Friday, October 12, 2018

Commentary: A black Republican feminist? Eunice Carter's story shows how times have changed

Eunice Carter, shown in 1944, was the first black female prosecutor in New York. A prominent Republican, she warned of the evils of sexual harassment back in the 1930s.

Eunice Carter, shown in 1944, was the first black female prosecutor in New York. A prominent Republican, she warned of the evils of sexual harassment back in the 1930s. (Gordon Coster/Getty)

(Chicago Tribune) -- "I wonder what my grandmother would have made of the controversy over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation. This isn't idle speculation. Although largely forgotten today, during the 1930s and 1940s, Eunice Carter was one of the most prominent black women in the U.S. At a time when so much was closed to those of her race and gender, she accomplished extraordinary things. She was a prosecutor in New York City, where she helped convict Lucky Luciano, the nation's most powerful mobster. She's been much on my mind the past few years, because I've spent the past several years writing a book about her. She is, in a sense, in my head.

 Here's why I'm wondering where she would stand on Kavanaugh: Eunice was a tireless campaigner for women's rights. She even warned of the evils of what we now call sexual harassment back in the 1930s, when few people imagined that the treatment of women in the workplace mattered.

At the same time, she was a prominent Republican, heavily involved in national and local campaigns. She could, literally, get GOP presidential candidates on the telephone. And before you recoil in partisan horror, let's bear in mind the strange inversions of our tortured racial history. Eunice's Republican Party was not the party of today. She was born in 1899, and for most of her life, the Republican Party was the pro-civil rights side, and the Democrats — who at one convention in the 1920s made black delegates sit behind chicken wire — manifestly were not."


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