Street Roots • May 13-19, 2016
WOODY, from page 10
admire them and not bring them home.
My mother was an alcoholic on the streets for a long time. I think in
the ’60s and early ’70s is when she started to sober up, but she was like
the toughest woman on the streets. They said it took 11 Klamath women
to take her down. It took seven cops to haul her in - in leg irons. She
had her collar bone broken by the police in Seattle and almost died.
Physically, she was tremendously strong.
What I didn’t really know or appreciate was she was brilliant. A genius.
Her IQ was way up there, but she wasn’t appreciated for her brilliance.
She was always appreciated for her beauty. She was a beautiful woman.
She was like movie-star beautiful.
When she sobered up these friends, these socialist and communists,
were forming the first free clinic in skid row there on Ash Street. My
mom became their receptionist. One guy said she was actually mob
control because she (wouldn’t let people from the street pull grifts
because she was savvy to them).
We had the FBI parked in front of our house 24/7. My mom had an
AIM (American Indian Movement) house there on Ash Street which we
lived in communally with social activists. They went on to go work in the
fields and so they decided they needed to live in the SRO to get the full
experience.
We’d leave every day and the FBI would be out there parked in the car
across the street. My sister used to give them the peace sign. Every day
my mom’s boyfriend would make a new sign and put it in the window
(chuckle). One day their car was broken down and my mom went out
there and helped them get it started. She would take them coffee.
My point is that my mother was a brilliant woman.
S.Z.: What was her name?
E.W.: Charlotte Pitt.
S.Z.: Did she maintain her sobriety?
E.W.: She did. My mom was the first Native woman counselor at the
Native American Rehabilitation Association (NARA). And I think she was
the first or second woman board member.
She also was instrumental in the first Native American Alcohol and
Drug Treatment Center based on Native American practices and
principles. When she sobered up, she fell off the wagon a couple of times
and she ended up in prison. But she became an alcohol and drug
counselor up until the time she died when she was 74.
When she passed away, people came up to me and told me, “You have
no idea how many lives your mother has saved - thousands and
thousands of lives.”
She had an integrity and a brilliance.
S.Z.: Service seems to be a large part of your identity. Can you speak to
that?
E.W.: Oh yes. My auntie, Lillian Pitt, who is an artist, I worked with
her for about 12 years as her studio and inspection manager. I like to call
it “my finishing school” (laughter). She was always saying things that
really struck me. One was, “When you do well, put your hand out and
bring someone along.” You have to share your good fortune.
I was going through a really hard time in the 80s emotionally, just
trying to grow up and my uncle, Louis Pitt, he told me I needed to think
about something other than myself. He told me to go down and
volunteer at this Thanksgiving kitchen. You need to think about other
people and doing service and volunteer. And you need to do that for a
little while so that you can get out of this funk you are in. So I began to
volunteer - a lot.
At that time there were a lot of racial crimes going on. My cousin
Rosetta and I were talking about a time when the police dumped all of
these dead possums in front of this restaurant. It was just a scary time.
Things were coming to a political boil and everybody was in this pot
together, but we didn’t know how to turn down the heat
There was the killing of Mulugeta Seraw (an Ethiopian student who
was attending college when he was killed in Portland by three white
supremacists) which was right around the corner from my apartment.
At that time, Red Spirit Creations, which is a women’s cooperative
collective that sells art in Portland, they were part of a group that was
working to defuse the white supremacy movement because they wanted
to make all of the states in the Pacific Northwest - Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Montana - white. All white. How that could happen, I don’t know,
but that was the plan.
There is always this push and pull between light and dark, black and
white, red and black, whatever way you want to look at it. It doesn’t have
to be grand. It doesn’t have to be huge. It can be making a decision.
Page 11
News
LICATA, from page 8
imagination.
LB.: Talk about the angry neighborhood folks and
businesses leaders pushing their agenda on housing
and homelessness. It seems like you need real political
leadership to stand up and say we’ve got to have more
affordable housing, and that may mean more
encampments in the meantime.
an issue forward.
I.B.: Tell us more about the book itself and why
Street Roots readers should pick it up.
N.L.: I wrote this book trying to look at it
through the lens of how did I end up going from a
grassroots activist to being inside of government for
more than 18 years. In some ways it’s a how-to
book. I go into how do you get political
power and change society. The book dives
IF YOU GO
deep, but also looks at the small steps we
N.L.: It really is a frightening
process to go through as an elected WHAT: “Becoming a
can all take to move an issue forward
without compromising your principles. It
official. The business community
Citizen Activist.” Nick
and neighborhoods are going to turn Licata talks about his
takes almost a craftsman look at a larger
out people in large numbers, but
journey of social activism in all of our lives
book.
you soon realize that they don’t
and what we can do.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
necessarily represent the entire
Thursday, May 19.
community’s perspective or
LB.: Tell us what we have to be hopeful for.
priorities. You have to look at the
WHERE: Powell’s
bigger picture. People want an
N.L.: Let’s put it this way, there’s never
Books on Hawthorne,
explanation, and they want elected
going to be any progress without hope. In
3723 SE Hawthorne
officials to do something. It’s not
the end, the final element you have for
Blvd., Portland.
always going to be popular, but the
social change is your attitude. You can do
reality is politicians should be
all of the other mechanics right around
looking to target that middle strata
building a social movement, but it really comes
and to frame the conversation in a way that brings
down to three things. You really do have to have an
people along and ultimately helps people.
open mind. An open mind means that you’re always
listening and working to build bridges with people.
I.B.: What are the pros and cons of working on the
The second is, you really have to believe, to make
outside of the political machine versus working on the
change, that there are tools available to make social
inside of it?
change. If you’re of the attitude that the shed is
empty and there are no tools, really what you’re
N.L.: Protests, without a doubt, get media
saying is “I’m not going to do anything.” I argue
coverage, and you can help grow the movement, but
that we do have tools available to us and that if
ultimately the purpose of a movement is to gain
you’re not picking them up to use them for the
power. When you think about it, what is the
benefit of people or society, then someone else will,
mechanism for power? It’s government It may look
and we may not like it. The third element is that we
different in different places, but the purpose of a
have
to enjoy life when we can. The pursuit of
movement is to gain political power. You have to use
happiness isn’t a given. You have to take it Every
what political power you have or the tools you have
time we have a win, even if it’s not everything we
available. One of the advantages of having an ally in
wanted, we have to celebrate it. You can’t always
government is not that he or she can vote your way,
focus on the half-empty glass of water. Here’s the
but that they are literally working with you Jo help
problem: A lot of liberals will go home and celebrate
frame an issue or working with you to disseminate
and be happy with that, not recognizing that
information back out to the people. It also helps to
tomorrow, we have to go out and work on the other
have authentic relationships in government to help
half of the glass.
you understand the tools that are available to move