ABSTRACT
I probably have human rights in my family unconscious, if there is such a thing. I am a descendant of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a founder of the Woman’s Liberation Movement, and of Henry Brewster Stanton, an ardent abolitionist. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s portrait hung over my great-grandfather’s mantle in Johnstown, New York. I grew up in the home of Howard Stanton, a Presbyterian pastor, and Alison Stanton, an English teacher. While my father was a student at Oberlin in 1942, he led the first sit-in in the United States, to integrate the town barbershop. In the small Illinois town where I grew up, Dad was the pastor of the elite church in town. When community leaders asked him to head the campaign to raise funds for a new swimming pool, his barber tipped him that they intended to exclude Negroes. Dad went to them and quietly told them that he would not only refuse to raise the money if they did so, but would denounce a segregated pool from the pulpit. The leaders backed down, Dad raised the money, and the town got an integrated swimming pool.
