The Village Voices That Wouldn’t Stay Quiet
New York City, it has been said, is a town of opinionated loudmouths. Maybe so. If that’s the case, our neighborhoods can historically claim a disproportionate number of them. And we’d argue that that’s a good thing and that some of those so-called loudmouths made our world a better place by refusing to bow to convention and by insisting on publicizing their once controversial opinions. Today, we revisit notable instances of speeches that rankled polite society, stirred people into action, and helped transform our social outlook.
Crystal Eastman was a suffragist lawyer and, along with her brother Max, two of most prominent Village radicals of their time. They lived at 237 W 11th St and 118 Waverly Place. Crystal Eastman delivered her famous “Now we can begin” speech following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, 105 years ago. In it, she argues that women’s right to vote marks only a first step towards securing gender equality. Read more here.
In 1909, a frail 23-year-old delivered a two sentence speech in Yiddish on the stage of the Cooper Union Great Hall and it helped trigger a strike by 20,000 workers that marked a turning point in American labor activism. Her name was Clara Lemlich. She had been brutally beaten by strike-busters. Read more here.
The line between delivering a lecture and inciting a riot can be a thin one. Maybe Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman crossed it in 1893 in Union Square when she told the 1,000 marchers whom she had organized that workers had a right to steal bread if they were hungry and to demonstrate their needs “before the palaces of the rich.” Maybe she didn’t. Whatever the case, she was arrested shortly thereafter, sentenced, and incarcerated in Blackwell’s Island (today’s Roosevelt Island) for a year. Read more here.
She was first arrested for one of her incendiary workers’ rights speeches at age 16, and did not mellow with age. Communist, labor organizer, and feminist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was radicalized at an early age and soon became a member of the radical labor union, the Wobblies, which was headquartered at 115 East 10th St and then at 27 East 4th St. Her frequent arrests led her to co-found the American Civil Liberties Union, which was headquartered at 70 Fifth Avenue, and to become one of the key figures in the free speech movement. Read more here.
One of the most momentous speeches given in the history of our neighborhood (and of our country) was radical in both substance and consequences. On February 27, 1860, a prairie lawyer and one-term congressman named Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Cooper Union Great Hall that established him as a national figure, laid out the constitutional and historical case against slavery, and laid the foundation for his election as president. It altered the trajectory of our nation. Read more here.
These days, political comedy is a matter of course. Back in the 1960s, it could get you arrested. It did for Lenny Burce. Bruce was more than a comedian — he used his performances as political screeds, often speaking out against censorship and the police. His act frequently landed him in legal trouble. In 1964, he was convicted for obscenity and sentenced to four months for a performance at Cafe Au Go Go (152 Bleecker Street). Ongoing legal harassment eventually broke Bruce and led to his untimely death at the age of 40. But Bruce’s work broke down barriers for radical artists who followed, inspired by his example. Read more here.
The radicals who spoke out in our streets, halls, and clubs remind us that voices can be instruments of both disruption and progress. From suffragists to comedians, each of these speakers raised theirs in conviction, refusing to defer to popular opinion. Their words shaped our country, and their legacy lives on in every fight for justice that has followed.