“In the meantime, the Mobe held its own counter-inaugural event with a rally and speakers. Later that night they scheduled a counter-inaugural ball. One of the speakers was Marilyn Webb, representing the new women’s consciousness-raising groups. She had prepared a speech about the aspirations of women, demanding equality for women both in the movement and in the larger society. As Marilyn began her speech, dozens of men in the packed audience began to catcall and boo. When she continued, more men joined in and the din got louder. Some of them began to chant, ‘Take it off! Take it off!’ ‘Fuck her down a dark alley!’ Marilyn was stunned and hurt. Shulamith Firestone tried to continue with a second speech, but soon both women were forced to abandon the stage in the pandemonium…
“While the Mobe leadership — all men — were also upset by the attacks, they didn’t join Marilyn on the stage to back her up.”
—Cathy Wilkerson, SDS and Weather Underground activist, on the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam’s January 1969 protest of the Nixon inaugural.
studentactivism.net 
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 12, 2012 at 1:08 am
Thom Saffold
Dear Angus,
I remember that incident when I was working on a rial campus paper–i think it was in Quicksilver News Service. And I LOVED your response to Jeff Daniel’s rant in Newsroom. It jarred me, too, as I watched–and Jeff should know better because he’s a Michigan guy, and Ann Arbor and Port Huron are not that far away. BTW, the first SDS president, Alan Haber, is still a world-class activist and still lives in Ann Arbor. If you ever want to get in contract with him, I’d be glad to facilitate that.
July 12, 2012 at 11:33 am
Angus Johnston
Thanks for writing, Thom. I’m a huge fan of Haber’s — I did my dissertation on the National Student Association, and the stuff he wrote while he was involved with them is some of the smartest, most important writing on student activism I’ve ever seen. Only had the chance to meet him once, so far, but to me he’s one of the great (relatively) unsung heroes of the sixties.