Abby Marlatt: Still a Hero Fifty Years Later

Fifty years ago this week, Abby Marlatt, a white professor of home economics at the University of Kentucky, who had descended from Kansas abolitionists, handed out leaflets urging peace and nuclear disarmament. In my February 24 column about her, I described the incident as follows:

"On August 5, 1962, the day before the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Dr. Marlatt, along with a fellow faculty member, passed out leaflets which pointed out the fact tha

t the Cold War was then in full swing, and that the nuclear weapons in existence in 1962 were far more powerful than those used on Japan. The leaflet, prepared by a peace group in Cincinnati, encouraged students to withhold payment of income taxes as a protest, to refuse to work in war plants, or to register for the draft, or as the pamphlet put it, to return their draft cards if they had registered for the draft already. I suppose in those innocent days, no one thought of burning a draft card."

Because Dr. Marlatt had urged students to resist the draft, and to withhold taxes, she was attacked by some in the University of Kentucky's administration, who sought to have her removed from her position. Ultimately she was removed from her position as head of the home economics department at UK, but through the intervention of Bert Combs, Kentucky's progressive governor, she retained her position, and taught at UK through her retirement.

In this column, I share why she is one of my personal heroes of the civil rights movement. I don't imagine you'll read about this anniversary anywhere else. I will see if I can post a picture of the leaflet she handed out: It is almost innocent by today's standards, but it was enough in 1962 to ruin a career.

http://www.kyforward.com/2012/02/robert-treadway-abby-marlatt-protester-ignited-a-firestorm-that-changed-a-university/