Heather Booth: Civil Rights Organizer on Women's Leadership, Jane, and Finding Your Voice at Any Age

A man told her to shut up while she was speaking. So Heather Booth finished her point, tapped every woman in the room on the shoulder, walked them upstairs — and founded the first campus women's organization in America. That was 1965. She has spent sixty years since proving one idea: when we organize with love at the center, we change this world.IN THIS EPISODE:Freedom Summer 1964 at age 19 — and the Voting Rights Act that followed within a yearThe full story of Jane, the underground network whose women performed 11,000 abortions before RoeThe "significant response" study proving professors engaged men's comments four times more than women's — and the bookend technique women still needHow a wrongful firing became the Midwest Academy, which has trained generations of organizersTwo housewives who noticed green meat at the supermarket and won food expiration dating for the country — one is now in CongressHeather's first steps for any woman who says "I'm not political"EPISODE SUMMARY:Heather Booth acted in spite of insecurity, not because of confidence. Her answer to "am I enough?" became her life's work: we are enough, and we are the leaders we've been waiting for.At 19 she joined Freedom Summer in Mississippi. At 20, helping a friend's pregnant sister grew into Jane — at a time when three people discussing abortion in Chicago was conspiracy to commit a felony. Fired for helping a single mother question a pay cut, she won at the National Labor Relations Board and used the settlement to found the Midwest Academy.The smallest lessons may stay longest: women agreeing to "bookend" each other's comments so no voice could be erased — something Debra experienced herself as the only woman among partners at a billion-dollar firm. And Alice Palmer's warning, for every woman who says "I'm not political": if you don't do politics, politics does you. Find the issue you care about. Find the people already working on it. Join them.ABOUT HEATHER:Heather Booth has been one of the nation's leading progressive strategists for six decades — founder of Jane and the Midwest Academy, director of the NAACP National Voter Fund (raising African American turnout by nearly 2 million voters), and a leader of national campaigns on immigration, financial reform, marriage equality, and Social Security.CONNECT: https://midwestacademy.com/COMMUNITY: WeCanDoItWomen.comIf this episode lit something in you, take one step this week — then join us at WeCanDoItWomen.com. A 5-star Apple Podcasts review takes under a minute and helps more women find this show.