Longtime social activist to receive doctorate

By: Jennifer Davis 05/13/2005

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2681&pag=460&dept_ID=543948

My how times change. Or have they?

The debate is how this generation compares to the last. How does society function today compared to the times before equal rights, women's lib, the Depression and segregation.

People may be able to eat in the same restaurants and ride the same buses, and women may be able to vote and run businesses, but are times really better than in the past?

Social activist Kate Oser does not believe so. She has been fighting for social causes since the 1930s.

Kate is 87 years old, has traveled the world, spoke out about war, nuclear power, the plight of Latin America, and worked on the behalf of migrant workers. Today, she is preparing to accept an honorary doctorate in Humane Letter from Utica College on May 15.

Born into a middle class family on October 3, 1917, Kate was brought up with midwestern Protestant Republican values. Her father was an engineer so Kate was able to see quite a bit of the United States as a child. She came to Utica in the 50s with her husband, Jake, who was a professor at Utica College. With Jake, and in later years after his death without him, Kate has also traveled the world visiting Finland, Kenya, China and India.

So how does one become a social activist? For Kate it began in 1936 when she was a student at Boston University during the time when Mousilini was invading Ethiopia. There was an intercollege demonstration that Kate attended.

"I remember being self-conscious because it was my first demonstration."

When asked why she attended the demonstration in the first place she replied, "I was chomping at the bit and had a feeling of helplessness about things. I recognized my comfortable life and compared it to those whose lives were not so comfortable. Although at the time mine was not that comfortable because my father was out of a job. I had worked since I was 14 years old earning money for my clothes."

After that Kate had the strong desire to continue helping causes she believed in anyway she could. She attended other demonstrations and during the McCarthy era she worked with Jake to form study circles of their own dealing with the constitutional human rights issues of freedom of speech and freedom of association that were under attack during that period.

With all this work under her belt, Kate took on one of her biggest projects. In the 1950s and 60s she became widely known in the Utica area for her work on behalf of migrant workers. She recruited many Uticans to the cause, securing access to medical care, child care, adult education, summer school and religious services for this overworked and under-compensated labor force.

Kate remarked that being a social activist does not just revolve around demonstrations. Her work with the migrant workers is a perfect example.

As she remembered back she explained, "There were about 2,000 people that came to Oneida County to pick peas and beans and 500 of them came to Clinton. Their living conditions were horrible and their working conditions were awful. The store where the buses would stop for the workers to get food would raise the prices. They had no money and the prices were high, even the local people would not go there."

She continued, "In 1956 Clinton became a model for the country with the services they were providing for the migrant workers. We started child care for the workers, summer school and adult education. We would distribute food to the camps and were always on hand to help. At the time, telephone calls were 10 cents. They would call, let it ring once and hang up. Then one of us would call all the camps to find out who needed our help. It was the little things to make life better for them."

Kate shared that this time was also the beginning of the Civil Rights Era so she decided to bring a speaker on the issue to Clinton. "I was afraid no one would come, but it turned out I didn't need to worry because there was a big crowd."

Kate also got involved in Vietnam. Protesting the war that is. She was in a few demonstrations then and remarked that at that time there was no such thing as e-mail. Kate commented that it was exciting to see how the world immediately burst out anti-war in the current war with Iraq because of e-mail.

It seems that with Kate fighting for causes she believes in never stops.

Right after Vietnam came the feminist movement and the Equal Right Amendment.

Some of the issues Kate has fought for have touched her on a personal level. In 1990, after a year of caring for her son, David, Kate lost him to AIDS. In those times, many families of persons with AIDS hid what they considered a shameful secret. This was not Kate's way, however. She made David's cause of death public and took that opportunity to educate, empower, and combat ignorance and discrimination.

At 87 years old Kate has lost some of her hearing so she does not demonstrate like she used to. But she is still very involved, especially with the Working Families Party. She also continues to attend functions that confront difficult issues. In the words of one of her friends, she remains "zestfully outspoken."

As she gets ready to accept her honorary doctorate Kate reveals that she was both surprised and excited. "I regard this as a way to call attention to the importance of participating in society," she said. "Change is always occurring and it is unfortunate now that things seem to be going backwards. Now is the time we need to fight and keep our society from slipping back in time." She continued, "I have not done this alone. It takes many people and a lot of time to make change. But I am happy with the way I have spent my life trying to make our society a better place to live."