Jinnah Kelson always says she started the Phoenix Institute out of her purse. The year was 1971. She had no office, no grants, just an unshakable belief that women could succeed in non-traditional careers. The institute eventually helped train more than 10,000 women — displaced homemakers, troubled teens, newly-divorced mothers.
Kelson was honored Friday night with a "Lifetime Achievement" award from the Utah chapter of the National Organization for Women. Three other local women — Barbara Toomer, Kathryn Stockton and Julie Ralston — received awards for "Courageous Action." In introducing the four women, NOW director Luci Malin told stories of activism that spanned decades.
Friends and former co-workers accepted Kelson's award for her, since she was recovering from surgery. Brenda Hancock read a letter from former Congresswoman Karen Shepherd recalling the years Shepherd and Kelson worked together at the institute. Running a small business is hard enough, Shepherd said, but running a business based on a cause is like "a prolonged near-death experience."
Shepherd said the International Women's Year convention of 1977 was a defining weekend. Anti-ERA forces dominated the sessions held at the Salt Palace. "Ten thousand women who were afraid of the future voted against reality. . . . They even voted against equal pay for equal work."
You had to be there to understand how discouraging it was, Shepherd said.
Yet Kelson was energized by the convention. Having already started one business to help Utah women, Kelson quickly started a second: Network Magazine. Shortly after it was founded, Shepherd became editor.
Kelson had the power to make people believe in themselves and believe in the future, Shepherd said. She lifted barriers. "It wasn't sexy, glamorous work. You may have never met Jinnah." But many who did, including Shepherd, consider Kelson their mentor.
For Barbara Toomer, who heads the Disability Rights Action Coalition, a defining moment came when she was in college, during the McCarthy era. Her history professor refused to sign a loyalty oath. She had not yet come down with polio, so her knowledge was not firsthand, but suddenly she understood — there are underdogs, even in a democracy.
When asked if there is still a need for an organization such as NOW, Toomer said, "yes."
"We need each other," she said. "We cannot do anything alone."
Then she recalled the time in 1988 when 35 people in wheelchairs rolled in front of the UTA buses in downtown Salt Lake City. After having asked politely for nearly a decade, it took group action for them to obtain buses with wheelchair lifts.
Kathryn Stockton is director of the women's studies program and graduate English program at the University of Utah. Her acceptance speech was a poetic autobiography about "the queer child." As a second-grader, Stockton wore jumpers to school but coveted her boyfriend's flannel shirts. As a teen-ager, she tried to look like James Dean.
Julie Ralston is president of the Salt Lake City chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which sponsors the annual 5K "Race for the Cure" for breast cancer. She's not had cancer herself, she said, nor have any close relatives, but she is inspired to action because in the United States this year, 180,000 women and 1,600 men will be diagnosed. And 43,000 women and 400 men will die of the disease.
The evening ended with a reflection on Kelson's contribution, a tribute to all activists. Mary Barth read from a speech given in 1977 by Jill Ruckelshaus at a National Women's Caucus:
"We are in for a very long haul. I am asking for everything you have to give. . . . You will lose your youth, your sleep, your sense of humor and occasionally the understanding and support of people you love very much. In return, I have nothing to offer you but your pride in being a woman and all your dreams you've ever had for your daughters, and nieces and granddaughters, your future. And the certain knowledge that at the end of your days you will be able to look back and say that, once in your life, you gave everything you had for justice."
E-mail: susan@desnews.com