Molly Yard, political organizer, firebrand, former president of NOW and Pittsburgh icon has died. Yard was not born in Pittsburgh, but moved to and adopted this very Democratic city, which welcomed her and served as her home for over fifty years.
A woman taken to making grand speeches and working, sometimes against her party, for equal rights and better representation, Yard had slowed her pace, but did not retreat from the spotlight after suffering a stroke in 1991.
She worked on campaigns for David L. Lawrence, John F. Kennedy and George McGovern and became president of NOW in 1987. She is credited with spearheading opposition to the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Although her name tended to stick in the throats of conservatives, she wasn't adverse to working with some. In 1989, she enlisted Republican doyenne Elsie Hillman (another grand lady of Pittsburgh) to march on Washington for women's rights.
We forget that there was a time when people like Ms Yard were absolutely necessary. Like other agitators and radicals before her, she was coarse, belligerent and almost always right. She was given to much hyperbole, most memorable for me was her statement that with the Bork nomination, "People's lives are hanging in the balance." Still, the only time I can remember really disagreeing with her was in her opposition to the 1991 Gulf War, although I understood her argument.
What others are saying:
Born in Shanghai, China, the third of four daughters of Methodist missionaries, Ms. Yard started life with an international perspective on feminism.
She once told the story of a Chinese friend who gave her father a brass bowl as a gift, his way of saying he was sorry she was not a boy. In those days in China, she said, the birth of a girl was a tragedy, and many were destined to live as prostitutes or servants. Sometimes, she said, "the girl babies were just thrown away."
Ms. Yard's reputation as a forceful negotiator stood her in such good stead that she did not have to be physically present to get results. In 1987, Patricia Blau Reuss, who was the legislative director for the Women's Equity Action League at the time, told The Washington Post what it was like to lobby members of Congress with Ms. Yard as a bargaining chip:
"We would say, 'Look, you either deal with me or you have to answer to Molly,' " Ms. Reuss said. "They always relent."
Molly Yard was 93.
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