Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1076811
65 1968: Your first run for office. The Vietnam War was a focal point. I was elected in '68. That year was a nightmare, with the war, the police riot in Chicago. With everything that was going on, the legislators didn't know what to do with me. They had what's called a speaker's breakfast, a little favor to all the legislators. They had given ties to the men, and what were they going do about me? They solved it by getting me one of those string ties. Did men support you along the way? Oh, yes, there were plenty of those. This one I want to tell you about is not one of them. The day after my election [for Texas House in '68], there was an opening of a library in Corpus, or some such thing, and I thought I should go. And so, this man came up to me and said, "I voted for Mr. Farenthold yesterday." I said, "Oh no, George Farenthold is my husband, not the candidate." And he said, "If I had known that, I wouldn't have done it." Certainly took the wind out of my sails. 1972: Eyeing the governorship. My cousin read that I had I announced my candidacy, so he got a plane for me. I flew in two days to 26 stops. That was the only way I could get publicity. It was an old DC-3. Governor Connally had used it at one time, and when we found it, it was in Maryland. Twelve seats, maybe. One time I looked out the window, and the cars were going faster than we were. Media tales from the gubernatorial trail. Women's Wear Daily — it was very stylish at one time — came to interview me. I had taken the Texas Observer magazine to show the reporter, because that was the only place I had gotten coverage. The picture on the cover was of me wearing my very best dress from Paris. The woman from Women's Wear Daily looked at me and looked at the dress and said, "That's the same dress you're wearing now." After that, the interest was gone. On Gloria Steinem. It was 1972 during the campaign, and she phoned me and said, "I'm here to help you — either by being there, or not." Gloria went on stage that night to nominate me for VP, and she told me that this was the first new dress she had bought in 10 years. She's a peacemaker. She can bring groups that are antagonistic together … She's a gift. On Martin Luther King Jr. I never met him, but I consider him my mentor. When I said that at a speech in Corpus Christi in the 1990s, I got angry phone calls the next day. I'm rereading his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, given at the Riverside Church in Harlem in 1967, which had a profound effect on me. He had grieved because he hadn't done anything about Vietnam. So he wrote this speech. He says that in 20 years, we'll be doing the same marching. He was criticized terribly for this, and I was one of those, saying that someone in civil rights should leave the war alone, not get involved. But they're connected, and he suffered terribly for the comment — and I was part of it, you know, the white liberal gang. This is a speech I wish people in this country would read. It was a prophecy. That speech has not gotten much attention. It's always the "I Have a Dream" speech. Then versus now. Time goes by, and people don't necessarily remember what it was like. When we had the Women's National Political Caucus here, there was not one large home, that we were aware of, that would sponsor a fund-raiser for us. One woman was willing to do it, but she said her husband didn't want it. That was 1972, '73. Oh, and I forgot something else: They didn't page women at the Rice Hotel, either because it was a sexist thing, or because they assumed they were prostitutes. On breaking ground. I was married soon after I graduated from law school. I tried to practice law, but it was very difficult. I've been off and on in law all my adult life. But I found that what I really enjoy is politics. I was at the Democratic state convention last week in Fort Worth, and I couldn't get over the contrast of 18 women running for the legislature. It's mind-boggling. On a woman in the White House. You'd have a better chance, because of death, you know, to enter as a VP. I don't think someone that's just come on the stage would have a chance. Your biography. Tom Cohen is writing it. He's with The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He begins the book a little while before I went to the legislature. I was reluctant and still am — but he's got it almost finished. I don't know when it's coming out. Next chapter. I hope I can keep going. My friend Ramsey Clark, a human rights lawyer and attorney general under LBJ, said that he just wants to keep going until he's gone.