NT-3182

Title Slate: The Eleventh Hour #182, Flo Kennedy, Length 26:46
Dir: Andrew Wilk
6/20/89
Countdown clock overlay

The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener.

Cut away to black and white snapshots of civil rights activist/lawyer, Flo Kennedy. Camera snapping in between each photo and each of her thoughts

Kennedy sitting in office wearing bright yellow hat, green scarf - she talks with unseen unknown interviewer "Talk Truth to Power" quote.

Photo circa 1950's front entrance to Columbia University Low Memorial Library, students on steps, and the "Alma Mater" large bronze sculpture is seen.

Lipsyte narrates. Flo graduated with a Bachelors Degree from Columbia University but she was turned down admission to Columbia Law School.
Back with Flo in office she talks about how she felt she was turned down because she was Black rather then she because she was a woman

Back with Flo she talks about her aggressive"testicular" approach.

Same photo of Kennedy with photo overlay of militant H. Rap Brown whom she represented.

African American woman holding large banner, partially obscured, N.J. Chapter Coalition Against Racism - MAMA MARCH

Lipsyte narrates over scenes of Flo - out on the streets 1975, leading the "mama" (march against media arrogance), with other African American organizers, man hugging her.
Lipsyte narrates that Kennedy by the early '70s was a fixture in the civil rights, gay, and feminist movement. she founded the feminist party in 1971.

Flo talking from her office to unknown interviewer about Gloria Steinem and how Steinem taught her how to make more money!

Count down at the beginning of the taping of Kennedy's show. She can be seen in the studio surrounded by equipment, but sitting at a small round table wearing her signature red hat with a guest.

Clips of Flo Kennedy Show guests - William Kunstler, Yannick Noah.

Clip of Kennedy interviewing Dianne Abrams

Flo speaking with unknown interviewer in office.

The Eleventh Hour graphic.

INTERVIEW

Robert Lipsyte 7:19
We're now in the studio Flo Kennedy's cable television show. Flo 11 years in an elevator in Kansas City. What were you thinking about?

Flo Kennedy 7:30
Well, I was an aristocrat, because I wasn't scrubbing floors in the hotel. I mean, we used to get wonderful Christmas presents. At Christmas, the whole area behind my stool would be off. I thought I was a super aristocrat. I didn't know any better. We were in downtown Kansas City across from Emery right there and Hartsfield was down the street. My uncle was a superintendent of the building. How did I know I was almost a little like a little pickaninny or something.

Robert Lipsyte 7:57
What were you thinking about? I mean,

Flo Kennedy 7:58
I thought I was in heaven.

Robert Lipsyte 8:00
In terms of talking to people thinking

Flo Kennedy 8:03
They loved is, I love them. I had no idea where I was really, really, because you see so many things are relevant. That you know, I was there in petticoat lane. Most black people were up in wherever black people are in the city. And my dad would come and pick us up every night. And I ran this elevator no water, nothing. It was wonderful. No white. No Darling, you bout to get in trouble besides the white glove stuff.

Robert Lipsyte 8:32
And this is through your 20s

Flo Kennedy 8:36
I don't know it was through my 20s. At 73 years old you forget which were your 20s and which were your teens? I don't remember. And I suppose there must be a date somewhere. But I was really I'm so see one thing about it is that happiness is so subjective. I thought I was happy. I did not know I was pitiful. But you know You're Pitiful when you really are pitiful. But as an elevator person in the black community, kids out of school, I don't even know what they were doing. I used to work for $3 a year and take care of two dogs, a Pomeranian and a Pekingese, So that was way from there

Robert Lipsyte 9:11
But the jump the jump from running an elevator to Columbia Law School. It seems like a big one.

Flo Kennedy 9:17
Yeah. Well, what happened was we came to New York, you see. And then of course, I went to school. And I was always smart enough to get the best place with the least effort. So when I went decided to go to school, I went to Colombia because I knew it would be difficult to go to college. So I figured why go to city. If you could go to Colombia?

Robert Lipsyte 9:38
This is Colombia general studies as Yeah, that's right. And it took

Flo Kennedy 9:41
That's right. The bottom of the barrel for Colombia, but the top of the heap for me.

Robert Lipsyte 9:45
It took 11 years because it was the depression.

Flo Kennedy 9:47
Yeah, yeah, we had the depression pretty bad. My dad was a cab driver. And my mom was sort of a domestic you know, she was running the elevator by then. We're good in school. Yeah, I was the equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa in school. I was pretty smart. Although I was always bad in arithmetic, terrible math,

Robert Lipsyte 10:04
it was hard to get into Columbia Law.

Flo Kennedy 10:06
Yeah, I had to have a slight confrontation with them. I threatened Well, they were having lawsuits at Texas, places like that. And I told him that, although they said it wasn't racism, but it was because I was a woman that it felt the same. And that some of my friends thought it was racism and sexism. Those days. I don't know if you use that exact term, but what you were saying, well, I went to Columbia, I got out of high school in 1932, when most people aren't even born, and and this was great, not too long after that. And I told him, I thought I might have to bring a lawsuit. I guess they thought they'd rather have a black person in the school than to have a lawsuit on the front page.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES

Robert Lipsyte 14:42
Obviously most people don't believe this lesson. Because we're taught to be scared. I mean, the groups that you've I mean that the large groups you've worked with, you know, feminists, gay rights activists, civil rights activist, if they all knew that, I think we would have seen other things happening in our histor.

Flo Kennedy 15:00
But you see, most people in groups are angry. And I'm rarely angry because I always think that I have the wherewithal to make anybody that attempts to oppress me feel worse than I do. See. And as long as that's the case, as long as you understand that part of the system, then you see when you see people angry is because they're frustrated and scared. See, and I have rarely been scared because our mother was very polite, very nice. But she always defended the right people. And she always taught us my sister once came home and said, someone had smacked her. And she made it go back out and find the person and hit him back. You see, so we were taught to be respectful. We thanked each other people thought we were crazy. Gay would give me something my sister and I'd say, Oh, thank you and Lynn would give me sighs Oh, thank you. And they said, you don't thank people in your own family. They laughed. But you see the ideas. I'm in a good mood. I try to be as ruthless as I think I need to be but I'm in a good mood. I'm not angry most of the time. So I don't really feel I have to I'll show off but I'm not angry

Robert Lipsyte 15:59
This approach. When is it best worked for you? What What would you consider a really a signal success?

Flo Kennedy 16:04
Well, everything is a signal of success. Feminism, the discovery that I was right about everybody being scared. See, people are scared if they're taller and bigger and heavier males rapists, everybody has a part of the anatomy that is very vulnerable. And as long as you're prepared to go for that, just like my dad went in says excuse me, but he got his gun. And when he came back out, we had this little funny frame house, it had about four inches of ground in the front and a little bitty funny yard, but as big as from here to there. And so it was a funny little place. But once you know that you are prepared to do more to the person that's chasing you than the person that's chasing us for it to sustain. Then you understand that that's it, honey,

Robert Lipsyte 16:49
now your daddy had a gun, you've got a tongue. Yeah, you've used your mouth is that kind of

Flo Kennedy 16:55
I know. Because you see, by being unafraid and not angry. See, I just think you just don't respect people. You don't respect your repressor. Your oppressor is not to be respected. That's the first thing you need to learn. And you learn that when you're a little kid, see, most people's parents, my mom never hit us. Her theory was that if I lose my purse, nobody hits me. I'm bigger than they are, and I don't hit them. Now, my mother had a philosophy. She didn't tell us that we were much older. I used to be terrified when I was late coming home from school, but she really liked us. Number one, you got to have parents and like us. They also like being parents, that was another helpful thing. So but I had no respect for the enemy whatsoever. Once some woman that might be me being at this point. Well, when my mother was accused of stealing when she was a domestic, she stripped all the way down. And I won't tell you what she didn't take off. But she took off everything. And and so that they were examples of courage, not so much in the way they treated us, but in the way they treated anybody that started off with them. My sister was on a streetcar, as we call the trolley cars in Kansas City, Missouri. And a white person started to get up when she started to sit down. She said, sit back, sit back down there you S of a B, and then sat down in the chair. And nobody knows if the guy was really good. But in Kansas City was a part of the insulted if a black person sat down, he got up if you were white. Now you see, she didn't know if the guy really was getting off. It might have been in stop, but she made him sit back down. So those were the types of things that we laughed about in our family. And we just had that as a part of our philosophy from

Robert Lipsyte 18:35
we've been passing this song for years in the 70s

Flo Kennedy 18:38
Not thise stuff. I never talked about any of this.

Robert Lipsyte 18:39
Well, I mean, this attitude.

Flo Kennedy 18:40
But you ask very good questions Bob

INTERVIEW CONTINUES

Flo Kennedy 21:51
I mean violence I mean, what you mean by violence I mean killing people or whatever you need to do but I say don't do unless you want to spend your life in prison and I don't want my friends to spend my life but I think to go around. I mean my theory is that anytime someone uses violence against you, then violence is in and to say we are non violent to me is very dumb. I mean even parents hit the kids you know, I mean there's no reason why people have to hit kids if they want to say that violence is bad because if you hit your kid little kid you hit him slap him and beat him up. Tell your father's gonna take care of you and that means he's gonna hit you

Robert Lipsyte 22:32
There's a kind of little tag of blaming the victim in the sense of it's your fault if you're oppressed because you allowed yourself to be oppressed

Flo Kennedy 22:43
Oh no, if I say the victim has the right to be violent I'm certainly not blaming them I'm arming them but I know they won't be and I tell them don't be violent in a in a violent society unless you ready to go to jail. I mean, and prostitutes for example are in town these days and they know the police are the ones take more advantage of them very often than the strangers people always say oh Aren't you afraid this stranger has gotten the john is going to do this or that and normally they have more hassle from the police. And and part of it is rape. Another part of it is violence of the normal sort. When I say violence, I mean anything you're capable of doing that you're prepared to die for

Robert Lipsyte 23:22
two groups that you're all gonna that you're involved with VACPAC, and the ladies aid and trade crusade.

Flo Kennedy 23:31
I like little rhymes, because I remember once I was arrested in California, and I think the reason they didn't take me more seriously, because I have all these little rhymes and little songs and things. But I think for example, oppressed people are kind of retarded in their political and economic attitudes.

Robert Lipsyte 23:48
I hear ladies aid and trade crusade as kind of so what is that?

Flo Kennedy 23:53
Well in that case I was mainly pushing cable television as a form of response you know, we want to be NBC when you're dreaming your dream the top of the heap but I think for example, I'm in cable TV for about 15 years now and I think that if we made proper use of it we could be far more revolutionary than we are. In other words I feel that first place I think the cable industry has kind of betrayed us and I think for example there are no studios for cable television there's no money for for producers and I think we've made enough millions for the cable people that the franchises in major cities should be revolked.

Robert Lipsyte 24:30
You gave up your law practice some years ago

Flo Kennedy 24:33
well when I discovered I could make 600 or $750 and make a one hour speech now I make $3300 which is nothing because people like Oliver whatever his name is that North North Yeah, I was gonna call him Norris. People like that make $35,000 then I'm very cheap, but by me, it's like the elevator. I'm so thrilled to make $3500 for one hour speech that I think I'm in and I don't like to say nigger heaven because a white person said that I'd probably have to punch him in the mouth and knock out their implants. But I just think that we need to reject any limitations. And I think cable TV gives us a lot of latitude. And I think we don't use it fully on the campuses. They don't even want to hear but they don't understand.

Robert Lipsyte 25:18
Well, you do your cable show now you make your speeches and VACPAC?

Flo Kennedy 25:22
Well, it's it's such a long name, take the end of the show. Its voters, artists, anti nuclear activists, and consumers. That's just VAC.

Lipsyte thanks Kennedy. Interview concludes, Lipsyte announces the show and introduces himself.

Funding for program by announcer and overlay the eleventh hour graphic.