Aileen Clark Hernandez (May 23, 1926 - February 13, 2017)
The only woman appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to the first EEOC, Hernandez has spent a lifetime working to improve the political and economic status of minority groups and women. A native of Brooklyn, NY, she moved to California in 1951 to become an organizer and later education and public relations director for the Pacific Coast Region of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, where she worked for 11 years. Before accepting the EEOC post, Hernandez was assistant chief of the California Division of Fair Employment Practices. Elected as executive VP at the founding conference of NOW in 1966, Hernandez declined that position but later agreed to serve as VP West, soon after resigning from the EEOC and launching her urban consulting business, Aileen C. Hernandez Associates, in San Francisco in 1967. She has chaired the national advisory committee of NOW, served on the board of NOW LDEF, and co-chaired a NOW task force on minority women and women's rights. She facilitated sessions at the founding meeting of the NWPC in 1971 and at the 1973 NOW-sponsored International Feminist Conference held in the Boston area. She also founded and was active in Black Women Organized for Action, Bay Area Black Women United, The National Hook-Up of Black Women and Black Women Stirring the Waters. She has served on numerous boards and commissions at national and local levels, including The Urban Institute, National Urban Coalition, Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, Ms. Foundation for Women, Bay Area Urban League, National Advisory Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, African American Agenda Council, and Center for Governmental Studies. She chaired the California Council for the Humanities, the Center for the Common Good, the Coalition for Economic Equity, and the board of the Working Assets Money Market Fund. In 1996, Hernandez helped create and became chair of the California Women's Agenda, a virtual network of over 600 women's groups organized to implement the Platform for Action adopted by 189 nations at the Fourth International Conference on Women held in China. Hernandez holds a B.A. from Howard University, an M.A. from California State University at Los Angeles, and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Southern Vermont College.
from Feminists Who Changed America 1936 – 1975, ed. Barbara Love, University of Illinois Press, 2006
Save the Date! Friday,
March 31, 2017
Durham Hilton Durham,
North Carolina
Visit the Official Website for Details and Tickets:
Historians and Feminists:
An Intergenerational Conversation
A dialogue between Second Wave activists and young historians will ensure that the full story of the Women’s Movement is told to current day historians who are researching, writing and teaching about women’s history and women’s issues.
Panel discussions: Grassroots Organizing; Law and Government; Employment Activism
Each features three Second Wave activists and three historians.
Keynote Address: Dr. Nancy MacLean
Reception and Dinner: A Salute to Southern Feminists
Second Wave feminists from southern states will be honored at a celebratory reception and awards dinner. Deceased feminists will be honored in memoriam.
We are delighted that our active collaboration with the New-York Historical Society has begun!! The Society's embrace of our Second Wave artifacts and stories for its developing Center for the Study of Women's History is a dream come true. The Center's purpose is to make these materials widely available to researchers and the general public through interactive exhibitions, the research library, public programs, K-12 educational initiatives and digital archiving.
Please do not send any items yet. The Collecting Policy provided left by Dr. Valerie Paley, Director of the Center, requires that you first submit the attached inquiry form to her.
Rebecca
A LETTER FROM TWO PRESIDENTS
"We are proud of you all!"
Jacqui Ceballos Founder and former President,
Veteran Feminists of America
and
Eleanor Pam Current President,
Veteran Feminists of America
(Eleanor Pam & Jacqui Ceballos April 6, 2002 at a conference
Honoring Florida Feminists)
To the loyal members and friends of VFA who have supported our work throughout the years--we send greetings and heartfelt thanks.
It has been our singular honor to represent and lead this remarkable organization whose mission is to document and preserve the revolutionary achievements of Second Wave Feminism. We pledge also to keep faith with successor generations of women and girls by continuing our work to inspire and educate them about the importance and meaning of the ground-breaking changes to the world brought about by the pioneer feminists of VFA.
"We are proud of you all!"
In Sisterhood and with warm good wishes...
Eleanor and Jacqui
Help VFA continue its very important work to preserve
Women's History.
VFA celebrated with NOW for its 50th Anniversary
June 24-25, 2016 in Washington, DC.
JOIN US - THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO PRESERVE and CELEBRATE.
1930
Girls were raised to be "gentle" and respectful
WOMEN IN WAR 1920s 1940s
1940s
Guide to hiring Women - sexist film
This patronising sexist and retrospectively quite funny film is the real deal. Courtesy of the Prelinger Archive. The stereotyping was standard stuff and women often had to sit through this drivel in the local cinema whilst waiting for the main feature.
1950s
What Does Feminism Mean to You?
1950s
Education On "Women"
A short film about women and accepting them along with other qualities
For use by researchers, educators and students, VFA has converted DVD to MP4 format the complete unabridged videos of its reunions, conferences and awards events from 1993 to 2011. Leaders and activists reminisce about their experiences in the company of sister/fellow feminists. VFA made this historic treasure possible by presenting more than 25 major feminist events throughout the United States and videotaping them for posterity.
Packed with over 2,200 biographies and pictures of our actions.
Barbara J. Love’s Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975 is the first comprehensive directory to document many of the founders and leaders (including both well-known and grassroots organizers) of the second wave women’s movement. It tells the stories of more than two thousand individual women and a few notable men who together reignited the women’s movement and made permanent changes to entrenched customs and laws.
Special Price For VFA Members! SAVE $20.00 NOW $78.00 ($98.00 Retail)
includes postage
Send a check to
VFA, c/o Pam Ross, 18 Aberdeen Place,
St. Louis, MO 63105
Pam Ross ( VFA Treasurer) heard about Jeannetta Maclin’s case in February and spearheaded the effort to enlist supporters to attend court and advocate for her Jeannetta Maclin.
Jeannetta Maclin, center, with, from left to right: Yvette Goods, Pam Ross, Stephanie Lummus and Marcia Cline. Photograph: Stephanie Lummus
“And we have got to do something about the system when women are jailed when they can’t raise cash bail, who have small kids and then they lose their jobs. It’s a national problem. We’re going to get volunteers to go into the municipal jails and speak to mothers there and shame the authorities with the details of what is going on for thousands of women.” Pam Ross
Jeannetta Maclin, 23 has now been charged with two counts of abuse or neglect of a child and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Officers say Maclin left her children home alone while she left to work an eight-hour shift in Creve Coeur, and that's when the fire happened.
Charges against struggling mother make situation worse
The tragic fire that endangered two small sons of Jeannetta Maclin has been made worse by charging her with felony neglect, child abuse and child endangerment ("Mother who left sons alone charged after apartment fire," February 13).
The mother was put in a no-win situation. She must work, yet her pay would not allow her enough money for child care. Her children would be better served by supporting the mother than by putting them in foster care. The mother was clearly abandoned by the father of the children and her family.
She had those children as a very young woman. Where has the society been while she was working to support her sons? America has voided the issue of child care since President Richard Nixon took office. Congress had passed a comprehensive child care bill with large support from both parties in 1971. Nixon called conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly to ask her advice. She told him to veto the bill and he did. Nixon is dead, but we should be charging Schlafly with child neglect and abandonment.
Maclin needs our support, not our punishment. Don't cripple people then laugh at the way they walk. This mother wasn't out at a bar drinking, she was going to work at a low-wage job. Give her some support and give her back her children. We should be adopting this family, not separating them.
Pam Ross, VFA Treasurer • St. Louis
Why America
Never Had
Universal Child Care
In 1971, a national
day-care bill
almost became law.
Phyllis Chesler and Abdul-Kareem met in college. She was an 18-year-old Jewish girl from the East Coast; he was a young Muslim man from a wealthy Afghan family.
Dear Woman of My Dreams is Kathryn’s 1923 diary, covering her nineteenth year. She writes to the woman that she sees as herself in later years, and the book closes with a brief chapter based on letters and the diary Kathryn wrote when she was one hundred years old.
VFA Mission Statement The purpose of Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) is to honor, document and preserve the accomplishments of women and men active in the feminist movement, to educate the public about the importance of changes brought about by the women's revolution, and to inspire future generations.
Veteran Feminists of America, Inc.
is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Veteran Feminists of America, Inc. * 18 Aberdeen Place, St. Louis, MO 63105 * Eleanor Pam, President * Jacqui Ceballos, Founder *
The only woman appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to the first EEOC, Hernandez has spent a lifetime working to improve the political and economic status of minority groups and women. A native of Brooklyn, NY, she moved to California in 1951 to become an organizer and later education and public relations director for the Pacific Coast Region of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, where she worked for 11 years. Before accepting the EEOC post, Hernandez was assistant chief of the California Division of Fair Employment Practices. Elected as executive VP at the founding conference of NOW in 1966, Hernandez declined that position but later agreed to serve as VP West, soon after resigning from the EEOC and launching her urban consulting business, Aileen C. Hernandez Associates, in San Francisco in 1967. She has chaired the national advisory committee of NOW, served on the board of NOW LDEF, and co-chaired a NOW task force on minority women and women's rights. She facilitated sessions at the founding meeting of the NWPC in 1971 and at the 1973 NOW-sponsored International Feminist Conference held in the Boston area. She also founded and was active in Black Women Organized for Action, Bay Area Black Women United, The National Hook-Up of Black Women and Black Women Stirring the Waters. She has served on numerous boards and commissions at national and local levels, including The Urban Institute, National Urban Coalition, Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, Ms. Foundation for Women, Bay Area Urban League, National Advisory Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, African American Agenda Council, and Center for Governmental Studies. She chaired the California Council for the Humanities, the Center for the Common Good, the Coalition for Economic Equity, and the board of the Working Assets Money Market Fund. In 1996, Hernandez helped create and became chair of the California Women's Agenda, a virtual network of over 600 women's groups organized to implement the Platform for Action adopted by 189 nations at the Fourth International Conference on Women held in China. Hernandez holds a B.A. from Howard University, an M.A. from California State University at Los Angeles, and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Southern Vermont College.
