Eartha Kitt, Lady Bird Johnson, and the Vietnam War

On 18th of January 1968, first lady Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (1912-2007) invited Eartha Kitt (1927-2008) to a Women Doer's Luncheon (with the subject "Why is there so much juvenile delinquency") at the White House. At first, she declined: "I thought it would be a lot of nonsense - flowers, champagne, a chance to show off." The first lady's social secretary kept calling her, Eartha Kitt reconsidered.



In "the private family dining room on the second floor of the country's most famous home", women were seated at the table talking about the place settings for the menu and the possibility of meeting President Johnson.

"The atmosphere began to hit me but still I hoped it might become a constructive opportunity to air the problems we had supposedly come to talk about." Eartha Kitt

After dessert, the president walked in and talked. He said that there was a great deal people could do to prevent youth delinquency and that the place to start was in the home. When he finished, Kitt rose and asked what he was going to do about delinquent parents, those "who have to work and are too busy to look after their children". He pointed out that due to a bill recently passed millions of dollars were going to be given to day-care centres and that the women were invited to discuss what (else) to do. During the women's presentations, Kitt sat silenty. Then it was her turn to speak:

"I think we have missed the main point of this luncheon. We have forgotten the main reason we have juvenile delinquency.You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They will take pot … and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."

Afterward, there was no car waiting to take her back to the hotel, she hitchhiked back. Her entertainment bookings were cancelled, she was blacklisted (which she was unaware of), no longer found work in the U.S., and mostly worked in Europe for many years (via).



"The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war. 
Young folks are choosing to be “bad” because they don’t understand this war. They would rather dodge the draft than join up. In their minds, “it pays to be a bad guy.”"
Eartha Kitt

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"I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

"Dear Dr. King, I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze." (via)




On 20th September 1958, a decade before his assassination, Martin Luther King was stabbed in his chest with a steel letter opener by Izola Curry (who passed away in March 2015). As the tip of the blade had come "right up against his aorta" the next day the New York Times reported that King would have died had he merely sneezed. Among his mail was a letter from a young student at White Plains High School in New York. "And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it." (via)

"Days later, when I was well enough to talk with Dr. Aubrey Maynard, the chief of the surgeons who performed the delicate, dangerous operation, I learned the reason for the long delay that preceded surgery. He told me that the razor tip of the instrument had been touching my aorta and that my whole chest had to be opened to extract it. 'If you had sneezed during all those hours of waiting,' Dr. Maynard said, 'your aorta would have been punctured and you would have drowned in your own blood.'" (via)

On 4th April 1968, Martin Luther King was standing on Lorraine Motel's (which is now part of Memphis's National Civil Rights Museum) second-floor balcony when James Earl Ray's bullet entered through his right cheek. King died within an hour after an emergency chest surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital. His autopsy revealed that although he was only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60 year old." 13 years in the civil rights movement had taken their toll (via).



President Johnson declared 7th April a national day of mourning, more than 100.000 mourners followed King's coffin through the streets of Atlanta. During his funeral, a recording of Martin Luther King's last sermon was played:

"I'd like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. . . . I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. . . . And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity." (via)

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Quoting Eartha Kitt

"I've always been multicultural myself. I'm not black and I'm not white and I'm not pink and I'm not green. Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken."
Eartha Kitt



"Aging has a wonderful beauty and we should have respect for that."
Eartha Kitt



"We're not thought of in terms of color because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain you not because we are black, white, pink, or green or gay or straight or because we are Catholic or Protestant."
Eartha Kitt



"I do think that same gender partners should be able to be married. Why not? If you share a life together then who in the world should have anything to say about it?"
Eartha Kitt



 "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have."
Eartha Kitt



"Just because you are different does not mean that you have to be rejected."
Eartha Kitt

 

Eartha Kitt (1927-2008), among other roles Catwoman in the final season of Batman, was - according to Orson Welles - the "most exciting woman in the world". Her mother was of African-American and Cherokee descent, her father of German (or Swiss) descent (via). This "mixed parentage was a matter of shame for all concerned and would go on to blight her early life." (Williams, 2013).



Eartha Kitt was known for her activism, for supporting underprivileged young people, peace and LGBT rights which to her were civil rights. In an interview she said: "We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a heterosexual." (via) It is reported that Kitt herself was rejected by her mother's husband because she was "too pale". She was sent away and later said: "If you're mulatto you're not black enough to belong to the blacks and not white enough to belong to the whites." (via)



Williams, J. L. (2013) America's Mistress: Eartha Kitt, Her Life and Times. London: Quercus Editions
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