Historic Quote:”All I want to be is human and American and have all the same rights and I will shut up.” Martha Griffiths
Many members of Congress are associated with attempted passage of the Equal Rights Amendment but one, Martha Griffiths of Michigan, was without question the mother of the movement in Congress. Griffiths may
not have had the satisfaction of seeing ERA enacted but she would still make history in her state and nationally. By including Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, she would change In Congress, she’d
become the first female to serve on the prestigious Ways and Means Committee. And late in her career, she would serve two-terms as Lieutenant Governor of the “Wolverine State.” And at the close of her career, she would be the only woman in Michigan to have served in all three branches of state government.
It is not just ERA for which Griffiths was in the forefront. She was the prime sponsor of major health care legislation with Ted Kennedy on the Senate side. For Michigan, she was a prime movers of
the bill to repeal the auto excise tax.
But she did have a major and lasting success and that is evident in the Civil Rights Act. She succeeded in having the word “sex” added. Her success may have been part of a ploy on the part of Rules Committee Chair Howard K. Smith, a Virginian who opposed the bill and hoped to kill it in the floor by adding as many controversial amendments as possible. This would be one of them. But Griffiths knew that Smith’s backing meant the support of a large number of rank and file legislators.
During the debate, Smith read a letter from a constituent noting there were 2.6 million “extra females” than men. Smith said she asked Congress to correct that discrepancy by passing legislation equalizing the number of males. The gallery erupted in laughter. Griffiths responded by saying, “I presume that if there had been any necessity to point out that women were a second-class sex, the laughter would have proved it.” The amendment passed the House and made it into the final law.
Griffith with her nemesis on the Civil Rights bill, Howard K.Smith and another Congresswoman, Katherine St. George (Library of Congress)
Ironically, Griffith’s sole female colleague to oppose the measure was Oregon’s Edith Green, who was sponsoring Tiltle IX (see next piece). She strongly backed it, but was worried that it could kill the whole Civil Rights bill.
Shortly after taking office, Griffith’s would become despondent that a woman’s children could not collect her Social Security after she died, but a man’s could.The tax laws did not exempt women from paying for money in their husband’s will, but not reversed. Griffiths said, “I am tired of paying into a pension fund to support your widow but not my widower.” Griffith’s won her changes.
Griffiths had proven herself before, as early as her high school days, in Pierce City, Missouri,
when she awed classmates and faculty with her debating skills Her mother took on extra jobs to allow Griffith’s to further her education, which she did at the University of Missouri. She then attended the University of Michigan Law School where she would write on the Michigan Law Review, she would meet her future husband, Hicks Griffith, and their marriage in 1934 would make them the first husband-wife graduate at the University. The marriage would endure 62 years and would be a true partnership — literally.
Griffith and her husband would form a law partnership with her husband, “Griffith and
Griffith,” which would also take on the soon-to-be Governor, G. Mennen Williams, as a partner. She lost her first bid for the legislature but won the second time, in 1948 and organize, with Hicks, the Michigan Democratic Club, an alternative to the party leadership they were far from enchanted with.
Griffith’s would run for Congress in 1952 and campaign in a house-trailer, serving voters cookies. But Republicans were seizing control of Congress that year and Republican Charles Oakman won the seat. Williams would name her to the Detroit Recorder’s Court, the first woman to hold that post, where she confessed that “it is at least an unusual experience to assist for four years in making the laws of this state, and then sit as a judge of people charged with breaking those laws.” Women in Congress notes she conducted more than 430 cases in little more than a year. For in 1954, she’d be running for Congress again, and this time, she’d succeed. The house-trailer was revived, and Griffith upon winning said, “I owe my election to all the girls who went out and rang doorbells and invited housewives to meet me.”
After her first few electoral scares, Griffith’s popularity would be so sky high that until she retired in 1974, she’d coast, even as conservative enclaves were added to her district. Until 1962, she never took more than 60%. After, she never took less than 66%.
At first, Griffiths was so disenchanted with the Congressional system that in 1959, she’d actually seek to return to her Detroit Recorder’s Judgeship. Fortunately for women’s rights, she’d lose.
For her fight for the ERA was just beginning. Supporters had been seeking it since 1923. Griffith’s herself had been introducing ERA for years but, by 1970, the tide began to turn. Supporters were able to get the measure on the floor by way of a discharge position in 1970. It cleared the House but fell three
votes shy of a 2/3 majority in the Senate. Majority Whip Hale Boggs was one signer, but only after initially refusing. He had told Griffith’s he would be the 200th signaturee, not expecting she’d succeed. He was flabbergasted when she brought him the petition the second time, with 199 below his. He fulfilled his promise.
The original draft of the ERA, 1923 (National Archives)
During debate, Judiciary Committee Chair Emanuel Celler said “neither the national women’s party
nor the delightful, delectable, and dedicated gentlelady from Michigan can change nature. They cannot do it.” Griffith’s would say “before I leave this earth, I would like to know they have given women the same benefits and promotions as men.”
A colleague called her “tough as alligator skin” with “a steel-trap mind.” Common Dreams said she “pursued passage of the amendment calmly, with the persuasive skill of the trial lawyer
she once was.” The Guardian said, “the weapons she deployed during her 10-term congressional career included implacable determination, a lawyer’s grasp of procedural niceties, and a tongue like a
blacksmith’s rasp.”
At one, point, she engaged in a debate with Phyllis Schafley over the issue that became so heated that an event organizer, Rosemary Mullaney, quipped that “if we had five minutes more, they would have
killed each other.” For Griffith’s voting record reflected suburban Detroit like a “t.” Against busing but otherwise liberal.
Griffiths with Clark Thompson, 1962 (Historic Images)
Gerald Ford, who served with her for 19 years said of Griffith’s, “she was smart, she knew the rules, and she had deep convictions.”
Members of Congress and witnesses got to know the fierce, courtroom style of Griffith’s in other ways. She wrote to the manager of an airline who fired a woman because she was about to be married, and bluntly stated: “You point out that you are asking a bona fide occupational exception that a stewardess be young, attractive and single. What are you running, an airline or a whorehouse?”
Tired, Griffith’s did not seek re-election in 1974. But eight years later, she’d return to the fray when Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jim Blanchard, on the advice of his wife, picked her to be his running mate. The ticket was elected and re-elected handily in ’86.
Griffith with running mate Jim Blanchard. He’d later dump her as a running mate and lose his re-election (Griffithleadershipsociety.com)
In 1990, Blanchard, at the time a heavy favorite for re-election, removed
Griffiths from her spot on the ticket because he no longer felt she
was capable of assuming the Governorship on a moment’s notice. to
which Griffith’s replied with characteristic bluntness, “you help some son-of-a-bitch get elected.”
On Election Day, Blanchard was defeated in one of the biggest
Gubernatorial upsets in recent history. Griffiths would later say she
felt “bad for him, but he took some very bad advice.”
Griffith would live to 91, passing in 2003 seven years after her beloved Hicks, for whom she cared for when he was ill.
Robert Frost once said, “I have miles to go before I sleep.” On ERA. Griffith began the first lap of the journey for a project that is still incomplete. But her leadership paved the way for future successes that have yet to arrive.
ERA still eludes us but the legacy of Martha Griffith endures.