The but the most wonderful thing was following that, she asked me to join the board of her foundation, and i did. And i was a member of the California State Assembly at that time, and all of the ideas i had are trying to create opportunities for women, becoming a feminist. I took those ideas to the California State Legislature and was able to get many of them signed into law, and one that ill just share with you was, at the time that i was in the California State Assembly, Insurance Companies would not pay for the buildup after a mastectomy. They said it was cosmetic surgery. I was a feminist. I wasnt going for that. And so because of my being able to serve on the board and witness all of these proposals, it came in up solicited, i learned, to move on things like that, and of course i had it signed into law, but my life changed because of Gloria Steinem and ended up in new york every month or so, and let so many different people met so many different people, and gloria was i had not met such a woman before in my life, and here was this woman who was young, who i thought should have been a model, and here she was organizing, and working, and she was way outside of the box. She was dating a black man, and so [laughter] and so we had the wonderful, wonderful time together, and we reminisced a lot about what we were going to do later on in life, and here we are later on in life, and we have not organized where were going to stay, butting this book, this book that gloria has written, really does tell you who she is, what she cares about, and the experience she has had. Its wonderful reading. I wont tell you anymore or say much more bit except gloria doesnt know what impact she has on my life in so many ways, and the story she told, i remember them all. And when i read about her mother in this book, it was just like talking to gloria all over again, and she explained to me what had happened in her life with her mom. So, thank you, gloria. No, thank you. And you know, maxine has always been in the forefront. We havent planned this conversation, right . But just now i was thinking about your struggle in california to keep the cops from doing internal searches of women they stopped for traffic reasons. Right . And there was just such another story in the press from another state, but what we have discovered about the mistreatment of women, what black lives matter is saying, what maxine has always said, and if any other woman win this presidency, it will be because maxine and barbara lee and Barbara Mikulski and all the people who have been out there proving that women can be respected in authority in public life, it will be because all of those women and maxine especially in so many ways, have demonstrated that womens authority in public life is okay, is normal, is good, is positive, because otherwise i think were so used to seeing women only in childrearing. Women, too. We associate female authority with nurturing and emotion and things inside the home. We see male authority as rational and appropriate to affairs outside the home. And i think thats part of the reason that its hard for some women to, especially for men i think bit when i see the some of the grownup guys on television saying ridiculous things about well, im thinking about 2008 now when Hillary Clinton took all this the big grownup news guys were saying i crossed my legs when i see her she reminds me of my first wife waiting outside the al hello . And i think in a way they felt regressed to childhood because that was the last time they thought they saw a woman in authority. So, maxine has so helped to change that to open up a space for female talent of all kinds in public life, and im just so grateful for that. Now, the problem is we dont get to see each other enough so were really here to as i said, i started my trip to new york because of you. And met wonderful women and i could recall i could but i wont all of many of the meetings we had. How about Marlowe Thomas in the meetings. Free to be . Remember all of that . Gloria supported and we had some very, very talented women who were true feminists, and i want to tell you, you might belt bit surprised, but for me to identify myself as a feminist back in the day, black women would say, what are you talking about you cant be a film nist. That a white womans thing. That so wrong. To me, black women invented dim system grief portion natalie. Host i know but all of that gets distorted i think people would like to hear about the trips. I had an opportunity to read part of the presses here, and i think the story that you told about being in this place where the bikers were oh, okay, all right. And its so wonderfully written, and it is so absolutely educational about how you must not think about people based on what you think you see, but if you just stop and talk with folks, you can learn an awful lot. Could you share that . I think the road is my substitute for medication. Meditation. All my friend tell me i should meditate, midnightfulness, take courses, never do it. I think thats partly because the road is my form of it. It forces you to live in the present. It forces you to be alive with all your senses and to question all your suppositions. So i will read this, which is the prelude to the book, and then i have another section which is supposed to lead us into organizing. So we can wait for that. I board a plane for rapid city, south dakota, and see a lot of people in black leather chains and tattoos. Airline passengers usually look like where theyre going. Business suits to washington, dc, jeans to l. A. , but i cant imagine a convention of such unconventional visitors in rapid city. Its the kind of town where people still anglepark their cars in front of the movie palace. My bearded seat mate is asleep in his studded jacket and nose ring, so i just accept one more mystery of the road. At the airport i meet five female friends from different parts of the country. Were a Diverse Group of women, a cherokee activist and her grownup daughter, who is here, rebecca adamson, the cherokee activist. Okay. Two africanamerican writers and one musician and me. We have been invited to a lakota sioux powwow celebrating the painful place women held before patriarch trackry patriarchy from europe, and was we drive toward the badland we see motorcycles around each diner and motel. This solves the midof the leather and the chains but creates another. When we stop for coffee or wait this cant believe we dont know, every august since 1938, bikers from all over the world have come here for a rally named after sturgis, a town that is just a wide place in the road. They are drawn by in the sparsely populated space of forests, mountains, and a grid of highway sod straight its rest recognize able from outer space. Right now, about 250,000 bikers are filling every motel and camp ground within 500miles. Our band of six strong women takes note. The truth is, we are little afraid of so many bikers in one place. How could be not be. We have learned from movies that the bikers travel in packs, treat women like possessions, and they see other women as sexual fair game. But we dont run into the bikers because we spend our days traveling down unmarked roads, past the last stand of trees in Indian Country. We eat homecooked food brought in trucks, sit on blankets around powwow grounds where dancers follow the heartbeat of drums and watch indian ponies as decorated as the dancers. When it rains, rainbow stretches from camps and wet grass becomes fragrant. Only we we return each night to our cabin do we see motorcycles in the parking lot. While walking in rapid city, i hear a biker say, to his tattooed woman partner, honey, shop as long as you want, ill meet you at the capuccino place. I assume this is an aberration. On our last morning, i enter the lodge alone for an early breakfast, trying to remain both inconspicuous and opened minded. Still im hyper conscious of a roomful of night sheaves, jack boots and very few women. And the booth next to me man with chains around his muscles and a woman in leather pants and an improbable hairdo are taking note of my presence. Finally the woman comes over to talk. I just want to tell you, she says cheerly, much ms. Magazine has meant to me over the years. [applause] and my husband, too. He reads some, now that hes retired. But what i wanted to ask, isnt one of the women youre traving with alice walker . I love her poetry. It turns out that she and her husband have been coming to this motorcycle rally every year since they were first married. She loves the freedom of the road, and also the mysterious moonscape of the badlands. She urges me to walk there but to follow the paths marked by ropes. During the war over the sacred black hills, she explains, lakota warriors found refuge there because of the cavalry got lost every time. Her husband says stops by on his way to the cashier and suggests i see the huge statue of crazy horse that is being dynamited out of the black hills. Crazy horse riding his pony already, he says, is going to make all these indian killing president s on mt. Rushmore look like nothing. He walked away, a gentle lumbering man, tattoos, chains and all. Before she leaves, my any friend tells me to look out the big picture window at the parking lot. See that purple harley out there . The big gorgeous one . Thats mine. I used to ride behind my husband. And never took the road on my own. Then after the kids were grown, i put my foot down. It was hard, but we finally got to be partners. Now he says he likes it better this way. He doesnt have to worry about his bike breaking down or getting a heart attack and totally both. I even put ms. On my lance plate and you should see my grandkidses faces when grandma ride up on her harley. On my own again i look out at the barren sand and tortured rocks of the badlands stretching for miles. Im walked there and i know close up the bare sand reveals layers of pale beige and rose and creams and the he rocks have intricate opening. Even in the distant cliffs, caves of rescue appear. What seems to be one thing from a distance is very different close up. I tell you this story because its the kind of lesson that can be learned only on the road, and also because ive come to believe that inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. We have only to discover itself and ride. [applause] i love that. I love that. I love that. I thought you would enjoy that also. I loved it. But even more than the actual story, the way gloria writes is so wonderful the descriptive nature of her writing, as she describes the landscape and all of those things can just so wonderful, and easy reading. Its like youre talking to her, and so i know she had some other things she wanted to read but i wanted you to hear that. Shall i read my organizing thing and then we can Start Talking to each other . All right. All the years of campaigning have given me one clear message. Voting isnt the most we can do but it is the least. To have a democracy, you have to want one. Still, i realize this fully only by looking back at the beginning of the 1980s, i went to missouri to campaign for harriet woods in her u. S. Senate race. I bet there are people here who remember harriet woods. She was a great candidate, and her path into politics was so improbable that no one could have made it up. As a mother of two young children, she complained about a noisy manhole covered they awakened them every time car rolled 0 over. When she got nowhere with the city council she circulated a neighborhood petition to close the street to cars. It worked. This success left to run for the let her to run for the city council shift won, served eight years, appointed to the state help commission, ran a successful race for the state legislature and reelected there, too. All this made her a viable candidate statewide. Still, this was not enough for the state democratic party. Going to sound familiar. When it came time to choose a primary candidate in the u. S. Senate race, it backed a well to do banker who had never run for anything but who has written checks. But she turned out to have something more important than her partys blessing. Community support and volunteers. She beat the rich guy two to one. Suddenly, harriet was within a race with republican senator john den forth. He was not only the incumbent but a former attorney general of missouri and ordained episcopal pleas and the rich grandsen of the found over ralston purina. Its as if she were rung against the entire patriarch can patriarchy, when i went to work for iralready i could see the groups were working their hearts out and volunteering in her statewide campaign. So missouri was often counted at an antichoice statement woods refuse today budge from her work for freedom. She won in rural republican areas anyway, including one so consecutive conservative that it was known as little dixie. In the final week she had run out of money and couldnt answer the last minute storm of virulent attacks she lost by less than two percent of the vote. It was so clear that she could have won with money to answer those last minute attacks that her race inspired the founding of emilys list. Bush veto or president ial election wh an actual results hanging by a thread of a few thousand disputed votes in florida. I just happened to be speaking at the Palm Beach CountyCommunity College that morning. Its campus just happened to be in the area and therefore a democratic area coming and i could see that nobody wanted to talk about anything but the election that was hanging by a thread that morning. They have had been challenged by the polling place because caucasian had been printed next to me in and she never did get the vote. An older African American man was denied the right to vote because he was told he had a felony conviction yet hes never been charged with a crime. Someone said yes you have, voting while black. Another study to explain people with felonies have been merged with the role without checking more than one person shared the same name. Then an older white woman said the bus had been sent to the wrong polling place. Others testified at the polling places were fewer and lines were longer and in more democratic areas. Had to think people co people have given up because they had lost pay if they were not at their jobs. Then a white man of 50 or so said he had seen the illustration of the ballot box only on the way out and realized he had accidentally voted for an extreme rightwing candidate when he thought he was voting for al gore. That caused a dozen more people to ground and shout that this had also happened to them. Out of approximately 700 people in the one auditorium at least 100 have been unable to vote for their chosen candidate were to vote at all. I wonder if there are this many in one auditorium, how many in all of Palm Beach County, how many of the state in florida . Finally a white man of 30 or so ran to face me in the name of his military service to his country he said and also in the name of his young daughter i want this in a democracy he asked will you stay and help us organize a protest tomorrow and the next day and the next. Before going for a candidate they didnt know they were voting for and give them to lawyers as well as nonpartisan watchdogs outside the state. I got the list as promised. When the lead was down to near 5,037 votes out of 6 million cast come in the reexamination of the ballot for the florida secretary of state Katherine Harris also the cochair from the florida campaign. Call seven recount and supported by the Florida State court. There was no standard to meet the equal protection clause and no time to create one. It was a decision that could be compared with the dred scott decision that no black person, slave or free could ever become a citizen of the United States for its impact. Now remember the horseshoe was lost for one of the horse course of the battle was lost and so on. Despicable should be the mantra of anyone who thinks that he is or her vote doesnt count. If Harry Edwards hadnt been defeated by less than 2 of the votes it wouldnt have been a u. S. Senator. If danforth had been a senator, Clarence Thomas wouldnt have gone with him to washington as a staff member. If f. Thomas hadnt been visible in washington as a rare African American who oppose his community majority views he wouldnt have been appointed by the first president bush to to the ahead and to disempower the equal Employment Opportunity commission and then to sit on the dc court of appeals. He couldnt be nominated they couldnt be nominated by the same president bush to succeed the advocate Justice Thurgood marshall. If there had any recount, al gore, not george w. Bush would have been president as was concluded by the post election examination of all the counter ballots that were commissioned by 12 major news organizations. If george bush hadnt been president , the United States would have been less likely to lose the worlds sympathy after 9 11 by launching the longest war in u. S. History with more bombs dropped on afghanistan during 14 years and then all of world war ii. If al gore and not george w. Bush had been president , Global Warming would have been taken more seriously. Over the United States wouldnt have falsified evidence to justify invading the iraq by starting an eight year war, and together with afghanistan, convincing some in islamic countries that the United States was waging war on islam. There wouldnt be the transfer of wealth to private hands in the history of the nation. The pay ratio in which the average ceo earns 470 times more than the average worker. And in canada it is 20 times more. And giving an estimated 40 billion in tax dollars to catholic evangelical and other religious groups without congressional approval often with the appearance of turning churches into a booth delivery system. The one vote majority in the Supreme Court. And in order to continue all of the above. You get the idea. The list goes on. We must not only vote we must fight to vote. The voting booth is the one place on earth where the least powerful and the most powerful are equal. I still dream about veteran and his daughter. Whether we in the room could have made a difference