

and there's no contradiction

12:31

at all in struggling

12:34

to eradicate all of those and

12:36

that even though we know we've got

12:38

the script, we are

12:41

going to speak out about

12:43

violations, gender violations,

12:46

including when African American men

12:48

are the perpetrators. We were

12:51

very upset about the

12:54

placement of you, or the construction of you also

12:56

as a pond of white feminists,

12:59

as if there were no black feminists in the

13:01

world, and so we wanted to

13:04

make it very very clear that

13:06

white women had nothing to do with

13:09

your decision or your

13:11

black feminist politics, that there's

13:13

a black feminist history that

13:15

goes back to Mariah Stewart, and that you

13:18

were a part of that history. It's

13:20

interesting that we, you

13:22

know, were not able to

13:25

have that heard in the

13:27

same way that the

13:30

lynching claim was heard. But

13:32

it's not surprising because our

13:35

history teachers teach

13:38

about lynching. Now,

13:42

we have the signs, we have the

13:44

pictures, we've got the old

13:46

postcards, but we didn't have any

13:49

of that evidence that was available

13:52

to show what was going on in

13:54

the lives of black women throughout

13:57

the period, even of lynching,

14:00

and so it was really hard to get

14:02

that message through. And I

14:04

think we're beginning to do that. But

14:06

all of this was going on at a very

14:09

different time. And then

14:12

you and I met. It was nineteen

14:14

ninety two. We met because

14:17

Spellman invited me

14:19

to speak at the college. None

14:22

of the other HBCUs did

14:24

at the time. The invitation

14:27

itself was important, even before

14:29

I set foot on the campus, Just having

14:31

that invitation was important. What

14:33

were you expecting or hoping

14:36

for for the students? What did

14:38

you want them to see? So

14:41

our students are accustomed to seeing

14:44

black women who are successful, because

14:47

you can be successful without being controversial

14:50

or without taking difficult

14:52

public stances around race

14:55

and gender issues, you know, So we can

14:57

invite corporate women,

15:00

lawyers, other presidents.

15:02

We can invite those kinds of amazing

15:05

and wonderful black women to campus at

15:07

Spellman, which we have done, but

15:09

we thought it was also important for

15:12

them to see a black woman dissident

15:15

d I s s at D E n T.

15:18

What John Lewis would say, a person

15:20

who's making good trouble to

15:23

be courageous and public, even

15:26

when it is controversial, and

15:29

even if your stance

15:32

is likely to produce, which

15:34

is what you experience of being demonized,

15:37

being rejected, being called off,

15:39

all kinds of names. But we wanted Spelling

15:42

students to see that there are models

15:45

for women like you. Well,

15:47

I got there, and I hope

15:49

that's what they saw. And you know,

15:52

I spoke in Sister's Chapel

15:55

right to me at the moment, it was this

15:57

incredibly impressive space.

16:00

So paint a picture for us.

16:02

Okay, So, Sisters Chapel is probably

16:04

the most sacred and I don't mean sacred in

16:06

the religious

16:08

sense per se. I can remember

16:11

because I was a student from nineteen sixty

16:13

two to nineteen sixty six seeing

16:15

amazing people speaking Sisters Chapel,

16:17

but they weren't mostly men. I

16:20

heard Martin Luther King Junior speak in Sisters

16:22

Chapel. It's the place where Martin

16:24

Luther King Junior's casket

16:27

lay for two or three

16:30

days so people could visit.

16:32

So it's a kind of place that people associate with

16:35

these towering, big figures.

16:38

So being invited to speak in Sisters Chapel

16:40

as opposed to other places on campus signal

16:43

to the community that this is

16:45

really, really important. We

16:48

were not sure,

16:51

Anita, what the audience was going to

16:53

be. Like you advertise,

16:55

you say the students and fact

16:57

of the members, please get your students out, And

17:00

we a little bit worried about the fact

17:02

that we might show up in Cisters Chaplan

17:04

and have a tiny audience, especially

17:07

given the fact that at the

17:09

hearings and you were controversial.

17:12

You know, that was buzzed during the day. But

17:15

when we walked into Sisial Chapel and solve

17:17

that audience, it

17:20

underscored for us

17:22

why it was important to invite you to

17:24

Atlanta, Georgia, the home of

17:26

the civil rights movement and two Spellman

17:29

College because of its connection

17:31

to black women's leadership and

17:34

in more recent years it's connection to black

17:37

feminist politics. You know,

17:39

I remember feeling wonderful when

17:42

I looked out at that audience, and

17:44

because it was you know, of course the

17:46

students from Spellman, but there were

17:49

a number of folks that were clearly community

17:51

folks. Yes, I had sort of

17:53

taken a chance to come to

17:56

Atlanta because

17:58

I didn't know what to expect. I knew what

18:00

I had been getting, but

18:03

I didn't know what it would be like

18:05

in person. But I knew

18:07

that I had to go good because

18:09

that was the only way

18:12

to confront what

18:14

I had been experiencing. The

18:16

resistance. And I remember giving

18:19

that speech, and I talked about speaking

18:21

out against sexual harassment and the role

18:24

of black women in history,

18:26

on the issue and the role

18:28

that we play in the value that we are to

18:30

our community. But I

18:33

think part of what stood out among

18:36

the people in the audience was what I didn't

18:38

say. Didn't say anything at all

18:40

about Clarence Thomas. And

18:42

I think there were people who were expecting

18:44

me to finally just sort

18:47

of be angry and

18:49

maybe even vindictive, or to

18:51

talk about the unfairness of the

18:53

hearings, which there was plenty

18:55

of that to talk about. But

18:57

we realized, we both realized

19:00

that all of the things that I could

19:02

say that would be true may

19:04

not help us move forward.

19:07

Yes, you say, the buzz still out there.

19:10

There were still all of these questions

19:12

about how what to make of that hearing.

19:15

It was important for me to try

19:19

to create a path to

19:21

move forward at and I

19:23

just wanted you to know how importance Spellman

19:26

was in that path as

19:28

part of that path to be really

19:32

a plea to join with

19:34

me. Yes, because it wasn't

19:36

a foregone conclusion. I remember

19:38

you're saying that you were going to go back

19:40

to your regular life

19:43

as a professor in Oklahoma

19:46

and that you would not be on the

19:48

lecture circuit and out

19:50

and about, and so I said,

19:53

you know, I think that's a really good move

19:55

on her part. And it was a good move

19:58

until it wasn't, and then

20:00

it was time to come out. You know, you're

20:02

right. I had no intention of

20:04

it. And I tell people, two

20:07

days after I've been aact

20:09

Oklahoma, I was in the classroom

20:11

teaching. Of course, it was not

20:13

great teaching, but I

20:16

have to say the classes that I taught

20:18

that year, even the first year

20:21

law students who have of their own anxiety,

20:24

they pulled it together

20:26

and pulled me through so many classes.

20:30

They were patient and carrying

20:33

and you know, supportive,

20:36

in ways that you just don't expect law

20:38

students to be what

20:42

you're observing, or all of

20:44

the things that I think stick out to me too.

20:47

The family and friends

20:49

and the witnesses that came stepped up.

20:52

We did what we came to do, which

20:55

was to be heard, and

20:57

we were heard, and we

20:59

didn't change the outcome, but

21:02

we were heard. And

21:04

thirty years later, we're still being heard,

21:08

and nobody expect to that. If

21:15

you had to pick one lesson, what

21:18

would that lesson be for moving

21:20

us even further? The

21:23

work is really important, and

21:25

you do it over the long haul. You

21:28

just can't give up,

21:30

and you can't say, well, I've

21:32

done this for about ten or twenty years and

21:34

now it's somebody else's work

21:37

to do. So I

21:39

just have said

21:41

to myself, Beverly, you will be doing this forever.

21:45

The joys outweigh the

21:48

challenges. I've

21:50

always been very clear, having

21:53

grown up in the gym and Jane Crow South,

21:56

how challenging it is within

22:00

African American communities to

22:02

center gender politics.

22:05

That is a big challenge and

22:07

it is a lifetime project.

22:10

And if you add sexuality, if

22:13

you say I am as committed to the

22:16

freedom of LGBTQ queer

22:18

people. You're going

22:20

to get talked about as

22:22

a man hater and

22:24

as a traitor to the black community, which

22:27

should be familiar to you. And

22:29

you say that's fine, and

22:32

you're gonna get all kinds of bad

22:35

names, and you basically have to

22:37

say this work, as

22:40

you said, it's not about me. You

22:44

know, you say it's not about

22:46

you, But I want people to understand

22:49

that doesn't mean that it isn't personal. It

22:52

is deeply personal the work that we do.

22:55

It's not about you alone, but it's about

22:57

all of us and all of our experiences. And

22:59

in two thousand and three you wrote

23:01

about your experience with

23:04

partner violence. Yeah, and

23:06

I need I don't think I've ever said this to you or

23:09

even privately, So let me just say now.

23:14

Meeting you in nineteen ninety

23:16

two as a result

23:18

of those hearings, this was actually

23:23

five years after the what

23:25

I am calling domestic terrorism

23:28

that I experienced for

23:30

over a year in and out

23:32

of court for assault,

23:36

car theft, arson even

23:39

And so when you came to Spellman,

23:43

and you don't know this, when you came to Spellman

23:45

in nineteen ninety two, I

23:48

was still dealing with that emotionally.

23:52

So when I saw you giving

23:55

that talk, I said to myself, one

23:58

of these days, I don't know when it will be.

24:00

One of these days, I'm going to speak

24:02

publicly about my experience

24:04

with sexual assault and

24:08

see your book. Since your new

24:11

book, Anita, I now

24:13

for the first time call myself for a survivor,

24:16

which which I have never done publicly

24:19

or even privately. As horrible

24:21

as the physical and part

24:24

of that experience was, the thing that I also

24:26

wrote about is that he put my name in

24:29

public male bathrooms

24:32

and telephone booths in Atlanta, Georgia,

24:35

so strange men would

24:37

drive by my house and

24:39

call me in the middle of the night. And

24:42

again, getting back to friendship, Bell Hooks,

24:44

a long term friend who was visiting

24:46

me. She and I went out at

24:49

night with wind decks and paper towels

24:51

to remove my name and

24:54

number from public space. So

24:56

thank you, Anita. Our evolving

24:58

friendship is what motivated

25:01

me to speak publicly for the

25:03

first time I write about my experience

25:06

with intimate part of a bowls. Friendship

25:08

is a in so many ways. Because

25:11

I'm gonna quote another pioneering black

25:13

Faminists was well ahead of her

25:15

time, Polly Murray, and she

25:18

wrote that hope is a song in a weary

25:20

throat. Do

25:23

you ever get weary? Nope?

25:28

And you know I think that I don't get weary

25:30

because of my friendships. I

25:33

mean this may no one has ever asked me that question.

25:36

But no, I don't get weary. You

25:39

get weary when when stress begins

25:41

to consume you. And

25:43

I find I find all kinds of

25:46

frivolous ways to have joy, shopping

25:48

at TJ Max's one. So

25:51

no, I don't. I don't get weary because I

25:53

have I also feel like, you know what my sister

25:55

says, My sister Francine says, bever you

25:57

you're surrounded with angels, and

26:00

so I think that if you have angels and

26:03

I'm not talking about in the Christian sense, and you

26:05

have friends and you have important

26:08

work, you don't get weary.

26:11

Yeah, you know, I say

26:14

all the time, I am ever hopeful,

26:16

and I honestly believe that, and

26:19

really just to be with

26:21

friends. And you know, I come

26:23

from that huge family of thirteen and I have

26:26

five sisters, but they're not

26:28

the only sisters that I have. So

26:31

Beverly, I'm just proud to have you

26:33

as a sister. And to have

26:36

you as a guide actually

26:39

for the work that is

26:41

being done and it still needs to be done.

26:44

Thank you. As

26:50

a poet, Audrey Lord wrote, without

26:53

community, there is no liberation.

26:56

With these friendships making change

26:59

feels possible. You

27:02

could say that Getty Even was

27:04

the product of conversations I've had

27:06

with Emma and Beverly over the past

27:08

thirty years, from reclaiming

27:11

black girlhood to critical race

27:13

theory and the transformative

27:15

power of art. They

27:17

helped me develop my thinking on pressing

27:20

issues I presented in this series,

27:23

and as I wrap up this season, I

27:27

think back on various conversations I've

27:29

had and how they've elevated

27:31

the voices of all of us who

27:33

have been dismissed or even

27:36

deemed unimportant. And

27:38

after these conversations, I'm more

27:41

determined than ever to help

27:43

our society get even.

27:54

Getting Even is a production of Pushkin

27:56

Industries and is written and hosted by

27:58

me Anita Hill. It

28:00

is produced by Molaboard and Brittany

28:02

Brown. Our editor is Sarah

28:05

Kramer, our engineer is Amanda

28:07

kay Wang, and our show runner

28:09

is Sasha Matthias. Louis

28:13

Gara composed original music for

28:15

the show. Our executive producers

28:17

are Mia Lobell and

28:20

Lee Taal Mallard. Our director

28:22

of development is Justine Lane.

28:25

At Pushkin thanks to

28:28

Heather Fane, Maggie Taylor,

28:31

Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler,

28:34

Morgan Rattner, Mary Beth

28:36

Smith, Jordan McMillan,

28:40

Isabella Narvaias, Carle

28:43

Migliori, Royston

28:45

Beserve, Maya Kanig,

28:48

Daniella Lacan, Jake

28:50

Flanagan, Jason Gambrel,

28:53

Ian Pesca, Sarah

28:56

Brugier, Julia Barton,

28:59

John Snars, Christina

29:01

Sullivan, Carrie Brody,

29:04

Jacob Wiseberg, and

29:07

Malcolm Gladwell. You

29:09

can find me on Twitter at

29:11

Anita Hill and on

29:14

Facebook at Anita

29:16

Hill. You can find Pushkin

29:18

on all social platforms at Pushkin

29:20

Pods, and you can sign

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29:27

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Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can

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29:51

To find more Pushkin podcasts. Listen

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