Another letter about Catt Hall. Yes, and I’m not going to apologize for it. Enough is not enough until the process for the naming of Catt Hall is re-opened. This movement, rather than fading away, is growing stronger. And if you still don’t care, perhaps you haven’t really listened to what’s been said. There are two basic arguments that have been made in reaction to The September 29th Movement that need to be addressed. Because it’s dead week and we all have shorter attention spans, I’ll be brief.

The first argument, as expressed most recently by Kirk Scheckel, assumes that “no one cares.” In fact, quite a few of us care. And more of us care every day. I wasn’t listening to this debate nine months ago. I ignored it. But I’m listening now, because I can’t ignore it any longer. I can’t hear Catt’s promise that women’s suffrage would secure white supremacy without hearing racism. In fact, I’ve come to realize that any conversation about the women’s suffrage movement must be a conversation about racism and white supremacy in the United States.

Even elementary history texts will tell you that the National American Women’s Suffrage Association exploited explicitly racist arguments for their own pro-suffrage commitment. The NAWSA compromised their position by aligning themselves with white supremacy until the end of their campaign (see Buechler 1990, Davis 1983, DuBois 1978, Giddings 1984, Grimes 1967, Kraditor 1965, O’Neil 1969).

In addition to growing local support, the movement to change the name of Catt Hall has now attained national support from the NAACP. Those of us who attended the rally during Veishea week heard Larry Carter of the NAACP national board name Catt a “certified racist” and point to the naming of the building as an example of institutional racism. At the very least, we should care. We should care about institutionalized racism. If not perhaps Iowa State University ought to re-examine its mission for higher education and its “commitment” to diversity. I’d hate to think our university was graduating individuals who “could care less” about racism.

The second argument is a related one. Many people who stopped by CURV’s tent city over Veishea weekend responded to us by claiming that “everyone was racist back then.” This argument assumes, of course, that it was thus excusable for Catt to have participated in racism.

In fact, several of the sources cited here and other places by The September 29th Movement acknowledge that indeed Catt “was a woman of her time” and that racism was pervasive in the 19th century. But these sources also suggest that while understanding Catt in context is important, such an understanding cannot explain away or excuse her strategies, which were neither principled nor honorable. Suffrage strategies that were linked to white supremacy were perceived as questionable and dubious even at the time.

There were members of her own organization as well as members of the rival American Women’s Suffrage Association who found the alliance of women’s suffrage with white supremacy to be “distasteful” and “disgusting” and even “shocking” (see Buechler 1990, DuBois 1978). Suffrage strategies were hardly indisputable even then. The appeal to racism was one strategy, one option among others that were employed by suffragists. In fact, depending on changes in the suffrage campaign, on its allies, its constituencies, its prospects for success, and its obstacles, the campaign moved from early support for black rights to indifference to a conscious rejection of those rights to explicit racism (Buechler 1990:149). In fact, Catt was a consummate strategist. But as president of NAWSA she sought to win woman suffrage with tactics that were not justified then and cannot be justified now.

The September 29th Movement has done its research and has provided sufficient evidence, as well as a bibliography with a wealth of sources, all of which supports the interpretation that the NAWSA and Catt, as one of its presidents, used racist tactics to win suffrage. The more pressing issue is much more complex.

We ought to be engaging the women’s suffrage movement as a way to examine the complicated and powerful systems of oppression and domination that work to put one marginalized group up against another. We ought to examine how the various forces of oppression intersect so that one group believes it necessary to embrace tactics that reinforce inequality. And we ought to be asking whether it is justifiable — or even possible — to challenge gender discrimination while endorsing race discrimination?

Further, we ought to put that question to ourselves here and now. We ought to examine how the forces of oppression have worked to reinforce inequality in the naming process and in the discussions that have followed. The process by which Catt Hall was named was a closed process headed by an exclusive and exclusionary committee. That process needs to be re-opened now with representation from the diverse populations across campus. This is the principled and honorable thing to do.

And until that happens, nothing is enough. This movement will not fade. Its members may graduate, but they will not disappear. They will become alumni — alumni who will be poets, novelists, journalists, historians, teachers, and activists — alumni who will continue to read and research, write and talk about Catt and the name of the building and the commitment to diversity at Iowa State University. In short, this will not be the last word.

Lisa Hermsen

Graduate student

English