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OUTLAW WOMAN: A MEMOIR OF THE WAR YEARS, 1960-1975 by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Available from City Lights Books, February 2002 ISBN: 0-87286-390-5 Trade paperback original, 340pp $17.95 Pre-order directly from City Lights Books at <http://www.citylights.com/CLorder.html>http://www.citylights.com/CLorder.html or at your favorite independent bookstore.
FROM THE PUBLISHER, CITY LIGHTS BOOKS, SAN FRANCISCO:
In 1968, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz became a founder of the early womens liberation movement. Along with a small group of dedicated women, she produced the seminal journal series, NO MORE FUN AND GAMES.
Dunbar-Ortiz was also a dedicated anti-war activist and organizer throughout the 1960s and 1970s. During the war years she was a fiery, indefatigable public speaker on issues of patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and racism. She worked in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade and formed associations with other revolutionaries across the spectrum of radical and underground politics, including the SDS, the Weather Underground, the Revolutionary Union, and the African National Congress. But unlike the majority of those in the New Left, Dunbar-Ortiz grew up poor, female, and part-Indian in rural Oklahoma, and she often found herself at odds not only with the ruling class but also with the Left and with the womens movement.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a historian and professor in Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies at California State University, Hayward. She is the author of a previous memoir, RED DIRT: GROWING UP OKIE (Verso), and also THE GREAT SIOUX NATION and ROOTS OF RESISTANCE, among other scholarly publications.
ADVANCE COMMENTS ON OUTLAW WOMAN
"I stand in awe of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She is a survivor, capital "S". She was there in the middle of it all. Now I understand what was going on with the movement outside of Indian country during those amazing years. The movement press was a lifeline to us in the American Indian Movement so we knew what was going on, but from a distance. Now OutLaw Women is showing it to us through the eyes of someone who lived it."
-Madonna Gilbert Thunder Hawk, Lakota activist from the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation, and American Indian Movement (AIM) leader at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee
"Official history is told by the conquerors and those in power. That has changed; women and men who have fought the dominant powers challenged the official version, seized control of their voices and opened the collective eye to the prism that history is. Roxanne Dunbar's second memoir is such a challenge. She tells the story of her growth as a woman whose heritage and history had been hidden, cut off. She speaks honestly about conflicts and uncertainties as she moves forward through the 1960s. She explains her growth and becoming as a woman of conscience and political action through the lens of the unofficial history of those who struggled. This book contributes to the dynamic of people's history from a woman's point of view."
-Marilyn Buck, poet, feminist, and political prisoner
"What I like about Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's memoir writings is that she places herself in an historical context. When you read about her life, you also learn history from the perspective of someone who comes from the poor and has fought for the poor. In sharing honestly her mistakes, Roxanne teaches us not to be afraid of contradictions. For anyone who believes the future of humanity necessitates ending corporate greed and power, this book is a must."
-Pamela Chude Allen, founder of Radical Women, author of "Free Space"
"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's OUTLAW WOMAN is a memoir of an extraordinary time in U.S. history, and it is one that doesn't get bogged down in accusation, scandal, or idealistic reverie. The roots of contemporary feminism are here. The United States war in Vietnam is here. Native American and African American struggles are here. And other struggles that shaped generations of U.S. revolutionaries--Cuba, South Africa, Chile, Nicaragua. Roxanne's journey through some of the era's most important movements and events allows us to revisit those times--whatever our own position, then or now. OUTLAW WOMAN is stark, unrelenting, honest, and evocative--of a time when a diverse subculture cared, a time that should make us proud."
-Margaret Randall, poet and memorist
"It's impossible to finish reading this compelling memoir and not think, 'What a totally amazing person!' The book traces the complex, ever-deepening evolution of one feminist determined to help create a better society. But it is also about an entire historical era when people were struggling for social justice around the world and very much so in the U.S. Against such a background, we see this woman become a movement leader, unique in her lower workingclass, "Okie" origin, fighting injustice with a powerful mind and spirit."
-Elizabeth (Betita) Martínez, Chicana activist and author
"Outlaw Woman is the story, bold and honest, of Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz' extraordinary journey--political, ideological, personal--through the Sixties and early Seventies. Coming from a working class upbringing in Oklahoma, she moved in and out of every important feminist and revolutionary movement of that remarkable time in American history. She illuminates all those experiences with unsparing scrutiny and emerges with a fierce, admirable independence."
-Howard Zinn, author of "Peoples History of the United States"
"This is a wonderfully evocative account of a remarkable life: harrowing and joyful, searching and achieving, a life that brings together threads of a complex, troubled, and rewarding era, a life that really made a difference to moving towards a more humane and just world."
-Noam Chomsky
"Dunbar-Ortiz takes us into the heart of the women's liberation movement, grassroots anti-war organizing and solidarity work with third world liberation struggles around the world and in the U.S. Outlaw Woman is a fierce and honest narrative about organizing, resistance, and a passion to remake the world."
—Chris Crass, Food Not Bombs
"Roxanne Dunbar gives the lie to the myth that all New Left activists of the '60s and '70s were spoiled children of the suburban middle classes. Read this book to find out what are the roots of radicalism."
—Mark Rudd, SDS, Columbia University strike leader
"The best of autobiographical works are those that convey, in the telling of one life story, larger truths than those we experience as individuals. To accomplish this feat with seeming effortlessness, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has done with Red Dirt, is to create not only a valuable historical record, but a literary work that is a pleasure to read. Employing the finest storytelling skills, Dunbar-Ortiz lovingly recollects her youth in Oklahoma and the family dynamics she experienced "growing up Okie" during the mid-20th-century. In the process, she touches upon a host of social issues--among them racism, sexism, and economic disparity--that have plagued the U.S. since its earliest days. Perhaps most importantly, she offers one resounding voice from among a vast population--namely, the white underclass--that consistently has been underrepresented in historical texts, and misrepresented in popular culture. Exploding the notion of "poor white trash, Dunbar-Ortiz offers three-dimensional alternative as she reconstructs through her personal memoir the history and struggles of the frontier settler class and its descendants. As we move into the next century, Red Dirt is a text of vital significance to our collective humanity."
-Angela Y. Davis, teacher, activist, author, University of California, Santa Cruz about RED DIRT: GROWING UP OKIE
See: www.reddirtsite.com for more information about RED DIRT.