Walking the path of most resistance: The story of local social activists
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| Connie Canney, 79 (right) and Carol Thomas, 74, have been social and political activists for decades, playing crucial roles in the Civil Rights Movement, Cuban humanitarian projects and local community projects in the city of Alachua. |
ALACHUA -- Anyone attending an Alachua City Commission meeting will surely notice two elderly ladies sitting near the front of the room, scribbling notes throughout the meetings and then asking the Commission the hard questions at the end of the evening.
Their gray hair is usually styled in a similar manner, a short, bobbed cut, and they are about the same height and weight, often dressing in sandals and jeans.
Recently, they began wearing strips of masking tape on their shirts with the latest number of American soldiers killed in the Iraqi war written in thick, black marker.
Though many have assumed the ladies are sisters, twins even, they are not related, though they do refer to themselves as "sisters in struggle."
Connie Canney, 79, and Carol Thomas, 74, have been involved in the "struggle" for more than half a century. And while the specifics of the struggle change over the years, they explain, the basic premise is always the same: to help give a voice to those whose suffering or injustice may otherwise be ignored.
From the city of Alachua to the country of Cuba, Canney and Thomas have walked the path of most resistance, never taking the easy way out. They have been speaking out against injustice, protesting against wars and trying to make the world a better place for decades.
And they are not done yet.
Sisters in Struggle
On a warm summer day, with the breeze blowing through the kitchen windows blending with the smell of herbal tea, Canney and Thomas tell the story of their lives, a story that is intertwined with each other and many major events of the past 50 years.
The two women share a spacious house in the city of Alachua that used to be an adult care facility, but now the house is bursting with books, art and oftentimes, many people.
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| Bob Canney is shown in photographs on a table at Connie Canney's house. Connie said that carrying on the work that she and Bob did together is very important to her. |
The women have files from over the years chronicling events, protests and court cases they have been involved in.
In fact, if a discrepancy in an incident comes up, even one that is decades old, Canney will excuse herself into a back room and come back with a news clipping, a photo or some other documentation.
"She's organized and I am not..." Thomas said.
"...but she is an organizer, you know, in a different way," Canney said, and the two laugh.
"She does things that I can not do," Canney said. "She gets people together. She has been an inspiration for my family, for my kids and for myself ever since we heard of one another. She has always had the courage and the convictions."
The women are obviously fond of each other and they both said that their lives in their older years would be different were it not for each other encouraging and continuing to stay involved with local and world issues.
After Canney's husband died and Thomas and her husband divorced, the two women found even more solace in each other's company -- especially because the two are still active in fighting for what they believe in.
In fact, in 2001, after a lifetime of being involved in political issues, the two women, in their late 60s and early 70s, decided to move to Alachua and continue their work.
The house in Alachua was meant to be a home base, a place where the two could continue their activism work, especially their humanitarian work for Cuba, they said.
"I guess that is one of the reasons we decided to come back here," Thomas said. "Because this is where it all began. We got more education in the streets than we did in the university."
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| Connie Canney and Carol Thomas are pictured in Gainesville selling raffle tickets for a car to raise money for a community center in the city of Alachua. The women said helping to bring the community center to Alachua was their most proud accomplishment locally. |
The 60s
Canney and Thomas have always been unlikely political activists.
Even in the 1960s, the two were somewhat unique compared to the other protesters. Both were in their 30s, had children and were married to professors.
But that did not prevent them from standing up for what they believed in -- even if that meant doing time behind bars.
Both Canney and Thomas have spent time behind bars as what they call "political prisoners."
But if it were not for the jail time, then the two women may never have met.
Canney's husband Bob was a college professor at Coca Brevard Junior College before he led a teacher's strike in the 1960s.
Bob was not rehired following the strike, so a series of sit-ins were held to protest the firings of his and other teachers.
Many of those protesting were students, but Canney, a married woman with children, was also on the front lines, so close in fact that she was arrested for disrupting normal business "or something like that," she said.
Even in jail, she continued the protest.
Those arrested -- Canney, two male students and a female student -- refused to leave the jail when they were allowed to the next day.
Canney explains that her children were in school and her husband was home able to take care of them, so the four decided to continue the protest in the jail cell, refusing to leave despite the fact that the guards had unlocked the jail cell doors.
"We said we would get out when they agreed with what we had sat in front of the (college) doors for," Canney said.
Canney remembers making protest posters and hanging them on the cell walls. They stayed for a week in the unlocked cell.
"We were trying to make a point," Canney explained.
Subsequent work resulted in the firing of the president of the college who had allegedly intimidated and threatened the teachers who were thinking about joining the teacher's strike and union, Canney said.
"I think that was the only jail time I ever did," Canney said, pausing a moment, then laughing. "It may not be the last."
Thomas' jail time in the 1960s was more serious, and she ultimately served eight months.
Thomas was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville, so much so that her house became a kind of mecca for those involved in the movement.
"My house became a rally point for where people came to get on the picket lines," she said.
She helped with a variety of issues in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville, including voter registration.
"We registered enough people that we made a difference in the state election," Thomas said.
But her involvement with the Civil Rights Movement turned more weighty when Thomas, 35 years old at the time and also a mother and a wife, was arrested for contempt of court.
Jean Chalmers was involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville with Thomas and Canney, and remembers the two women as strong and fiercely dedicated.
"During the Civil Rights Movement, they were right out on the front lines and had more courage then the rest of us," Chalmers said. "I think they were willing to put their lives in the line."
One of Thomas' arrests stemmed from a pamphlet called "Black Voices" that Thomas and a friend started.
One pamphlet in particular wrote that the Grand Jury in Alachua County was biased and racist. Thomas and a man named Irvin "Jack" Dawkins were distributing the pamphlet around the courthouse square at the same time the named Grand Jury was meeting to discuss a case involving the alleged sexual mistreatment of black women at the county jail.
At the time, Thomas explained, there were only male wardens for the segregated black women inmates, and allegations of sexual mistreatment were brought to light by Dawkins and Thomas, both of whom were called to testify to the very Grand Jury they were calling racist.
Thomas remembers being a little shocked when she was arrested for contempt of court for distributing the pamphlet.
Chalmers took care of Thomas' children while she was in jail.
"I don't think they put themselves first at all," Chalmers said. "They put society and their country first and they come second. They are willing to not be comfortable."
And it was devotion such as that which Chalmers said was such an important part of the movement.
Thanks to Thomas and Dawkins, the black women in the jail were integrated and received female wardens instead of the male ones who had been allegedly sexually abusing the women.
Even now, more than 50 years later, Thomas' eyes shine clear with pride as she tells the story, clouding only when she speaks softly of her time in solitary confinement.
And it was while serving her time in jail that Thomas wrote Canney's husband Bob, who was the chair of the ACLU at the time, asking for help getting out of jail.
That was the first that Thomas and Canney ever heard of each other but it would not be the last.
Cuba
Canney and Thomas both left Florida in the late 1960s -- neither one by choice.
Canney's husband was forced to leave the state as part of his sentence for an arrest that occurred for cursing during a protest in St. Petersburg, an arrest that would set Connie Canney on a lifelong quest against police wrongdoing and social injustice.
Thomas left because she was afraid that she would be locked up for contempt of court -- again.
The two women spent time in different states, fighting for different issues.
Thomas did work for the National Tenant's Union and for the Civil Rights Movement, while Thomas did work for many social issues and the Green Party.
But due to connections with the same groups of people and organizations, the two woman stayed in touch.
Part of the connection that kept the two women together was their shared passion for helping the Cuban people.
Even though they were living in different states, the two worked on a common cause, to send humanitarian aid to Cubans.
Each woman was involved in a group dedicated to changing policy issues, collecting supplies and writing a newsletter about Cuba.
"Both groups became like sister groups," Canney said.
And Cuba was the reason that the two women came back to Florida.
The supplies that the women collected over the years were just as important as the work they did to try to change U.S. policy toward Cuba, such as trying to get the travel ban and trade embargo lifted, they said.
Some of the supplies sent helped to save lives because the U.S. embargo against Cuba prevents many items from being shipped to the country, Thomas said.
Thomas worked in a hospital and remembers collecting anything she could to send to Cuba.
Sometimes the smallest items in the school buses full of supplies were the most important.
Thomas knows of someone's wife who died waiting for a simple medical device that is easy to get elsewhere in the world.
"She died just waiting for that piece of tubing," Thomas said, sounding like she can't believe such a thing could happen.
Collecting the supplies was the easy part; getting the supplies to Cuba was another thing entirely, the women said.
After collecting the school bus full of supplies, they would pass the job on to friends who would do what it took to get the items to Cuba.
One time, a bus of supplies was trying to cross the Mexican border in Texas, when their friends had to get creative, the women said.
"The government said, "You can't take those buses across," so the people got off the buses and made a chain across the bridge and carried it by hand," Thomas said.
Thomas did so much work to help the Cuban people that she had a day named in her honor in Cambridge, Mass.
"We tonight thank her for her many contributions in creating awareness in all of us of the never-ending need for social and economic justice for all women and men throughout the world," the proclamation declaring Nov. 16, 1998 as Carol Thomas Day reads.
Inspiring Many Generations
David Hoch, 63, remembers giving a speech on the Plaza of Americas at the University of Florida in the 1960s.
The speech was a political, blunt speech about the war and other issues of the day, Hoch said.
He remembers Canney approaching him after the speech, smiling and laughing, telling him that he had to meet her husband, also a political activist.
Hoch was a student, just 24 or 25 years old, and Canney was in her 30s, her husband Bob was a teaching assistant professor at UF.
The Canneys became important role models in Hoch's life.
"I think Bob was definitely a mentor to me as to how to be organized," Hoch said. "I was a cowardly wimp. He was fearless."
Hoch has since gone to law school and has retired from teaching at UF, but he is still active in political and environmental issues.
Part of the reason he is still active today is from the experience he gained at the Canney's home, a place that activists of the day gathered, Hoch said, still amazed at their generosity.
"They were far from rich and they were trying to feed all the kids that came in," Hoch said. "They would let children stay with them -- they must have been dead broke."
Canney was a "fierce and bright" woman, Hoch said, who had a "generosity of spirit to all sorts of people that came to her house," but she was not afraid to tell someone to leave if they showed up too inebriated.
Even in those atypical times, when everyone from professors and students who shared political beliefs would co-mingle, Hoch said he knew that Canney was different.
"Her intensity and her drive and level of commitment is quite remarkable," he said.
And the fact that she is still active today does not come as surprise to Hoch.
"I would have been stunned if she stopped," he said.
Chalmers said that the women and all others involved in the movements of the 1960s influenced their children whose lives were directly changed as a result.
"Their children are still out there, supporting the causes," Chalmers said.
Gladys Perkins, whose mother Lucille worked in the Civil Rights Movement with Thomas and Canney, said her life would be different without the two women's involvement.
"These ladies have inspired me so," Perkins said.
Perkins was just a child when her mother and the women were involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but Perkins remembers meetings held in their home, with people crowded in the kitchen, eating and planning events.
Lucille Perkins' and Thomas' children would play together, an experience that was significant in shaping Gladys Perkins' view on the world.
"I did not see color when I saw people," Perkins said. "I think had I not had that experience, my life would have been a little different."
Even today, Thomas is an integral part of the Perkins' life, helping with her brother Alonzo Victor Perkins' campaign for property appraiser, and also by just coming by the house and sharing stories.
"I wanted the kids to be inspired by Carol," Perkins said. "You pass on the history. You may not see the signs immediately, but they will come."
Not All Protests and Arrests
When the smoke settles from Canney and Thomas' activism, their life's work really boils down to making people's lives and their communities better, they said.
And in the city of Alachua, while the women said they are not always well received, they have accomplished many community improvements.
The one they are both most proud of is helping to bring a community center to the city.
They helped start a group called NUBA -- Neighborhoods United for a Better Alachua -- which raised money through yard sales, car raffles and more to help turn a dilapidated building into a community center.
When asked what they are most proud of accomplishing locally, the community center is the quick answer from both women.
"For me, I am going to say the community center," Thomas said.
Canney adds, almost at the same time: "I was going to say the same thing. That's the most concrete, the most visible."
Other local accomplishments of the women include helping to organize the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the city.
The free event, which brought more than 500 people from around the local neighborhoods, was a beautiful event, the women said, with King's speeches playing on a loudspeaker, a barbecue lunch and games for children.
"People said they had not seen anything like it for 20-25 years," Carol said.
Future plans of the women to help unite the community include starting a community radio station.
The women said they also would like to have a forum and invite people to speak on government issues and share with the public how the government works.
That's because a well informed citizen is more likely to feel empowered and participate in the government process, Thomas said.
"I know that it does make a difference being at meetings," Canney said.
But making a difference, like during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s, does not come without resistance.
The two women may seem tame at first glance, but they are quick-witted and sharp tonged, and oftentimes the city of Alachua bears the blunt of their criticism.
From public records to accountability of funds, the women are not shy in demanding the city stay accountable.
And that, along with the fact that Canney's son, Michael, has filed several lawsuits with Charles Grapski against the city, has led to some conflicts.
In fact, when The Herald asked Alachua Mayor Jean Calderwood to be interviewed about how Canney and Thomas have contributed to the city, an e-mail with news articles about the various lawsuits and other controversial issues was sent to The Herald from City Manager Clovis Watson Jr. on behalf of Calderwood.
A handwritten note on the e-mailed pages read: "The Grapski lawsuits have cost the citizens thousands of dollars."
But Chalmers said that friction comes with the territory and that Thomas and Canney are highly intelligent and are used to standing up for what they believe in.
"You have to have people on the fringes...to keep a moderate society," she said.
Looking Back While Moving Forward
At a time in their lives when many people are winding down, relaxing and enjoying the ability to do nothing, Canney and Thomas are still working as hard as ever.
"I keep telling Carol you have to slow up," Perkins said.
Their activism is something that the women say is the equivalent of having a full-time job.
"This is not something you start out thinking about doing," Thomas said. "It chooses you."
Hoch, though not surprised that they are still active, is nonetheless impressed.
"I am 18 years younger than Connie, and I can't keep up with her," he said.
After a lifetime of work, the women said they still feel like activism makes a difference.
"Any big demonstration -- even little ones are encouraging," Canney said. "I feel good. I mean I can go to Gainesville and stand on the corner with three or four people and it feels good -- you feel good when you are standing there and you are standing up for something."
Some days, though, the women said they feel like they have not accomplished anything, but that usually passes quickly and they go back to work.
Seeing young people at demonstrations -- Canney even took her granddaughter and friends to an anti-war protest -- is encouraging, the women said.
Canney said she knows she has influenced her family and others to stand up for what they believe in instead of just watching the news and getting depressed.
Thomas said she has come to terms with what she can and can't accomplish.
"I have lots of projects in my head, and I want to see them come to fruition," she said. "Now I know that I won't live long enough to do that."
She said that fact used to depress her, but she now knows that what she and Canney have accomplished is important.
"I am helping to leave something behind that is positive, and I know that we made a difference in a few people's lives," she said.
The women hope that people start to think more critically and pay more attention to what is really going on in the world instead of being distracted by television, video games and iPods.
"I don't know if people have come to the point where their vision is so narrow and their lives so wrought with consumption, that is what they think life is about," Thomas said. "I think people are misinformed and mis-educated. I don't think people are stupid or anything like that."
Thomas said that when she was registering black voters back in the 1960s, she never thought that a black man would be president in her lifetime. She said she is excited about Barack Obama's presidential nomination but said she thinks that a lot of issues concerning blacks and the American power and political systems in general still need to be addressed.
For now, she is cautiously optimistic that the change Obama speaks of will actually happen.
"At his time, for the people of this country, for the everyday people who do all the work and all the suffering, we desperately need a change but I am afraid that it will all be more of the same," Thomas said.
Canney, looking at newspaper clippings from the 1960s of Thomas, comments on how lovely she looked in the photo, with a tidy haircut and a smile on her young face.
Holding up the faded clipping, Canney asks rhetorically why would anyone be afraid of her?
Then, with a chuckle, Canney answers her own question:
"Now I know why," she said. "You were dangerous -- you made people think."
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