Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [121]
As we prepared to board our connection for Oklahoma, we realized that my father was not with us. He had left to go to the men’s room and had not returned. “Go see if you can find him,” I told Eric. “We’re getting ready to board.” Panicking at the thought of his eighty-year-old grandfather lost in the airport, my nephew went to find him. He returned with my father in tow just in time for my parents and JoAnn to board the airplane to Tulsa. Our flight to Oklahoma City left a few minutes later.
As I sat on the plane for the short flight from Dallas to Oklahoma City, I tried to anticipate the reception we would receive in that airport. But my apprehension proved unnecessary, as the crowd gathered in the Oklahoma City airport was welcoming. Just as someone had organized the hostile crowd in Dallas, friends had organized this gathering at the airport to make sure that my return there was welcoming. I was just as surprised to get this reception as I had been to receive the jeering in Dallas, not yet grasping the full impact of the situation. I had been in a hotel room shielded from much of the public sentiment for nearly three days. But I began to realize that my life was going to be an unsettling series of ups and downs for the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, I was glad to be home. In less than an hour after I arrived in Oklahoma City, I would give my first comments since testifying. I was happy to be on campus in the student union—a familiar setting. Just prior to my entering the room, I spoke with Charles Ogletree. “You should know that they have people in the crowd who are going to try to discredit your statement,” he warned. I was still unaware of who or what all was behind it. My only response was to stay with the comments I had prepared.
The crowd gathered in the ballroom was much larger and friendlier than I had expected. I looked and saw Frank Elkouri, a retired member of the law school faculty. His face and the face of his wife, Edna, caught my immediate attention. I had known them since I came to Norman in 1986. Their worried though somehow hopeful and smiling presence among the crowd reassured me. I did not know that Frank’s stomach had been wrenched with pain because of my ordeal. Another colleague, Peter Kutner, had taken to driving his car aimlessly for hours the day following my testimony. Others were just angry. The faces in the crowd came into focus as I recovered from the sheer surprise of it all. In the union were people with whom I had worked or served on committees or seen on campus and in the community. All helped to assure me that I had returned home. My brother Ray introduced me over the noise of the crowd. As I approached the microphone, I smiled for the first time in what seemed a long time.
My message was brief. I wanted to reiterate my purpose in going to Washington and the sincerity of my claim. But mostly, I wanted to thank them for their support. In my hotel room Senator Simpson’s Sunday afternoon theatrics about letters from Oklahoma had shaken my confidence. The people present in the room did not share whatever negative sentiment had been conveyed to him—with one notable exception. As Ogletree had warned, a placard held high in the crowd declared that my statement was “not sworn testimony.” Interestingly, though clearly unintentionally, the sign was an implicit endorsement of the statements I’d made in the hearings, which were sworn testimony. The young man holding the sign had apparently anticipated that I would say something about Thomas. Perhaps he even thought that I might attempt to give the further testimony which I agreed to forgo. Oddly, the same misdirected message appeared over and again indicating that, however ill thought out, it was planned. The message on the sign was not as important as the indication that it gave of some organized effort to attack my statements. This kind of organized effort would mean difficulty for me beyond the problems I faced in Washington.
My welcome back