Rogers Ridge, VA
Granny D Speaks to Appalachia
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Granny D, an outspoken critic of Bush administration policies, gained national recognition in 1999-2000 by walking 3,200 miles from Pasadena, Calif., to Washington, D.C., spreading the word about campaign finance reform. She is 93. She delivered the following speech when she stopped in Charleston, S.C., on Nov. 6, 2003.
Note: In her speech Granny D references Laura Forman, organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and a driving force behind citizens groups’ efforts against mountaintop removal mining. Laura died suddenly on Dec. 10, 2001 during a rally at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Huntington, W.V. She was 39.
Granny D:
The poles of our earth are melting and our mad addiction to oil and coal are distorting our international politics, leading us to do great harm around the world and prompting the destruction of our own mountains, streams, air, jobs and communities. We come to a time now when our planet and its atmosphere and its oceans and rivers and its fragile web of living creatures are most at risk and yet our leaders are remarkably unwilling to lead us with creativity or even sanity.
I am here to congratulate you for keeping your eye on the ball–the beautiful blue-green ball that runs around the Sun in the company of Venus and Mars. This ball we live upon and protect for the generations to come.
You fight at a high and strategic level for the defense of life itself, the earth itself, and for love itself.
You fight strategically, such as your current effort to cut the strings of obligation that now characterize our campaign finance system. Your Clean Elections Bill -providing public funding of elections, is critically strategic. I hope you all help make that happen.
Insist on clean elections for a clean earth.
Our opponents carve off the top of the mountains, fill in the valleys–covering a thousand miles of fresh streams with sludge and rubble. The coal itself is burned for a cheap energy fix, though it is the largest contributor to global warming and toxic air pollution.
According to research funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund, the pollution from coal-based electric utilities east of the Mississippi River causes 6,000 early deaths a year. That is twice the toll of the World Trade Center attack and it is domestic terrorism. It is a threat to our homeland’s security.
It comes down to a young mother standing out in her lawn and tiny flakes of something fall from the sky and she knows she must do something to protect her family and her world. That’s the way it was for Laura Forman as she stood in front of her little farm in Kenova, West Virginia.
And as a child, here she is, a little redhead growing up. Her father is mowing the yard, but it is taking him a very long time, as it always does, because little Laura crawls in front of him to save the little creatures, the tiny frogs and other fellows, who live in the lawn.
As a teenager, she would sometimes go down the road to clean up areas of the forest near her home, taking away the litter to make it beautiful again. She loved the birds so much that she married the closest thing to one she could find–an air traffic controller and bird lover named Mike.
She fought so hard and wore herself out, trying to protect her mountains and this world. Her great heart gave out nearly two years ago now. But in her life she encouraged many a hero in the coal fields to stand up and do the right thing.
People like Laura, and I am looking at them, provide the real homeland defense for all of us. They are not distracted. They have their eye on the blue-green ball.
Homeland defense starts with our air, our water, our mountains, our communities, our Bill of Rights that lets us do the right thing and speak out and protest. Like Laura did.
And in every fight, we must work happily. We must work in love. We have entered an amazing time, when each of us has an important role to play. That time is now. It is the best time ever to be alive on this earth, because everyone matters. Everyone is needed if we are to survive. Your creativity, your love, your courage–all of it. As the smoke of battle swirls around you, smile. It is a privilege to be alive in such a time.
I applaud you. I encourage you to continue to be heroes of this great planet. Be like Laura, full of love and energy. Follow great people, and lead great people and always, always keep your eye on the blue-green ball. Be like Laura, always letting your loving heart be your strength and your guide. Be like Laura, always remembering that we cannot do for the world what we cannot first do for our friends, our family and the sweet loves of our lives.
Thank you.
Visit Granny D.’s Web site. Click here.
Taken courtesy of
