When Texas columnist, journalist, and humorist Molly Ivins spoke about her friend, Ann Richards in an interview a month after Richards’ death, she said:
Let’s talk about Annie. I’ve been writing about her and thinking about her, and what I remember is that the ’90 campaign was so crazy. I mean, there was Ann, running as the New Texas, against Clayton Williams, who kept personifying the Old Texas, right down to the boots and the racist and sexist comments. She represented inclusion—it was about bringing people in who had never been part of the good-old-boy establishment.
In her eulogy for Richards, who had just died of cancer (which Ivins would also succumb to in 2007), she shared:
One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, “My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic.”
She devoted untold hours to helping other alcoholics, and anyone who ever heard her speak at an AA convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.
Though Ann Richards would serve only one term as the Democratic governor of Texas, from 1991 to 1995, she would place her brand on history and affect the role of women in politics for generations to follow.
The definitive book on her life and legacy is Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards, by Jan Reid, who was a longtime friend.
When Ann Richards delivered the keynote of the 1988 Democratic National Convention and mocked President George H. W. Bush—“Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth”—she instantly became a media celebrity and triggered a rivalry that would alter the course of American history. In 1990, Richards won the governorship of Texas, upsetting the GOP’s colorful rancher and oilman Clayton Williams. The first ardent feminist elected to high office in America, she opened up public service to women, blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, gays, and the disabled. Her progressive achievements and the force of her personality created a lasting legacy that far transcends her rise and fall as governor of Texas.
In Let the People In, Jan Reid draws on his long friendship with Richards, interviews with her family and many of her closest associates, her unpublished correspondence with longtime companion Bud Shrake, and extensive research to tell a very personal, human story of Ann Richards’s remarkable rise to power as a liberal Democrat in a conservative Republican state. Reid traces the whole arc of Richards’s life, beginning with her youth in Waco, her marriage to attorney David Richards, her frustration and boredom with being a young housewife and mother in Dallas, and her shocking encounters with Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. He follows Richards to Austin and the wild 1970s scene and describes her painful but successful struggle against alcoholism. He tells the full, inside story of Richards’s rise from county office and the state treasurer’s office to the governorship, where she championed gun control, prison reform, environmental protection, and school finance reform, and he explains why she lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush, which evened his family’s score and launched him toward the presidency. Reid describes Richards’s final years as a world traveler, lobbyist, public speaker, and mentor and inspiration to office holders, including Hillary Clinton. His nuanced portrait reveals a complex woman who battled her own frailties and a good-old-boy establishment to claim a place on the national political stage and prove “what can happen in government if we simply open the doors and let the people in.”
Mary L. Sheer writes, in her review of the book for The Historian:
Born Dorothy Ann Willis in 1933, Ann was the child of a "dirt poor" family during the Depression. She met and later married David Richards, a tall, handsome, and erudite young man, who introduced her to a wider world of social causes and liberal politics. But like many other young wives, Ann conformed to traditional roles and expectations for women in the 1950s: "We got married, we had babies," she recalled. She also received a college degree and took a job as a social studies teacher, a common career path for women. However, she quickly grew dissatisfied with the gendered role she inherited. Ann observed that "it [domesticity] just bored the living hell out of me" (409).
As the Richards family grew, Ann sought intellectual and emotional outlets outside the home. She became involved with the Young Democrats and joined several activist organizations. She also took part in civil rights marches and political campaigns. Gradually, through her volunteer efforts, she developed organizational and political skills, finding her own voice.
Richards's emergence as a national figure in feminist politics began with her work for Texas Representative Sarah Weddington; after that the pace quickened. She won election as a Travis County Commissioner, delivered her first major political speech at the National Women's Conference, and successfully ran twice for state treasurer.
The Richards had four children: Cecile, Daniel, Clark, and Ellen. When I asked my Women’s Studies students about Ann Richards, they didn’t know her name, but were very aware of her daughter Cecile Richards, who is president of Planned Parenthood.
As mentioned above, Richards was propelled to national and international attention because of her now iconic keynote speech delivered at the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.
(full transcript here)
Though Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis would lose against George Bush that year, many one-liners from her speech have lived on, like “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
Her quip about George Bush still elicits deep chuckles: “Poor George, he can't help it—he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.“
In the meatier content she addressed a wide range of issues: Social Security, AIDS, the auto industry, clean air and clean water, and the climate. She spoke to the diverse group, and regions that make up our nation:
We've been told - we've been told that the interests of the South and Southwest are not the same interests as the North and the Northeast. They pit one group against the other. They've divided this country. And in our isolation we think government isn't going to help us, and we're alone in our feelings - we feel forgotten.
Well the fact is, we're not an isolated piece of their puzzle. We are one nation, we are the United States of America!
Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women.
Her speech was greeted with thunderous applause and it enhanced her public profile both nationally and at home. In 1990 she entered the Texas race for governor against Republican Clayton Williams. It was an uphill and ugly battle but Williams made a series of errors :
In one of his widely publicized missteps, Williams refused to shake hands with Ann Richards in a public debate, an act seen as uncouth...Republican political activist Susan Weddington of San Antonio, a Williams supporter, placed a black wreath that read "Death to the Family" at the door of Ann Richards's campaign headquarters in Austin. At the 1990 state Republican convention, Weddington participated in a prayer rally and called upon the Almighty to "watch over the caucus rooms and the convention hall"...
During the campaign, Williams publicly made a joke likening the crime of rape to bad weather, having stated: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it" (the statement had previously caused controversy amongst women's groups over the same statement by basketball coach Bob Knight, and caused WABC-TV weatherman Tex Antoine to be fired after making the same comment on a weather report that followed a news report about a child rape)...
Williams eventually lost the race despite leading Richards by 11 points as late as August and outspending her by almost 2-to-1. During his concession speech, Texas television stations showed Williams glibly telling supporters: "I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that we lost; the good news is that it is not the end of the world." When the crowd urged him to try again in four years, he told his supporters, "I may be an Aggie, but I am not crazy."
Thankfully for those of you who are too young to remember her, there is a wealth of interview footage, now available online.
In January, 2003, Ann Richards sat down with James Henson of the Texas Politics Project to be interviewed about her career in politics. Topics included her early interest in politics, her term as governor, women in politics, the prospects of the Democratic Party at the time of the interview, and more.
HBO produced a documentary, titled All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State.
Richards may no longer be with us, but she has left an indelible legacy behind.
The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders
The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders (ARS) is an all-girls public school serving grades 6 – 12 for the Austin Independent School District. On August 27, 2007 the school welcomed its first 6th and 7th grade classes, adding one grade level each academic year until all grades were represented in the fall of 2012.
Governor Ann Richards was instrumental in developing the school’s vision. Founded to give young women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds the skills and confidence necessary to pursue college educations and careers, it now stands as one of the largest single-gender public schools in the nation and a tribute to the enduring legacy of Governor Richards.
Today, approximately 800 students represent a student body that reflects Austin’s diverse community. Each Ann Richards Star receives a world-class education thanks to a public-private partnership between the Austin Independent School District, and the Dallas-based Young Women’s Preparatory Network (YWPN), and the Ann Richards School Foundation. At ARS, the mission is to ensure that students are not only admitted to college, but are also equipped to graduate from the college of their choice.
With more than 30 years of sobriety under my belt today, she was a power of example for me. Women who deal with alcoholism and other addictions are often far more stigmatized than men.
Author Steve Young interviewed Richards about her alcoholism and entrance into the recovery process:
I always had such high expectations of myself. Whatever it was, I was going to be the best...the best mother, the best wife, the best entertainer, the best nurse. Of course, I could never live up to those expectations. So I drank. When I drank it repressed all my feelings of inadequacy. It made me feel cuter, funnier and smarter. Some people can have a couple of drinks and stop. With me there was no stopping. As years went on I needed to have more and more alcohol just to feel what a little alcohol used to do for me.
It was while was working very hard as county commissioner that I realized my marriage was falling apart. My drinking became worse, not because of the marriage, but because it lessened the pain of living. I knew something was wrong. One day I told my doctor that I thought I drank too much. He asked me how much I drank. Now, if you're an addict -- you're a liar. I told him I might have, two, three, maybe four martinis before dinner. He said he drank that much himself. So much for medical help.
In January of 1980, a friend tricked me into coming over her father's house where I was surprised by a group of my friends and family. There were so many there it looked like the Last Supper. They had planned an intervention in which each person took turns telling me what I had done to embarrass them when I drank. It was frightening. I was on an airplane that afternoon to St. Mary's in Minneapolis. I haven't had a drink since. That was over twenty years ago.
Worldwide, many members of Alcoholics Anonymous have heard the tape of her speaking at the Celebration of Recovery on September 29, 1995 in Dallas, Texas, when she had achieved 15 years of sobriety. Maura Casey wrote “Ann R. Alcoholic,” for the New York Times:
In so many ways, her decision to stop drinking and enter a rehabilitation program in 1980, after a painful intervention by family and friends, was necessary for her continued rise in public life. What made Ms. Richards different was her decision to be forthright about the fact that she was a recovering alcoholic. She didn’t hide it. “I like to tell people that alcoholism is one of my strengths,” she said. She was right. Alcoholics know that seeds of healthy recovery grow from the need to mend their own flaws to stay sober, one day at a time. Ms. Richards faced her imperfections fearlessly, and that enabled others to be fearless, too, if only for a little while.
She never stopped helping people. One well-known author said the first mail she received after enrolling in a rehabilitation program was an encouraging letter from Ms. Richards. A politician who left rehab and wondered how on earth he was going to avoid drinking when he got home well after midnight found Ms. Richards waiting for him when he arrived. As governor, she started treatment programs in Texas prisons. When she visited, she would tell the inmates the simple truth: “My name’s Ann, and I’m an alcoholic.” Her imperfection had become a source of inspiration for others.
Ann Richards was funny, wise and compassionate. At 73, she died too soon. But she died sober.
I had the chance along with other New York Daily Kos members to attend Holland Taylor’s one-woman show, titled Ann, which is now on tour.
Taylor brought her back to life for some of us who remembered her—and for new generations that didn’t. Here’s a clip from the Chicago production.
Kudos to Holland Taylor for her gifted portrayal.
More importantly: Thank you, Ann Richards, for breaking barriers—Texas style.
One day soon, we, the people you fought so hard to include, may have a gift for you in return: A blue Texas.