Molly Ivins Supported the IAF in Life and Death
By Zeik Saidman, former IAF organizer and current leader in IAF Colorado.
 Zeik Saidman
September 2015:
Molly Ivins Supported the IAF in Life and Death For IAF leaders, speaking truth to power is a core value. Author and newspaper columnist Molly Ivins epitomized that value and continues to provide support, humor and in some cases inspiration to the Industrial Areas Foundation network even today, eight years after her death. For me, Molly was more than an exceptional writer and political commentator. She was a friend. Ernie Cortes introduced us in 1982. It was during the time when I was the first lead organizer for the IAF in Fort Worth, Texas, building an organization that would become Allied Communities of Tarrant. Ernie, my IAF supervisor, knew Molly from his small circle of politically courageous Texas liberals. At the time Molly was becoming a famous (or some would say infamous) columnist for the Dallas-Times Herald. Her book, Molly Ivins Can Say That, Can She?, would not be published for almost 10 years. However, she already had built a reputation as an equal opportunity critic of elected officials, regardless of their political affiliation. The title of the book came from the phrase plastered on billboards all over Dallas by the Times-Herald after she wrote a column about Texas Congressman Jim Collins (R) and said, “If his IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.” While Molly had little patience with Texas politicians, she had a great deal of respect for the skills and talents of community organizers. At the Southwest IAF Leadership Training in November 2014, Sister Christine Stevens reminisced with wry laughter about a column Molly wrote titled, “Three Nuns Along the Border,” about the work of Sister Christine, Sister Pearl and Sister Minyon. When Ernie was awarded the MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1984 for his accomplishments through community organizing in Texas and other cities, Molly wrote about it, coining the familiar expression “genius grant.” She even mentioned me in one of her columns, praising the work that I was doing in Fort Worth. So I was taken aback when a former colleague called from Seattle to say that the Bush White House had just announced the news of her death. She succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 62 on January 31, 2007. When I received the call, I was in a coffee shop with my friend Jack Cox, planning a trip to Austin to see her because we knew she was gravely ill. Molly had told me to look up Jack when I moved to Denver in late 1984. Jack was a Denver Post reporter who had attended Columbia Journalism School with Molly where both were Niamey Fellows. Now instead of visiting Molly, we made plans to attend her funeral in Austin. The service was held at the First Methodist Church near the “Lege” as she referred to the Texas Legislature. The sanctuary and balcony were jammed with her family, friends and “beloveds” (what she called her readers). In one of the most memorable moments, a speaker quoted from one of her columns that said, “Beloveds, next time I tell you not to vote for a Texas governor for president, please listen to me.” The sanctuary exploded with laughter and hooting, and everyone stood up spontaneously to applaud. After the service, we attended a reception at an iconic beer garden that has been a gathering place for Texans for generations. Scholz’s Garten was one of Molly’s favorite restaurants. There I saw Ernie for the first time in over 20 years. The next day, Jack, his daughter Molly (named after Ivins) and I flew back to Denver. I thought I had buried a good friend and that would be the end of it. It did not turn out that way. In 2009, Sandy Horwitt invited me to attend a luncheon at the University of Chicago to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Saul Alinsky’s birth. Sandy was the author of one of the best known books on Alinsky, Let Them Call Me Rebel: The Life and Legacy of Saul Alinsky. Sandy told me that he had received funding to travel the country to speak about Saul to people who didn’t know about him. Sandy asked if I could put something together in Denver. Securing a rare joint sponsorship from the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Denver, I brought Sandy to speak at a church. Over 125 people attended, including many millennials who were our target audience. Celebrating the success of the event over drinks, I mentioned to Sandy that my wife, Alana, and I had been good friends of Molly Ivins. Sandy got a quizzical look on his face. In an amazing coincidence, his twin sisters-in-law had just finished writing a play on the life of Molly Ivins, and Kathleen Turner had been approached to portray her onstage. (Ann Richards, the former Governor of Texas, Kathleen and Molly knew each other and frequently went out together when they all were in New York City. Oh my). The play, The Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit Molly Ivins, premiered at the Philadelphia Theater Company that spring, and Sandy arranged tickets for Alana and me. We attended the premiere with an old friend from Philadelphia who lived near the theater and had been one of Molly’s beloveds. In retrospect, it seems like fate that we were seated among several journalists from Des Moines, Iowa who had made the trip by train. My wife had attended Grinnell, so she enjoyed bantering with the Iowans before the play began. Molly’s column was syndicated in the Des Moines Register (as well as almost 400 other newspapers) and the playwrights, Margaret and Allison Engel, both worked at the Register. At a reception after the show, I told Kathleen Turner that she had captured Molly’s essence beautifully. Then, like a character out of an old Mickey Rooney film, I told Alana that I was going to bring the show to Denver. I was still working at the University of Colorado Denver as a public facilitator, but I controlled my own schedule, so when time permitted and using skills learned at the IAF, I set up one-on-one meetings with the artistic directors of local theater companies. Even though The Red Hot Patriot had been nominated for a Pulitzer, I was turned down nine times by those artistic directors! The play was too political, some said. It is not our brand; we already have our season set; the timing isn’t right; the play won’t sell to our audience; my schedule is too full to take this on; etc. I took those rejections personally even though my old organizing friend, Greg Pierce, said I was wrong about that. He said I wouldn’t have kept going if I took it personally. My work as an IAF organizer as a young man had toughened me up. 
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Molly Ivins with Ethan Saidman in 2003
Molly with Saidman and group at The
Buckhorn circa 1989
My tenth one-on-one meeting was with Brian Freeman, an artistic director I met through a colleague who had worked in theater. After some deliberation and persuasion by me, Brian agreed to take the risk to direct and produce Red Hot Patriot. Brian’s small company, the LIDA Project, was known for experimental theater productions – not for political ones.The Denver Post’s theater and film critic Lisa Kennedy did a story about the RHP opening at LIDA Project’s black box theater. In another small-world coincidence, Lisa had known Molly through Ellen Sweets, a Denver Post reporter who was a close friend of Molly. Ellen had written a book about their relationship: Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins: A Memoir with Recipes.
The box office answering service almost short-circuited with requests for tickets after Lisa’s story. The play sold out and we extended the run a week by moving the show to a theater in Aurora where it sold out again. The play won the “Best Political Theater” award from Westword (Denver’s well-read alternative newspaper) in the annual awards for “Best of Denver in 2013.” The actress, Rhonda Brown, who played Molly, was nominated for a prestigious local award for her performance. As a neophyte producer, I was thrilled. The response in Denver to the RHP exceeded all our expectations. The success made me want to see if we could hit another home run. I always harbored the idea of taking the play to Boulder. Molly had been a very popular speaker at the Conference on World Affairs, where she would fill the 2,000-seat Macky Auditorium for the free program on the University of Colorado campus. The question was, would people who had heard Molly for free be willing to pay to see a play about her life? The answer was a resounding “yes.” In addition to the scheduled performances, Brian and I took a gamble and added three shows at the Diary Center for the Arts Theater in Boulder. We sold out two of the three new performances. The Red Hot Patriot shows overlapped with visits to Denver by Frank Pierson and Paul Turner who were exploring the possibility of starting an IAF project in Colorado. While both were supportive neither of them could attend the show, however, Paul expressed interest in bringing the Red Hot Patriot to Des Moines for an AMOS (A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy) fundraiser. AMOS had used plays to raise money in the past, but hadn’t done so in recent years. At least six months went by before Paul decided to pursue the idea. I helped broker a deal between AMOS and Richard Pegg, the new director of the Denver production of the RHP. For $6,000, the Denver company (An Every Man Theater Production) would travel to Iowa and perform three shows in Des Moines and one show in Ames. Marketing would be AMOS’s responsibility. In the playbill, AMOS’s leadership team wrote a producer’s note: WARNING! You are about to be offended. Your delicate sensibilities could be disturbed, including your deep admiration for elected officials, political parties, members of the Bush family, the U.S. Congress, the Office of the Presidency and the Texas State Legislature. Thank you for paying in advance! Molly was outspoken, fearless, blunt, irreverent, deeply skeptical, curious, angry and nearly always hilarious. Come to think of it, those are the qualities AMOS teaches every day to its many volunteer leaders to equip them to become faithful citizens. All the profits from the ticket sales, ads, donations, etc., went directly to AMOS. After all the bills were paid, AMOS netted around $14,000. Paul said that the leadership felt it was a big success for the amount work it took in bringing the Red Hot Patriot to Iowa. Of course, all IAF leaders debrief public actions, and the AMOS leaders felt that they made a couple of mistakes with the RHP. They thought they should have charged more for tickets and used the venue to tout what AMOS is engaged in, using “curtain speeches” prior to the performance. Another quirk of history happened earlier in the year with Molly and the IAF. The highly respected liberal newspaper, the Texas Observer, of which Molly was co-editor in the early 1970s, recognized seven Texans in connection with the newspaper’s 60th anniversary. It profiled these leaders as major changed makers in the state. Ernie Cortes was acknowledged as one of those individuals. Molly would have been delighted. So if your IAF organization is looking for a fundraising idea, I recommend bringing the Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins to your city. (The Denver production company is open to invitations.) I assure you the audiences will find the play uproarious, poignant, relevant and meaningful. Quoting the AMOS producer’s note again, … (Molly) established herself as a nationally syndicated columnist who wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power. In so many ways, she was a kindred spirit. |
Acta Publications has developed a series of booklets on “The Skills of Organizing”. Zeik’s own fine contribution is titled Mixing It Up in the Public Arena. In it he explores the roots of his passion for a more just society. He writes, “I was drawn to be an advocate for the disadvantaged and the underdogs of our society, whether I was working as a community organizer, union organizer or even a mayoral aide. Perhaps this commitment was shaped by my childhood experiences when we were the only Jewish family in a small town in rural Pennsylvania and I learned to readily identify with the feeling of being the outsider. I also read Holocaust literature growing up, and the dismay and rage I felt about what the Nazis did to those who were considered inferior peoples (gays, Slavs, Gypsies, Jews) gave me the cold anger and determination to fight for the have-nots."
“The fights were never easy and we didn't win them all, but in thinking about what kept me going from the time I was an innocent man in his early twenties until I had become a worldly old hand in his mid-sixties, I have to admit a big part was the excitement of political battle.”
“The fights were never easy and we didn't win them all, but in thinking about what kept me going from the time I was an innocent man in his early twenties until I had become a worldly old hand in his mid-sixties, I have to admit a big part was the excitement of political battle.”
