lgbt-history-archive:“I defend the foreign-born against the present deportation hysteria because of
lgbt-history-archive:“I defend the foreign-born against the present deportation hysteria because of a consciousness that it was the foreign-born and their children who built this nation of ours and who have been its most loyal partners.” – Pearl M. Hart.Picture: Pearl M. Hart (April 7, 1890 – March 22, 1975), c. 1965. c/o @gerberhart..Pearl M. Hart, who was born one hundred and twenty-seven years ago today as Pearl Minnie Harchovsky, was a Chicago attorney who dedicated her life to defending the underrepresented..After being admitted to the bar in 1914, Hart became one of the first female attorneys in Chicago to specialize in criminal law. In her early career, she focused on the needs of young people in the juvenile court system, and then on issues facing women—many of whom were charged with prostitution—passing through the courts. In 1933, Hart volunteered to serve as the first public defender in the city’s morals court, where most of the female defendants were unable to afford counsel. Before Hart took the position, the court’s conviction rate was approximately 90%; within four months of Hart’s arrival, that number dropped to 10%..In the 1950s, Hart helped clients accused of communist subversion. In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court sided with Hart and her client, George Witkovich, holding that non-citizens are protected by the constitutional guarantees of free association and speech..Throughout her career, Hart defended members of Chicago’s queer community against police and other official harassment. Although generally a private person, Hart became more visible in the homophile movement in the 1960s, helping to form Mattachine Midwest and speaking on its behalf..Hart met pulp writer and poet Valerie Taylor in 1961 and the two became partners in 1963; they remained a couple until Hart’s death..Pearl M. Hart died of pancreatic cancer on March 22, 1975; she was eighty-four..Despite Hart’s decades of work for social justice, Valerie Taylor was denied admittance to Hart’s hospital room as she lay dying; by the time Taylor was let in, Hart had slipped into a coma from which she would not wake. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #PearlHart (at Chicago, Illinois)Pearl Hart was also Jewish, and her father was an Orthodox rabbi, whom she would quote in her speeches. It was an essential part of her activism and her identity. Her moral clarity, and passionate advocacy for the protection of society’s most vulnerable, including children, migrants and the “foreign born,” and the LGBTQ community, is more relevant today than ever. -- source link
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