Activist Clippings

Now It's Your Generation's Turn

"Now It's Your Generation's Turn"
Kierra Johnson
Feministing.com

“Now it’s your generation’s turn.”

Those were the last words spoken to me by Dr. Tiller on April 26th, 2009 in the barely audible softness of his voice. He gave me the warmest hug, thanked me for my work with young people and I turned and walked away. We were at a conference and we had just finished talking about the students who were organizing in Kansas to write letters in support of Dr. Tiller in the face of attacks from Operation Rescue. I promised to send him copies of the letters and had no reason to believe that he wouldn’t be overjoyed at power being exerted by young activists and warmed by the love and support of young people from his home state of Kansas.

“Now it’s your generation’s turn.”

It keeps echoing in my head because what began as a charge, turned out to be a prophecy. He knew that this battle for true bodily autonomy and self determination wasn’t over. He knew that young leaders would have to take up this fight that had yet to be won. He knew that he wouldn’t get to the promise land with us but with the greatest hope he pronounced us, Generations X and the Millennials, the new stewards of his visions and values.

He valued quality of life, leadership, advocacy, love, objectivity, fairness and the truth. He valued the tenants of democracy. He valued Choice. He also believed in risking everything for what you believe in and he did just that. For decades he battled homegrown terrorists and he endured. He experienced verbal and physical violence and endured. He experienced a liberal and progressive community that was pro-choice but too scared to be vocal champions and endured. And though his life was taken on May 31, his spirit will endure. While I am saddened by the loss of this beautiful human being, I am inspired by all of those who were touched by him and the renewed vigor that was undoubtedly birthed into our movement.

I haven’t been to church in a long time, but my southern roots run deep. I know that our work is God’s work. And I know that Dr. Tiller is an angel. I believe that a change will come and I am grateful for the foundation that he helped to build for that change. Unfortunately I don’t think I ever got a chance to really thank him for all he’s done for our movement and women and their families across the country. And so, in honor of George, my final gift to him are my many thank yous to all of you who give your blood sweat and tears for the sake of social change.

So to you medical students who still make the choice to put yourselves on the front lines, I thank you. For every social justice activist who refuses to avoid how the denial of reproductive and sexual health information and services disproportionately impacts the women of color, low income families, immigrants, and youth in their communities, I thank you. To the clinic defense workers who are the everyday heroes of doctors and patients alike, I thank you. To the counselors that listen to women’s stories and provide non-judgmental support, I thank you. To every person who has tried to make the world a place where women’s decisions and experiences are valued, I thank you. To every advocate who has put someone else’s well-being before their political party’s platform, I thank you. To every person who has gifted a dollar to ensure access to reproductive health and rights, I thank you. To every teenager who makes their teachers and parents uncomfortable because they demand the truth about sex and sexuality, I thank you. To every student who has made activism a part of their college curriculum, I thank you. They say that when one door closes another opens. And so, to you that read this, consider it an open door. Come join a movement for change, a movement for justice. We need you to raise your voices. We need you to pound the pavement. We need you to tell your stories. We need you to ensure that violence and intolerance is eradicated and democracy is upheld.

I was too young to remember the bombings in the 80s. I was too self-absorbed to remember the physical attacks in the 90s, but this final act of cruelty against Dr. Tiller against will be impossible for me to forget. I am so honored to have known him and I thank him for making me a better more determined activist for justice. I look forward to seeing you all in the streets!

Mourning and ready to continue the fight,

Kierra Johnson

Pro-Choice Supporters Hold Vigil in Honor of Murdered Doctor

WJLA Washington
6/1/09

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of people held a rally in honor of a Kansas abortion doctor who was gunned down inside a Wichita church Sunday.

Nearly 200 people held a vigil in front of the White House Monday night to protest the murder of Dr. George Tiller and to honor his work.

"He knew what he was fighting against and he knew that it was a risk and he was willing to take that risk for us," said Ava Barrett.

Dr. Tiller was gunned down Sunday while serving as an usher at his church in Wichita. Police say 51-year-old Scott Roeder has been arrested in connection with the shooting.

The Kansas doctor ran one of only a handful of clinics in the country that performs late-term abortions. His business was bombed in 1985 and he was shot in both arms in 1993.

Kierra Johnson of Choice USA says she spoke with Tiller in April. "He knew that he might not get to the other side with us," she said.

On Monday, Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, spoke in Washington about Tiller and the person who took his life.

"What that man did by shooting George Tiller was wrong -- period. God does not make someone the judge, the jury and the executioner. Everybody knows that the pro-life movement is committed to non-violence," said Terry.

While one side sees Tiller as an icon in the pro-choice movement, Terry views him as the villain. "George Tiller was a mass murderer. He killed tens of thousands of innocent human beings at his own hand," he said.

Investigators are now delving into the suspect's background, criminal history and possible involvement in the pro-life movement. At this point, authorities say they believe the gunman acted alone.

Morning Joe Breaks His Silence

Barrett: Morning Joe Finally Breaks His Silence About Defending Abortion-Doc Killer

By Wayne Barrett

Friday, Jun. 5 2009

After nearly a week of silence -- 13 hours of television -- Joe Scarborough finally addressed the assassination of George Tiller on Morning Joe at 7 a.m. today. The Voice has blogged twice this week about Scarborough's sustained and awkward silence, a stark contrast to every other show on MSNBC, which has covered the killing extensively and movingly.

Not only did the pro-life Scarborough launch his political career by defeating a pro-choice Republican to win a Florida congressional seat in 1994, the then 29-year-old insurance attorney debuted in local newspapers in 1993 as the pro bono attorney for the Pensacola man convicted of the first murder of an abortion doctor killer, Michael Griffin. What prompted the first Voice blog post was that Rachel Maddow had led her show with a photo of Griffin, whose three fatal shots to the back of Dr. David Gunn led a copycat assassin a couple of months later to shoot Dr. Tiller the first time, wounding Tiller in both arms. That mention by Maddow of Griffin inspired us to return to the cover story we did on Scarborough in 2008.

"We've got to learn to sit down and talk," said Scarborough at the climax of this morning's several minute segment including co-host Mika Brzezinski and Pat Buchanan...
"People who are pro-life like myself can't call people who are pro-choice murderers, and people who are pro-choice can't call people who are pro-life -- can't claim they don't give a damn about women and want women to die in back alley abortions. That is the sort of angry, heated rhetoric over the past quarter century that's gotten us to where we are today."

For most viewers, however, the conversation prior to this clear and forceful statement must have been very hard to follow. Brzezinski was in such a rush to defend Scarborough that she offered a rationale for his representation of Griffin before anyone told the audience that Scarborough was a lawyer in the case. ("People like to read into when you are trying to make the legal process move along, but I don't think there's anything to that," said Brzezinski).
Odder still, Scarborough, fairly deep into this obscure conversation, said he didn't want to give Griffin's name, even though he'd already identified his client as "the first person that shot an abortion doctor" and noted that the client was "from Pensacola," Scarborough's hometown.

"The family wanted me then, and I'm sure now would appreciate me not talking about it that much, so I won't give his name," said Scarborough, who attributed his voluntary retention to connections between Griffin's family and his. When the Voice interviewed Scarborough about this case last year, he exhibited no similar reluctance to talk about Griffin by name, said his then father-in-law had asked him to get involved in the case, and said he hadn't talked to Griffin's father, Tom Griffin, a two-time donor to his congressional campaign, since 1993. He may have raised this cloak of confidentiality now -- despite all but naming Griffin -- as a way of suggesting a rationale for his weeklong end-run around the Tiller killing.

Scarborough portrayed his stint representing Griffin as simply a search for a real criminal lawyer to defend him, without noting that the judge had already appointed a criminal attorney before Scarborough entered the case or that he had stated, according to court transcripts, that he was prepared to take the case to trial. There's no doubt that Scarborough did -- as he described on air -- talk to other possible trial lawyers about taking the case (though Griffin contended in a handwritten letter to the Voice from prison that Scarborough wanted to remain as co-counsel at trial). Scarborough indicated this morning that he picked the lawyer, Robert Kerrigan, an experienced criminal defense attorney who Scarborough said "tried it very aggressively" and "fought for this young man."

But Kerrigan told the Voice that he was a member of the same church as the Griffins and that Tom Griffin asked him to get involved, not Scarborough, suggesting that Scarborough's withdrawal from the case was the family's decision, not Scarborough's. "I remember sitting in Tom's house and talking to him about it. I don't remember ever talking to Joe about this case," says Kerrigan. "Joe was an obscure little guy, not a rising star. Nobody knew anything about him. I can't figure out why he was screening any lawyers at all. Why was he running interference? Why would he have been involved in a process like that at all?"

Of course, a year and a half later, Scarborough wasn't so obscure. He was elected to Congress, fueled by national anti-abortion groups who bankrolled his campaign. He then went on to vote against two 1995 bills protecting abortion clinics from violence, though by then, the only two abortion doctors killed in the country had both been shot in his district on their way to clinics. Pensacola clinics were also routinely bombed and it became, as Scarborough briefly suggested on air, the seedbed of this violence. Strangely, the Morning Joe discussion never got into how Scarborough's three-month involvement with the case might have been connected to the anti-abortion allies his campaign attracted so soon thereafter, or why he opposed these bills. He certainly never suggested that he had any regrets about his actions on Griffin's behalf -- family favor or not.

Before Scarborough spoke out, the Voice contacted some of the leading pro-choice organizations for comment on his silence. Mary Alice Carr, the NARAL vice president who just refused to appear on Bill O'Reilly's show, told us yesterday that she was "a little surprised" to hear the show had yet to deal with Tiller's death, adding: "I agree that his voice would be an important addition to the conversation. He would have a unique perspective." Keirra Johnson, the executive director of ChoiceUSA, called it "disheartening" that Morning Joe had yet to spend a minute on the murder. "I hope that with the memorial service this Saturday, Scarborough will take the opportunity to basically come out and say this type of behavior is unacceptable and anti-American."

He has.

MU Student Balances Political and Religious Views

The Columbia Missourian

BY Claire Hanan

May 15, 2009

COLUMBIA — Tatiana McKinney has had a busy college career.

Her lengthy resume details some of the events she has been involved in — celebrating the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion with an event at Planned Parenthood, for example, or attending the Choice USA Midwest Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute, which looks at reproductive health issues.

She passed out 500 condoms in an hour for the Great American Condom Campaign in November 2008. She has also lobbied in Washington, D.C., three times — once when she was the only one lobbying.

Last month, McKinney was awarded the Dr. Medgar Evers Political Award from the MU chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for her activism for women's reproductive and sexual health rights.

McKinney, 21 and a graduating MU senior, used to be a what she calls a “quiet voice for women.” Now, she says, her voice has grown louder. But the first obstacle was her faith.

McKinney describes her mother and grandparents as “strict Christians,” though she herself was also a devout member of the Powerhouse Church of God in Christ. Because of her family’s religious affiliation and her grandparents’ pro-life views, McKinney feared telling them her political ideology.

In fact, her mother and grandparents didn’t learn about her activism until they read about it in an article, "'Pro-choice,' faithful — and proud," published in 2007 by a student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

“Her grandparents don’t agree with (McKinney) being pro-choice, but we all still love and support her,” said McKinney's mother, Cynthia Jenkins.

Jenkins said she had always told her daughter that God gave humans a choice, and she must respect those choices.

McKinney said she remembers her mother teaching her about contraception at an early age. Reproductive education is important, McKinney said, especially for black women.

According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, Hispanic and black teen pregnancy rates are three times higher than the rates for white teens.

“You can give people all of the (sexual health) resources available, but if they don’t know how to use them, then they’re no better off,” McKinney said.

McKinney is active in Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom, a group that "empowers youth and young adults to put their faith into action and advocate for pro-choice social justice," according to its Web site.

It was while working with the organization that she was able to coordinate the Planned Parenthood event as an intern. When she found the organization, McKinney said, she felt like she found a home of like-minded women in which she could remain religious and passionate in her activism.

McKinney said she hasn't always been an activist for women’s reproductive rights and sexual health. But a few events in her life instilled in her a sense of urgency in her activism.

In 1993, when McKinney was 5, one of her mother’s closest friends died from AIDS. Now, McKinney's face contorts into miserable shock as she says she saw her mother’s friend when her flesh was falling from her face, unable to understand the nature of AIDS.

“I wanted to see how to help somebody like that,” she said.

Years later, when McKinney was a high school student in Batesville, Miss., she said her doctor denied her birth control. She said she thinks he did that because of his religious beliefs.

It was at that time that McKinney said, “I need to fix this.”

McKinney said one of her proudest moments came last year, when she convinced a group of her friends to go with her to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, something she said she used to be scared of. After the tests, she remembers everyone smiling, ready to go to work.

Evan Hamilton, an MU senior and McKinney's best friend, met her as a freshman and quickly learned of her work.

“Usually when (McKinney) speaks to an individual or a group, she knows what she's saying, and listening to what she has to say would be in the best interest of anyone within earshot,” Hamilton said.

He said he knows that most of McKinney’s battles are internal ones with her religion.

“She knows what she's supposed to believe,” he said. But being an advocate for women's reproductive rights and spiritual (something McKinney said she once thought was an oxymoron) is something Hamilton knows she embraces.

McKinney will graduate from MU on Saturday with a bachelor's degree in communication. She hopes to find a job that combines both of her passions: social justice and public relations.

Although she said she’s had multiple career opportunities (including an internship interview with Edelman, PRWeek magazine's 2009 public relations agency of the year), McKinney said she’s just excited to finally disburse the piles of sexual health pamphlets and condoms filling her room.

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