On June 3, 1916, Portland, Oregon observed National Preparedness Day with the largest parade in the city’s history. Fifteen thousand people marched along forty blocks downtown with their shoulders squared, heads held high, and spirits soaring. Hundreds carried banners with a one-word message – Prepare – while brass bands played martial airs and a dozen divisions marched in formation, group by profession and interest. A contingent of four hundred doctors and medical students, three hundred young men of the Athletic League, and five hundred suffragists – all stepped out for patriotism and readiness. It was a time of unit with the thrill of shared purpose and resolve.
 
Equi was of a different mind. Earlier that day, she had motored around the city with an opposite message, daring for its difference. Then she steered her way in to the parade route and approached the jubilant, patriotic crowd. She had mounted an American flag at the front of her automobile, but strapped on the side was a white banner that warned,” Prepare to Die, Workingman – J.P. Morgan & Co. Want Preparedness for Profit – Thou Shalt Not Kill.” With brazen courage, she rolled into the march behind the Knights of Columbus and the local bar association, two contingents known for their preparedness fervor. Quick and fierce, the marchers attacked. According to Equi, the attorneys struck first, yanking the banner from her and striking her with it.
 
A mob of 50 angry men surrounded and taunted her
 
“I was scratched and bruised, and my hand bled,” she said. “They tore the banner to shreds and stomped on it.” At one point, a mob of fifty angry men surrounded and taunted her, yelling, “That’s what we do to your banner, now here’s ours.” The men thrust the American flag into her hands, daring her to rip it. Equi later admitted to tearing two strips from it saying, “Your flag is no protection to me.” She put up a fight until the police intervened and arrested her and two of the men.
 
Excerpted from MARIE EQUI: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions, available at bookstores and online. For more info: michaelhelquist.com 
--------------
Author’s Note:
What impresses and inspires me about this incident is Marie Equi’s courage and passion. Three years earlier police arrested her for protesting in a labor strike. At the station, the police brutally interrogated her.  She knew she could not count of police to protect her in another street fight. She knew men might beat her up again. But she pushed her way into the parade, one dissenter among 15,000, because she believed strongly in the anti-war cause. 

From the blog of the Oregon State University Press: 

The specter of the European War had darkened everyday life in the United States for many months. Americans had marched in Preparedness Day extravaganzas a year earlier. A minority of dissenters had rallied to protest what they regarded as an imperialistic adventure of capitalists who were ready to carve out spheres of influence with the bodies of working-class soldiers and sailors. A coalition of peace organizations had struggled to halt the false notion of “preparedness,” believing war-readiness would demand engagement in the conflict. But war now seemed inexorable.
 
The day before, April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate ended twelve hours of debate to adopt a resolution that a state of war exists between the U.S. and Germany. The final vote was 82 to 6, with 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats opposing the measure. Crowds crammed into the Senate galleries, and US House members stood in the rear of the room witnessing the event. After the decision was announced, senators and spectators emptied the chambers in a somber silence.
 
On April 5, 1917 the U.S. House of Representatives voted 373 to 50 in favor of the war resolution. Their debate continued for 17 hours, with a decision coming shortly after 3 am in the morning. The only woman serving in the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin of Montana, reluctantly voiced her opposition. She was quoted saying,” I want to stand by my country but I cannot vote for war.”

For the first time, a comprehensive list of Oregonians arrested for Sedition during the World War One era has been compiled. It will appear here at michaelhelquist.com in mid-April 2017.
 
My research into how Oregon aggressively embraced the federal Espionage and Sedition Acts documents the individuals who were charged, their alleged offenses, and the outcome of their prosecutions.  Who were the two physicians arrested for sedition and why? How many women were arrested and who was the one woman convicted? You might expect political radicals to be under suspicion but the postmaster of the small town of Ten-Mile in Oregon? Was the University of Oregon in Eugene a hotbed of dissension and resistance?
 
On Wednesday, April 19, 2017 from 7pm – 8:30 pm I will present my research at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. It’s free and open to the public. The program includes Michael Kazin, a professor of history at Georgetown University and award-winning author, will discuss his new book War Against War: The American Fight for Peace 1914-1918.

More information at the OHS website 

 I hope you can join us. Also check here for summaries of the OHS presentations. 
​
Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions, Michael Helquist, Oregon State University Press. 

How do you stay committed to the struggle when political assaults occur almost daily? Marie Equi kept up a steady stream of dissent and protests for seven years. During strikes, free speech fights, demands for women’s rights, and peace, she persisted and fought for justice. How did she manage to stay engaged maintaining a profession and a personal life?

“Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions” tells it all. Selected as a 2016 Stonewall Honor Book for Nonfiction by the American Library Association. Available at bookstores and online.  

I wrote the biography of Marie Equi because I was drawn to her passion for justice, her status as an outsider (she was working class and a lesbian), and her determination to live independently. If you’re new to her story, check out the book video and my website, www.MichaelHelquist.com.

Authors love to hear from their readers, and I’m happy to share a few recently published reviews of my biography, Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions. Available in bookstores and from online outlets.  These four readers all gave the book Five Star ratings – as did 26 others -- on Amazon.
 
“Five Stars”
“An extraordinary history that belongs in every American history and history of medicine curriculum.”
- Mike  

“A great read about a great activist”
“I loved learning of Marie Equi, such a brave and exciting character. Mr. Helquist provides full support for his commentary on her life and relationships. His research feels so solid. I loved reading her intimate lesbian relationships during a time when any inkling of such was so dangerous. I was inspired by her dedication to the rights of the poor and disadvantaged, her fight for access to birth control and family planning and her support for the rights of workers. A lot was crammed into her life and we are fortunate that her life has been told in this very readable book.”
- Carolyn Confer
 
“But is it good for the nonhistorian?”
“Yes it is. I planned to read it over several days but finished it in two. Equi’s story is compelling from the start, and remains continuously eventful – or so it comes across in Helquist’s straightforward and authoritative telling.”
- David Hathwell  

“Must read for radicals in the Pacific Northwest”
“Read this book while travelling from Idaho to Portland. It was amazing to visit the locations that Equi lived. We were even able to find where she whipped her partner’s boss. Highly recommend this book for people interested in radical politics and queer politics, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Although primarily a historical text, it reads like a novel.
- Bob Goise

One of the milestones in gaining global awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic was the launching of the annual World AIDS Day observance on December 1, 1988. Every year since, communities around the world recognize the progress with HIV prevention and services while acknowledging the persistent gaps in research and treatment options. Jim Bunn, one of the key players in implementing World AIDS Day, tells the story of how it all came about in this first-person report:
 
“How What Happened in San Francisco Led to World AIDS Day,” November 29, 2013 for KQED News.
 
Within the last few weeks and months, the ABC-TV series “When We Rise” and the new book “How to Survive a Plague” by David France have illuminated the struggle and enormous loss during the fight against AIDS in the United States. It’s essential to get this history right – for the public record, to inform future activism, and to inspire activists and agitators for justice in health care.
 
I had the privilege to work with Jim Bunn while he served as the Communications Director for the United Nation’s Global Programme on AIDS. At the time I was stationed in Washington, DC while helping develop the U.S. AIDS Communication Project for developing countries. I appreciated Bunn’s strong voice for AIDS awareness, his journalistic expertise, and his down-to-earth, cut-through the crap maneuvering through the UN bureaucracy continually pushed the needle forward for effective activism.

Is there any doubt this has been our “Winter of Discontent”? The Trump tumult roils the body politic almost daily with assaults and threats to social and economic justice and hard-won civil rights. It’s difficult enough to keep a focus on the present. Is there some benefit from looking back to see how oppression and erosion of values were confronted and resisted in the past? I think there is – for insight on governmental manipulation, for understanding of what tripped up dissenters, for inspiration of those who persisted, and, sometimes, for specific tactics, even those employed 100 years ago.
 
Less than a month from now, on April 7, we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated day when the United States entered World War One. What had been the “European War” for three years expanded to engulf much of the globe in conflict. For more than a year and a half WWI dominated every facet of American life. The federal government, with the cooperation of the states, mounted surveillance campaigns to bolster war fervor and to demand allegiance. Protest and the most casual dissent became criminal acts, lumped together under charges of sedition. For questioning the conduct of the war, objecting to the president’s actions, Americans were arrested. Many were prosecuted, convicted, fined, and sentenced to prison.
 
The nature of resistance and dissent both today and 100 years ago are the focus of my current research. I’m looking at the impact and outcomes of the Sedition Act, and I’ve begun a study of WWI dissent in Oregon. My initial findings will be presented on two upcoming occasions:

• April 19, 2017, 7-8:30 pm

Dissent and WWI in the United States and Oregon
Oregon Historical Society, 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR
Free and open to the public

• Summer 2017

Resistance, Dissent & Punishment in WWI Oregon
Oregon Historical Quarterly, Special World War One Issue
My article will be one of a series that explores the impact of WWI and lessons for today
 
Look for highlights of my sedition and dissent research here on my website: Michaelhelquist.com
 
Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions, Oregon State University Press
Available at bookstores and online outlets

 Sunday morning December 18 the New York Times published my letter to the editor of the newspaper’s Book Review.* Three weeks earlier I had read the cover-page review of David France’s new work, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS. The article was written by Andrew Sullivan, the English author, editor, and blogger. I took exception to the credit that Sullivan, and apparently France, gave to a New York AIDS activist for pioneering the simple but powerfully transformative phrase “Person with AIDS” that originated with a San Francisco AIDS pioneer, Mark Feldman.
 
I knew Mark Feldman well; over time we became lovers. I first met him several weeks before the day in late November 1982 when he learned he had AIDS, one of the first fifty men in San Francisco diagnosed with the new disease. At the time it was called “the gay cancer,” a devastating description for a 30-year-old who had learned to live openly, proudly as a gay man. The progression of the disease was rapid for him. He reeled from confirmations of not only Kaposi sarcoma but also of the “gay pneumonia,” followed by a ra ft of breakdowns of his immune system and the ravages of experimental treatments.  
 
Feldman loved an audience and enjoyed being a leader in city and community affairs. He took hold of the calamity of AIDS in his own life and became one of San Francisco’s first speakers to describe his own diagnosis. He revealed his condition to members of Sha’ar Zahav, the city’s community of gay and lesbian Jews. He spoke to community groups, undertook dozens of interviews for TV, radio, and newspapers. He almost appeared on the front cover of Newsweek as the “AIDS cover boy” with his dog Drew. I was with him in San Francisco’s Dolores Park on the chill winter day when he posed repeatedly for the publication’s photographer with the city skyline in the background. (Another San Franciscan, Bobbi Campbell, and his lover got that cover instead). Feldman wanted to counter the fear – more accurately, the panic – about the disease and its transmission.
 
One thing that bothered him the most was to be called an “AIDS victim.” He once mocked a report in a local gay publication for tossing the term his way. “I died and no told me,” he wrote in his journal. He soon took the offensive. He was not a victim, and, unless he was in a hospital or seeing his doctors, he was not a patient either. He coined the term Person with AIDS in defiance. He asserted his own identity. He refused to be passive or to succumb to despair. He well knew his prognosis but he would proceed on his terms, as much as he was able.
 
In my letter to the editor, I briefly described the June 1983 AIDS forum in Denver at which health professionals and AIDS advocates gathered to share information and set policy. A few men with AIDS from San Francisco joined others from New York and elsewhere in the country. The San Franciscans persuaded the larger New York delegation to take a step beyond their gains at home where they adopted the AIDS patient description. Michael Callan, profiled in David France’s book and in Andrew Sullivan’s review, was one of the New Yorkers at Denver. By the end of the conference, he and others declared a People with AIDS identity at the closing session. I was present then but Mark Feldman was not. He had wanted to attend and had purchased plane tickets, but he died a week earlier.
 
A New York friend of Feldman’s, Phillip Lanzaretta, was in Denver. He was another man living with AIDS. He told the conference audience, “Language not only reflects thought but shapes it.” People with AIDS became the identifier-of-choice among AIDS advocates across the U.S. and worldwide. The description was too powerful and determined to be dismissed as political correctness. Federal, state, and local governments and the pharmaceutical industry were forced to grapple with the demands from empowered AIDS activists across the country.
 
I wrote to the New York Times to set the record straight. Mark Feldman deserves the recognition.
 
*My letter to the editor: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/books/review/letters-to-the-editor.html?_r=