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>> This is just such a wonderful dream for all of us
at the Institute to have a room filled with all
of you here tonight, so thank you for joining us.
It's a wonderful evening for the Institute for Action
Against Hate and it's a wonderful evening
that we have the opportunity to recognize our wonderful friend
and colleague, Eva Lawsman [assumed spelling]
so first I would like to begin by introducing the board
of advisors that I have the privilege to work with
and as I call out your names, board of advisors, I'd like you
to stand and remain standing
until everyone has been recognized and then
if you would hold your applause
until the end I would appreciate it.
First of all I would like to introduce Dr. James Beebe.
He is a professor in the doctoral program
and leadership studies here at Gonzaga University,
Dr. Dennis Connors, who could not be here with us this evening
and Dennis is a professor
in the Organizational Leadership Program in the School
of Professional Studies here at Gonzaga University.
George Chritchlow [assumed spelling] JD who is a professor
and is currently the acting interim Dean in the School
of Law here at Gonzaga University.
Dr. Kathy Canfield Davis who is an instructor at the university
of Idaho In Coeur d Arlene Idaho.
Joanie Apenga who is our Editor in Chief
of our Journal of Hate Studies.
Joanie has really helped us a great deal
to continue the annual publication of our journal.
Dr. Debra Booth who is a professor
in the School of Education.
Our honored guest tonight, Dr. Eva Lawsman.
She's a community activist and a wonderful member
to our committee and I do have notes
because I didn't want to forget anyone.
Rev. Dr. Vern McGee who is one of our community activists.
He was here in Spokane when we started
and he is currently residing in Ellensburg Washington.
Of course, Jim Moore, who I introduced.
Jan *** who is a writer and community activist who has been
with us since the beginning.
Mary Lou Reed who is the Chairman
of the Program Committee for the Human Rights Education Institute
in Coeur d'Alene Idaho and formerly an Idaho State Senator.
Dr. Raymond Ruiz who cannot be with us here tonight.
He's the Vice President of Diversity here
at Gonzaga University.
Dr. Gerry Sheppard who is a professor
in the school of education.
Ken Stern who cannot be with us here tonight
with the American Jewish Committee in New York
and Ken is a specialist in anti-Semitism and extremism
and has been a wonderful consultant for us as we've gone
through the past years.
Sima Thorp [assumed spelling] who got sick today
and cannot join us who is the director of the Center
for Community Action and Service Learning at Gonzaga University.
Brad Vial who is a teacher at Lakeside High School
in Fairfield Washington, Brad is a Mendel Scholar
for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
Ms. Heather Vedear [assumed spelling]
who is our doctoral student and graduate assistant who keeps us
on track and reminds us of meetings
and we want to thank Heather.
And last but not least Dr. James Waller who is the current Dean
of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies
at the Spokane Falls Community College.
Please, a nice warm applause for all of these individuals.
I will turn it back to Jim.
>> I'm going to be your MC tonight
so you'll see me a lot tonight up here bringing people forward
so thank you very much Bobbie.
That was, wow, a lot of people on our board
and their wonderful people and it takes a lot of work
to make everything happen and they really put a lot of time
and dedication into it.
One of the things that I didn't point out was
that you all received a Journal of Hate Studies.
We put that out every year so you did receive one free copy
of that and we have seven volumes out which,
if you want a hard copy there's a charge but you can also get it
at our web site where you can download them
for free, the pdfs.
And that's just, go to Gonzaga.edu/againsthate
and that will take you to the journal
so you can see what we've produced there.
Right now I'm going to; it's my pleasure to introduce Ken Tool
who is going to be our main speaker tonight.
He is a commissioner for the Montana Public Service
Commission and was a Montana Senator
for six years representing Central Helena.
He's also founder and program director
of the Montana Human Rights Network
which is a human rights advocacy organization dedicated
to promoting inequality, justice and pluralism.
He's the founder and chair of the Policy Institute.
A Montana based think tank that focuses
on economic issues including energy, taxation,
health care and corporate reform.
Let's give him a round of applause.
>> Thank you.
I'm really happy to be here and I want to give a special thanks
to Father Hess for his lightening up the moment.
When you're doing these things you kind
of wonder what you could do to lighten things
and I appreciate his faux pas,
kind of took the pressure off me.
I want to add that he's from Anaconda Montana.
We're all like that.
So I thought what I'd do is talk a little bit
about the early days of the Montana Human Rights Network
and give you an idea and I hope the point illustrates the
importance of some institutions studying exactly what it is
when we're talking about hate groups
and hate groups and hate activity.
How that's affecting our communities.
So taking you back to the mid-1980s I worked
as an investigator at the State Human Rights Commission.
Now the Human Rights Commission Montana
like all other states really is engaged
in processing discrimination complaints.
If someone feels like they weren't hired
because of their gender or was fired because of their age,
that's what the investigators do
and that's what my full time job was,
it was with the States Civil Rights Enforcement Agency.
Through that job and through a number, probably a couple
of years, we began to get some phone calls talking
about these people who had showed
up in communities predominantly in the Northwestern corner
of Montana and it's very obvious they were bleed-outs essentially
from the *** Nations Compound up in Hidden Lake
and the *** Brotherhood.
I think people may remember this period of time
when Richard Butler and his boys up there were pretty active
and so my boss and I talked about what does this mean,
we really didn't have much to say
when people would call except, you know,
those white supremacists and if you got fired, call us.
Well to make a long story short, we did have, we were governed
by a commission and that commission decided
that they wanted to devote some staff time into figuring
out what's going on and so that kind of fell to me,
and so I started, number 1, gathering information
when people would call and they sent flyers
or whatever was happening and I started gathering
that information and trying to make heads or tails
out of what was happening, what were these folks doing
but predominantly the individuals
that we were seeing showing
up in Western Montana were essentially kind
of covert operatives, they weren't engaged in real kind
of community recruiting activities though they were
engaged in some of that kind of thing but by and large kind
of Para-military and there was no doubt when you talked
to these folks you understand
that white supremacy was really at their core.
At about the same time, another interesting thing started
happening in Montana, predominately
out in farm country and remember this is a period of time
where the farm crisis was in the news a lot.
Those of us who live in farm communities know
that it just kind of keeps going but this was back
in the 80s there was lots of foreclosures
out in wheat country and cattle country,
the eastern part of Montana.
For those of you who don't know western Montana,
mining and timber, mountains and rivers.
Eastern Montana, prairie, plains, cows and wheat.
Very different kinds of communities.
But these groups were showing up and they were very different.
They were out there and they were talking
in community meetings, they were organizing community meetings,
actively trying to pull people into their organizations
but at the end of the day what they were talking
about was an International Jewish Banking Conspiracy.
These are the folks that we refer to as the Patriots.
White nationalist organizations,
but looked very different then the *** Nations kinds
of covert Para-military organizations that we saw
out of the Idaho panhandle, western Montana.
These were populist, they were aggressively recruiting
and they were not overtly white supremacists and anti-Semitic.
You really, if you went to one
of their meetings maybe you'd pick that up, maybe you wouldn't
but certainly as people got more and more involved
in those organizations they were exposed
to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, white supremacy
and the whole nine yards.
Well this is all in the late 1980s and I'm doing this,
it's like five percent of my total job and the rest
of the time I'm dealing with these discrimination complaints
and finally in 1987 I came over to Coeur d Arlene
and there was a conference organized.
I think Tony Stewart
and Marshall Mend [assumed spelling] were very involved
in organizing that.
Kind of, just to see what kind of information we were going
to get and at that conference it's kind of like a lot
of things came together.
There were some speakers there,
a fellow named Lenny Zescan [assumed spelling] I don't know
if people know Lenny in this room
but he's got a new book out, Blood and Politics,
which is kind of a 700 page march
through the white supremacy movement back
to the 40s and 50s.
I encourage you to pick that up to help Lenny's pocketbook
but also if you want to find
out about these things, no better source.
But at that conference in sitting down and talking
with folks, what became, apparent to me, was,
this is all the same thing.
I mean, the belief system,
the ideology underneath it is exactly the same.
The manifestation of it
at the community level is very different.
Okay, the goals and the activities of these activists
that we were seeing were very different
but underneath it the philosophy was the same
and furthermore they all met and talked with each other.
There were gatherings where they planned, they strategized,
the militia movement
which subsequently became very well known nationally and tied
to all kinds of rather bizarre incidents around the country,
really found it's roots in this same ideology, philosophy,
religion, social structure and analysis
that these groups have developed over time and frankly,
it has proven the ideas underneath these groups has
proven to be incredibly resistant despite law
enforcement pressure despite community resistance despite
community organizing,
these groups tend to go through cycles.
I would submit, and I don't have time to get into talking
about it a lot tonight but armed guys showing
up at presidential rallies, tea baggers,
berthers [sounds like] etc, etc, very similar to a period of time
that we were saying in the mid 80s to early 90s.
To make a long story short, we decided that the strategy
for dealing with this was not a state agency going in and trying
to deal with it as an entity of government.
We decided that the strategy that was most effective was
to organization individuals at the community level to confront
and speak out about the ideas being proposed
by these organizations.
So we founded the Montana Human Rights Network
and at it's inception we viewed the Montana Human Rights Network
as essentially an anti-white supremacist organization.
The things that we had seen, the ideas that were espoused,
that we were concerned about was essentially white supremacy
and racism.
We didn't connect a lot of the other dots that are
out there to be connected.
And during this period we were organizing local affiliates,
we had six or seven around the state and all of a sudden I got
at call from Lenny Zeskind saying now there's this fellow,
you really need to meet and talk with,
his name is Floyd Cochran [assumed spelling] now any body
in here remember Floyd Cochran?
I know Tony does.
Floyd was kind of the security chief and recruitment guy
and he did all kinds of stuff for the *** Nations and Floyd,
according to Floyd's story, had an epiphany, I,
really to my mind I don't care but he came
out of the *** Nation and was sleeping in the park
in Coeur d Arlene or something like that and Lenny said,
you guys got to work with Floyd, you got to get him out,
you got to have him talk to groups and I said,
yeah right, call me back later.
We all knew about Floyd and he was one
of the more visible people in the *** Nations
and we didn't really have a lot of interest in dealing with him.
Well, to make a long story short, we did end up doing a lot
of work with Floyd and it was difficult on a lot of fronts,
but there were a couple of things.
Number 1, community events,
there was very few speakers had the kind
of credibility that Floyd had.
One of the things that we did require in this gen was
at Lenny Zeskin's insistence, every talk that he gave he had
to begin with an apology to the people
who had been essentially terrorized and targeted
by his organization which at first he was quite resistant
to it because Floyd is many things,
but he has a very healthy ego and he was quite resistant
to beginning with that kind of mea culpa but that was the gig
and he got it and he started doing it.
But the other thing that happened, is, I ended up driving
around with Floyd a lot because Montana has a lot of space
between the little towns and you sit there and you can only turn
up that Grateful Dead for so long and eventually you have
to start talking to Floyd.
And so I talked to Floyd about what he did and how he did it
and he's a very thoughtful guy
and he understood really well how he recruited
and he understood how you target people who are on the margins.
How you unite people through fear and anger and hatred
and how you build organizations and structures about
and around those things and how you went into communities
and you didn't start with your anti-Semitic conspiracies
and you didn't start with your hard core racism,
you started by talking about spotted owls and the economy,
gun rights, gay stuff, abortion, trying to come
in on these treads of contention in community
and then once you had established a meeting
of the minds and some common purpose then you began this kind
of process of indoctrination.
This process of moving people deeper into a movement dynamic
and turning them into activists.
And that's really where we started getting an understanding
of, well, you know, there's a lot more to this
than just guys walking around with Nazi uniforms
and *** hoods, there's some thoughtful stuff going on here.
But more importantly it is trading on and it is organizing
around tensions and distention in communities.
Where there is anger, where there is fear.
Roll back to tea baggers etc. that those are the roads
that these folks travel and to the extent
that they can grab someone radicalize them
and encourage them, ala Tim McVee into some kind
of dramatic action, so much the better because that's all
about destabilizing the status quo which is what,
at the end of the day they're all about.
Well during this period of time we are essentially
at the Human Rights Network, still an antiracist group
and that's how we defined ourselves.
Then we began working in Billings Montana.
There was a little group of *** guys down there, a little group
of Church of the Creators, every little flavor
in the hate movement, kind of showing up in Billings.
Well we came to understand later, that wasn't accidental,
that there were connections between these folks.
But we really began to watch closely how they were using
issues, the literature being disseminated in the community
in part of their recruitment efforts.
Never mentioned race.
Hardly ever got
into anti-Semitic conspiracy stuff though there was plenty
of that, but more commonly it was about homosexuality,
it was about abortion,
it was about antigovernment gun rights kinds of things and at
that point our group began to redefine itself and think, well,
what are we really about?
How do we propose to do the work we do and how do we discern,
I mean, we have this cool definition of a hate group.
You know, biological imperative combined with some kind
of theological or scientific rationalization
for why white people are God's chosen
or genetically superior or whatever.
Very handy for us but in fact it wasn't fitting
when the mobilization and the activity
that we were saying was targeting gays
in the community of Billings.
Isolated group, already has a lot of things
to be really concerned about just trying to live day
in a western community.
It wasn't fitting for us and so we really began to redefine
and think through our mission as having more to do
with democratic values and democratic processes
and democratic principals than just defining ourselves
by being anti-hate or anti-white supremacy or antiracism.
And it was a major shift for us because it made our group move
into some other arenas.
The political arena.
We had very organized attacks on local schools,
not coming out of the white supremacy movement,
but coming out of what's now is commonly referred
to as the religious right.
At its core, fundamentally antidemocratic strategies were
being used of concealing.
Running people for school boards,
concealing what was going on.
And also targeting of gays, abortion,
all of that filtering up.
Well at that point we went from wearing a white hat
to becoming pretty controversial liberals and you know,
controversial liberals in Montana, I'll point out,
I've been elected to the State Senate, I'll point out,
I've been elected to the state public service commissions
and there's more than just me.
We don't bunch up anywhere.
We kind of keep some separate space
so one hand grenade can't get us all.
But it was a redefinition of our purpose.
And to give you an example of the other area where that played
out in Montana, and I think we've seen it in this area
of the world, was targeting of environmentalists.
We had a period of time when environmentalists literally had
to be fearful about their safety.
Threats at home in the middle of the night.
Really raucous meetings
where people were threatened and shouted down.
And so we got into that again because of our focus
on democratic values and our belief
that you can't have democracy if part of the consequence
of speaking your mind is fearing for your life,
it just doesn't work very well.
You got to have people around saying this isn't okay.
All of that was a really long path and very confusing.
And this is why I think it is so important
that we have an organized inner disciplinary study
of what is hate, I mean, what are the activities
that these groups engage in.
How do hate groups etc, etc operate in communities
and what's at stake in communities?
I can tell you that through the path that I've walked
on this it's very much catch as catch can.
You stumble.
And there hadn't been until the formation of this group,
any systematic organized attempt to look at,
what are we talking about here?
And a forum for discussion.
I mean the most I get, although there are great publications
listed and you can get any of them
from the Montana Human Rights Network
but there really was no opportunity as a practitioner
of this stuff to really look at it
in an inner disciplinary way other than these conferences.
And conferences are great, but they're two days
or maybe three days where you meet some great people
and then you can call them up but there is no real thinking
about how do we present this information
and how do we tell people what's at stake
and that's why this organization is important.
And that's why I really appreciate you coming tonight
and hope that you all have your checkbooks out and open
at all times for this organizations.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> I was a little too involved with the dessert, sorry.
So I hope you all started to eat the dessert,
it's really good just in case you haven't.
I want to next bring up George Cretchlow [assumed spelling]
it's my honor to introduce him.
He is a founding member of the Institute
for Action Against Hate.
He's also the acting Dean of the Law School
and he is a professor there.
So please welcome George Cretchlow.
>> Thank you Jim and Ken, where are you Ken?
I've not met you but that was nice to meet you
and I've heard a lot about you and I know about your work
and thank you for coming over from Montana
and joining us tonight.
I'll try to be fairly brief here, I think what I have
to say really compliments what Ken was talking about.
I want to talk about what our story is and how we started.
We often get questions about what inspired the Institute
for Action Against Hate, how did you guys happen to get organized
and for what reasons here at Gonzaga University
and the story is pretty simple.
Back in the mid 90s we had a rash
of hate incidents here on our campus.
Some at the Law School.
Targeting mostly people of color,
in fact African Americans.
Now this was happening at the same time
and in the same context
as the entire inland Northwest Region was experiencing hate,
both in the form or perhaps random incidents of hate
and racial harassment.
Other forms of harassment targeting gays.
If was organized hate in the *** Nations
and the other groups that Ken mentioned who were operating
in Montana or elsewhere.
In some ways, at least for me and many of my colleagues,
some of which are sitting inn this room, everything sort
of stopped in the mid 90s and we asked ourselves,
this is happening on our campus.
A Jesuit campus.
A campus that's dedicated in part
to fighting for social justice.
In fighting for equality and finding ways
to understand what it is that contributes to the common good
and contributes to social justice
in teaching about those things.
And we asked ourselves the question, what can we do
that makes a meaningful difference
and can make a meaningful contribution
to the fight against hate?
That perhaps isn't already being done elsewhere.
Now we recognize all the wonderful, the great work
and the enormous efforts that were being made
by other human rights organizations including our
friends here from north Idaho who inspire
and organization a Kootenai County task force
on human relations.
The local churches here in the Spokane area.
Other community organizations that were fully engaged
in the fight against hate but we asked, what is it that we can do
that might be a little bit different?
As a Jesuit school and as a university
as a place of higher learning.
So we got some national experts together.
One of them was Morris Dees [assumed spelling]
who you all know from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One of them was Ken Stern who has been on our board for years
and years now, but helped very much articulate
and inspire the initial impetus, the start of the Institute
for Action Against Hate.
Ken has, as pointed out previously
as the national specialist on hate and extremism
with the American Jewish Community in New York.
We also talked, and this was hugely important to us,
to Bill Wasmouth [assumed spelling]
who you all remember was formerly a Catholic priest
and later started the Northwest Coalition
Against Malicious Harassment based in Seattle.
He also inspired and helped organization the Kootenai County
task force on human relations and undertook some
of those initial efforts in the 80s and 90s
against organization hate in the northern Idaho community.
Bill Wasmouth got to us and he said to us and he said
that the one thing that you need to do at Gonzaga University
and if you don't do it at Gonzaga it's going
to happen somewhere else.
If for no other reason, I'm going to market this
to other colleges and universities.
We need a place that is the venue,
the locus for the interdisciplinary study of hate.
The place that has the resources and the motivation
to bring together the discipline so we can really look
at this question as Ken was talking about.
Why is it that people hate?
Where does it come from?
How does it manifest itself?
What are the strategies for fighting hate?
How do we organize in communities?
And, importantly for us,
as a university how do we teach about hate?
And how do we ínculcate those values and that consciousness
so the students commit their lives to fighting hate as far
as the broader and the larger goal of fighting injustice.
So we listen to these people, we sat down
and we decided we're going
to start this thing called the Institute
for Action Against Hate.
We got some criticism and some flack,
some people in the community said,
well you should call yourself the institute for brotherly love
and people will write checks faster
and more frequently if you do that.
But we said no, this is our focus.
This is our mission to do something that's different
that will make a contribution
and it will allow all the disciplines, all the fields
to get together and have a conversation and talk about hate
in a way that perhaps historically really can make
a difference.
So we brought this idea to form the Institute for Action
Against Hate to the Gonzaga board of trustees,
I think it was in December 1997,
someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
I think it was important to get the recognition
of the university and the approval to go ahead
with the organization that we didn't ask for a bunch of money,
we just asked for their approval and recognition.
And the board gave us the approval and they supported us
and in fact have underwritten us to a certain extent
over the years with respect to our projects and our goals
and our initiatives and activities.
So what have we done that time?
For the most part it's been on the basis
of volunteer's efforts.
It's really a volunteer run organization.
We're trying to make the transition
from a volunteer organization to a budget based organization
so that we can compensate our staff and remunerate people
for the hard work they do and accomplish the kinds of things
that are sometimes, as you all know, very difficult
to do only through volunteers.
But in any event, we've done several things
and I think we've accomplished some major things
that have made a difference
and that we hope will carry into the future.
One of those is we've now published,
as was mentioned earlier, the seventh annual volume
of our Journal of Hate studies.
And that is an interdisciplinary journal that gives scholars,
human rights activists and others opportunities
to publish scholarly work
and have an interdisciplinary conversation about hate
and strategies for fighting hate.
That's both on line and it's also available in print version
and I think some of you have copies at your table,
you can take a look at that.
We had the first international conference
on hate studies several years ago here at Gonzaga
and we're now preparing for the second follow-up international
conference on hate studies that is intended
to bring people together from throughout the country
and abroad, to continue this conversation
about what the field of hate studies looks like
and where we should move into the future.
We're now teaching a course
at Gonzaga that's very innovative, very different.
I think it's the only course of its kind, in the country,
called Why People Hate.
And it's taught by several people
from different departments from different disciplines,
from different schools coming together
to look at why people hate.
We want this to lead to a certificate
that students can obtain based on their effort and their desire
to concentrate on this area of hate studies
so that they can graduate and they can actually specialize
and have something that recognizes that specialty
as they go out and they look for work
and they start doing social justice
in their respective communities.
We've done several other projects, we had,
something was very, very successful some years ago,
it was the Anne Frank exhibit
which brought together some 25,000 people
to tour this exhibit.
Most of those people were students whose tour
of the exhibit was arranged through the local schools
and the local school district.
There's a number of other things that we have done
and that we are doing but primarily what I want
to leave you with is this notion that lots
of volunteers got together here at Gonzaga and decided
that this was important and it could have been an idea
that we might have left behind.
It might have disappeared in the competition for money
and all the other priorities that compete
in a university system and in a larger community.
But people in this room and those who were not able
to be here with us stayed with us and this thing has survived
and it's going to move into the future.
People in this room are here to support this
because it's important and because of the issue
of hate does not go away.
It will require constant vigilance
so it doesn't come back in some new and novel manifestation.
We need to be responsible, we need to make commitments
and renew that commitment constantly to fight against hate
so you think, well, hopefully we've done enough work,
we've worked hard enough, we've solved the problem,
it's gone away and that will not be the case in our lifetime.
So I thank you all for coming but before I quit I want
to thank a few people, I can't thank --
the board was already recognized and thank you for that Bobbie,
but let me recognize a few other people and also to thank them
and to give you an opportunity to join with me
in my personal thanks to these people and I'm just going
to limit because the list is too long.
To past or current directors or chairs of our advisory board
who really motivated this thing and has made it go and continues
to make it go now and into the future.
There was Bill Wasman himself.
Bill, as you know, is now deceased.
He died several years ago but without Bill, I don't know
that we'd be together.
Bill has made such a difference in so many individual lives
and in organizations and that includes us, the Institute
for Action Against Hate.
Bill was our first chair.
Bob Bartlet who is here tonight.
Bob was the chair of our board.
Thank you Bob, nice to see you again.
I don't see Bob too often.
James Beebe was the director,
one of the first directors of the institute.
This is all volunteer stuff.
Gerry Sheppard gave us how many years, Gerry?
Five years, six years?
As a volunteer on top of her already complex
and extensive duties here at Gonzaga
through the school of education.
Bobbie Leig [assumed spelling] our current chair who has been
with us now for a few years in that capacity.
Done terrific work including helping with tonight's dinner.
And Jim Moore, our acting current acting director
or interim director.
Jim, thank you for you efforts,
you have really made us all confident
that this organization is viable and has a life going forward.
Let me also recognize the long standing support
of Raymond Ruiz.
He was mentioned earlier.
Raymond, who's not with us tonight,
is the Gonzaga University assistant vice president
for diversity.
I also want to thank in particular,
and she was recognized earlier, Joanie Apenga
who is our tireless editor of the Journal of Hate Studies
which now is in it seventh addition published
on a yearly basis but the institute.
Finally let me recognize other people who are responsible
for making tonight a success.
Bobbie, who we've already mentioned,
she's our current chair.
Jim Moore who we've mentioned as our director.
Jan ***, Jan, where are you?
You've done a terrific job, thanks so much
for what you've done for the institute, for the community.
Seema Thorpe, Seema is apparently sick tonight
but she worked on making tonight's event possible,
and Heather Veter.
Heather is an assistant working with Jim as a graduate assistant
on behalf of the institute.
Thank you for your efforts Heather.
Let me finish by saying that we are a volunteer organization
but in this effort to transition to a different kind
of organization that has a regular budget and is able
to accomplish even more, please consider us and include us
in the decisions you make
about which charitable organizations you might
like to contribute to.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you George.
I do want to mention, recognize one other person
who is here tonight, I think it's very important
to recognize her.
Mayor Vernor [assumed spelling] is here
and we're very appreciative of her presence her
so let's thank her for coming.
[ Applause ]
>> As you know it's very important to have,
not just ourselves in this room and activists
who are challenging hate but also our politicians
who understand and recognize that this is an important issue
to deal with and confront.
So now we're going to start moving into the part
of the program about Eva that we're all here to celebrate.
So to do that we're bringing up a very good friend,
Gerry Sheppard, who was director of the institute for five years,
she is currently and associate professor in education
and she flies all over the place and teaches everywhere.
She's in Canada.
I don't know how she does it.
>> I am so delighted to be here.
We have talked for such a long time for the Institute
for Action Against Hate about having a fund raiser
and little did we know, we're thinking about Bill Moyers
and Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela and all those people
that would have been impossible to get here and then all
of a sudden someone said, why don't we honor Eva.
And it was right here, right in front of us the whole time
and we didn't see it and it was such a wonderful idea
which really just came to us in May and as George and Jim
and everyone else has said, there have been a lot of people
who have worked hard to put this together.
How many of you know Eva?
Raise your hand if you know Eva.
You're so lucky to know Eva.
We all are.
but not everyone in this room knows Eva and of course also I'd
like to say we're so lucky to have, not just Eva here,
but also her sons Richard and Joel sitting right
at the front table but it s so great to look around and see
so many people who have been in Eva's life and who love her.
Her doctors, her friends, her many,
many people from the Temple and once you get
to know Eva our great friends from Coeur d Arlene
that have come over here.
Once you get to know her you don't want to let go of her.
Some of you, however, have not yet met Eva and I hope
that you will get a chance to do this.
But for you we want to introduce you to her
through a short video clip that's part
of a documentary that's being produced by Lee Taylor
and videographer Gordon Grove and I hope you will get a chance
to meet them later tonight.
The board of directors of the Institute for Action
Against Hate has reviewed the introduction section
of the video and the project plans.
We're impressed with the production quality
of this project and support the really good work that's
being done.
We believe that this documentary will be an important way
to insure that Eva's story will continue to be told.
Following this dinner there will be an opportunity for those
who are interested in supporting this project to go
to the information table in the foyer.
Without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Eva.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you all for coming.
I'm delighted to see you all here.
Thank you so very much.
I've a very short story of my life that I want to read to you.
Shalom. I'm honored to be here with my dear family and friends.
I have firsthand understanding of concept of hate.
Having survived the holocaust I lost most
of my family at the time.
Being in a concentration camp taught me never to give up hope
and never to say I can't.
I wasn't a hero in camp, as I was hoping
to survive with my brothers.
My younger brother's dream was to become a medical doctor
and I wanted to survive in order to help him.
For that end I was a passive prisoner.
Not wanting to step out of line.
I saw what happened to people who took a stand.
To an older inmate, I said, I had a dream
that we were liberated and he said,
you young people believe in dreams.
In truth, I did dream that we were liberated
on a beautiful crisp day.
We were actually liberated on January 17,
1945 which was a crisp day and we walked on snow.
I continued to dream while in camp.
One of my Gentile co workers asked me
if I could make a brassiere for her daughter
and a shirt for her son.
I had no idea how to do it but I said yes because the idea
to get paid in bread made me say yes and I am thankful for that.
I never said I can't and I hope I instilled this message
into my children.
When I was liberated I had a utopian dream
that there wouldn't be any more war
but this dream has not come true yet.
Although I had every reason to hate my captors and my murderers
of my family and friends,
I decided long ago that isn't worth it.
Instead of continuing to hate I decided to speak
up on the perils of hate.
We can't be in love with everybody but we have
to have respect and take a stand for each other.
I know you heard this before but I'm repeating it,
pastor Martin Nemore [assumed spelling] left a wonderful
legacy when he said, when they deported the Jews I did not say
anything because I wasn't a Jew.
When they deported the Socialists, again I said nothing
as I wasn't a Socialist.
When they deported the homosexuals I was quiet
because I wasn't a homosexual but when they came
to deport me there was no one left to speak for me.
The moral of his legacy is that we are all brothers' keepers.
Therefore we have to take a stand for the right causes.
Many times I was asked why I started life again.
My answer was, why not?
Hitler and the Nazis would have succeeded
without me starting over.
My late husband and I started life again.
I have three wonderful contributing sons
and they have their own families
and they have three wonderful grandchildren.
The work of fighting hate is not over.
We need to work together.
My challenge to you and your children is to carry
on the message of hope to the future generations.
I say to you shalom again and I want to thank the Institute
for Action against Hate for bestowing these honors up in me.
I opened my remarks with the word shalom,
which in Hebrew means hello, I'm closing my remarks
with the word shalom which has a second meaning.
Peace. My wish is that there will be peace
for all human kind.
[ Applause ]
>> Eva is a natural born teacher.
There's several of you in here who have been teachers
in classes where Eva has come in and talked.
From Shirley Grossman who taught pre kindergartners
in Kinder Music to Sunday school class to Brad Viale
who has taught in Lakeside High School in Plummer Idaho.
Many other high school classes, Joy Scott at East Valley,
certainly you've been to Eastern Washington University
to Wentworth.
She's come to some of the classes in the doctoral program
at Gonzaga University, in fact, a class I love to teach is
on leadership and resilience and I always started off with Eva
and her story and the students are just mesmerized by her
and want to stay in contact with her for a long time.
I could go on and on and I'm not going to go on and on about her
because I think that for one thing,
you can read a really wonderful biography that's part
of the program but also I hope for all of you
that you do have a chance at sometime to meet Eva personally
because to know this woman is to love her.
She is, and I've said this before, she's also taught
in Canada, she came with me one time to Canada to teach.
She is not just a national, but she is an international treasure
and we are so lucky to have her and on behalf of the Institute
for Action Against Hate, pardon me, I would like to present you,
Eva, with the first annual Eva Lawsman take action
against hate award.
In grateful appreciation for your many years
of outstanding service in the fight against hate.
And this is the first of our annual dinners that we'll have
and Eva is the first recipient of this award
and certainly the most deserving person that I know.
[Applause ]
>> Let's give another around of applause
for an incredible woman.
[ Applause ]
>> There's another person who I would
like to recognize before we leave tonight
and that is Deanne Smith who is the president of the NAACP.
We really appreciate her being here tonight also
so let's give her a round of applause for being here and all
of her work that she does.
[ Applause ]
>> So I want to thank you all for being here tonight,
it's wonderful to see all of you and I think one of the things
to take from and remember from tonight is that this is
about taking action against hate.
Eva Lawsman has done an incredible job of doing that.
Yet we also need to realize that all of us can challenge hate
when it happens and it can happen in small ways
in our lives if we choose to challenge a joke that's told,
if we choose to challenge someone
who is making a stereotypical remark about someone else.
It's important that at those small level,
at those lower levels we start challenging it because it's
from there that we start to see hate grow
and fester and develop.
So there are things that we can do on our own individual level.
One of the things to realize and that's close is that many
of you may have heard and some of you may not since you're
from out of town about the attack on, or not the attack on
but heard the invasion of the home
of Rachel Dolazel [assumed spelling] she had a lot
of stuff stolen, she had a noose put on her porch.
So she was the victim of a hate crime
and that was only a few blocks from Gonzaga University.
So we need to bring this full circle to what's happening
in Spokane and in our area and the greater area
of North Idaho also because we are beginning to see an increase
in hate crimes and attacks on people and criticism of people
of difference in many ways.
So please, when you leave tonight, don't think it's just
about honoring certain individuals up here,
it's about what we can do ourselves when we leave here
and what action we can do to be supportive of those
who have been victims of hate crime.
There are a few little announcements I want
to make before you leave.
One is that there are a group of individuals in the community
which starts with Ada Goldberg, if she could stand
up for a second that would be great.
She's right here and she's taken the lead
on creating the Eva Lawsman scholarship fund.
It's created to honor the message
that Eva has dedicated her life to delivering.
Having spoken to countless school age children,
church groups and community service organizations.
Eva has repeated her message of tolerance and respect
for each other regardless of race, religion,
*** orientation or political orientation.
Young in spirit, Eva feels a special bond
to the young adults in her world.
The Eva Lawsman Scholarship is dedicated
to keeping Eva's message alive.
Young adults ages 18 to 25 are eligible to apply for funds
to support studies, activities and travel devoted
to her message of human rights and tolerance.
And again, you can contact Ada Goldberg
for more information on that.
The institute is also proud to join with the northwest alliance
for responsible media to put on a generation M, it's called.
Its misogyny and media and culture.
It's a film that is being shown at the Magic Lantern
on Monday October 26 at 7:00 PM
and it basically tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny
across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomenon.
So please, if you have time, go see that
and there will be a community discussion afterwards
and we're proud to help sponsor that.
So on that note, I want to thank you all for being here,
it's been wonderful to meet many of you for the first time for me
and I hope to see you again sometime.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]