Hello friends,
From constant mention of Marjory Stoneman Douglas' name in regards to the shooting at Parkland School, I suggested to NOW's Erika Levy (through radio hosts of From A Woman's Point of View on community radio WMNF) that Levy also feature MSD as part of Tampa NOW's action during Women's History Month 2018. Levy responded that the effort of the event was to highlight women "still making history". Doing so accentuates our continued responsibility and power in ongoing action today.
Readers of Levy's article below will be inspired by MSD. NOW's goal—to recognize and inspire people toward contemporary leadership, surely includes leaders at MSD School and the community of Parkland at large.
Together we continue toward present day history (and her-story) making!
— Patricia
Following is Levy's article which can also be found at
https://www.nowtampa.org/blog/
WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH: WHO IS MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS?
by Erika Levy
March 1, 2018
For many, the name "Marjory Stoneman Douglas" only recently became part of the public consciousness due to the violent and tragic events that occurred in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. For the past two weeks, our collective attention has (rightfully) been focused on the outpouring of support for students and their families.
Despite the emotional turmoil this event has caused, the teenage survivors of the school shooting in Parkland are undeniably emerging as the next leaders in the gun control debate by creating a moment of youth activism not seen in decades. Where do these young people get their resolve? Certainly from their parents . . . and teachers . . . and friends . . . but maybe, just maybe, the ideals of courage, sincerity, and activism are part of the grit of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School its self. After all, would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
(Note: The following information has been aggragated from Douglas's Wikipedia page, obituary, and other sources.)
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Florida Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development.
Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over a hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes.
After taking a degree in English at Wellesley College, that career began in 1914 when her father set up the Herald. Marjory worked as a reporter and then society editor on the paper, and then served in Europe in the American Red Cross in the later stages of the First World War. At this time she contracted a brief, unhappy marriage that ended in 1917.
At war's end she returned to the paper, becoming assistant editor, writing a daily literary column "The Galley". But in 1923 she left the Miami Herald for good to become a freelance writer. She wrote short stories with much distinction, followed in 1951 by her first novel Road to the Sun, set in the Florida of 1845, the year the state joined the Union, and later by a history of Florida and a biography of the environmentalist W.H. Hudson.
But her true cause would be the saving of the Everglades - that vast tract of sub-tropical and tropical wetlands across southern Florida, commonly assumed to be a swamp, but in fact a vast, slow river up to 50 miles wide, ranging in depth between a few inches and a few feet and teeming with some of the richest and the rarest wildlife on the planet.
Her paean to it was The Everglades: River of Grass, published in 1947, the year that President Truman declared 1.5 million acres of the area a protected national park. The book is a wonderful mixture of guide, history and scientific treatise which became a bestseller, based on four years of research and countless trips of exploration across the wilderness of marsh and sawgrass, To this day it is regarded as the most authoritative work on the subject. The acclaim at the time was instant: the New York Herald Tribune called it "a fabulous book of a fabulous Florida".
It was written in longhand, in the study she had built in 1928 across the street from where her father lived in the Miami district of Coconut Grove. Later she extended it into a cottage, and lived there until the day she died.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was small in stature but boundless in energy. Her eccentric ways did nothing to detract from her celebrity. She eschewed such trappings of modern life as the telephone and the car. Her white gloves and floppy hat made her instantly recognisable.
But even her valiant efforts could not stop the slow degradation of the Everglades, threatened by the damming and diversion of the rivers which fed it, by pollution and urban sprawl, and by the "reclamation" of huge tracts of wetland for citrus orchards and sugar cane.
No ecosystem, least of all one as complex and delicate as the Everglades, could withstand the explosive growth of 20th-century Florida. When the Stoneman family arrived, Miami was a frontier city of 5,000 inhabitants, and most of Florida a humid, disease-ridden emptiness. Today the state is the fourth most populous in the US.
Today the Everglades, with its riot of flora and fauna including alligators, the Florida panther of which perhaps 30 remain, the extraordinary plant-eating sea mammal the manatee, as well as 400 species of birds and 1000 species of flowering plants, still awe the visitor. The park's mangrove forests are the largest in the western hemisphere.
But despite being a World Heritage Site, the wetlands are shrinking by the day. Four million acres survive, but that is only a quarter of what there once was. The population of wading birds - including herons, egrets and the rare wood stork - has dropped by 93 per cent since the 1930s.
No one was quicker to understand the danger than Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and none did more to highlight it. In 1969 she created the Friends of the Everglades organisation, to continue her fight. In 1993, at the age of 103, she received the Medal of Freedom, America's highest honour, from President Clinton.
Douglas lived to 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration. Upon her death, an obituary in The Independent in London stated, "In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas."
In the case of the Parkland students and Douglas herself, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As we celebrate Women's History Month, let us keep in mind the activism and grit of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Let us also continue to encourage and pave the way for our new activists rising through the ranks, leaving their footprints on our hearts, minds, and history.
In support of Parkland students and families, you can donate to the Stoneman Douglas Victim's Fund here.
In support of the Florida Everglades and Marjory Stoneman Douglas's passion, you can donate to the Everglades Fund here.
