Susan Saxe

Sometimes it's Very Hard for a Woman to Make Herself Heard! [Poster]

Philadelphia & West Somerville: Susan Saxe Defense Fund/Susan Saxe Defense Committee. 1975. Offset-printed poster on yellow paper (14-3/4 x 17-3/4 inches).
Poster printed to raise funds and support for the legal defense of Weather Underground member, feminist activist, and Brandeis graduate, Susan Saxe. Up until the day of her arrest, Susan Saxe was a member of the far-left militant group since 1970, radicalized during her undergraduate studies at Brandeis University. She was known for participating in several politically-motivated violent acts with the group on the east coast. Initially, a 1 September 1970 Philadelphia bank robbery, where she allegedly possessed an unlit molotov cocktail. She then stole materials from a Massachusetts National Guard Armory at an unknown date. And then, participating in a 23 September 1970 Boston bank robbery in which a policeman was killed by one of her accomplices. Susan Saxe then disappeared herself, and from the smoke emerged a new person who found a new life as a scholarly karate teacher in West Philadelphia.
She lived underground for nearly five years concurrent with her time on the FBI's 10 most wanted list (April 1970 - March 1975) before she was collared by a Philadelphia police officer, Joseph Reid, on 27 March 1975. From memory of the most wanted photograph, Reid spotted Saxe as she walked down the street with her lover, Byrna Aronson, who only knew her to that day as "Val Woolf" before her identity was confirmed by the FBI with her fingerprints and distinctive dark eye floater near her left pupil.
Soon after her hearing on 12 May 1975, Aronson read the polemical anthem Saxe had written while in custody that March, "A greeting to all my sisters. Courage, especially to my sisters underground in America. Stay free, stay strong. I intend to fight on in every way as a lesbian, a feminist and an amazon. The love I share with my sisters is a far more formidable weapon than the police state can bring against us. Keep growing, keep strong. I am a free woman and I can keep strong. Pass the word. I am unafraid."
Her words galvanized members of fraught gay communities across the U.S. who embraced her as a freedom fighter and folk hero, shamelessly charged for a murder of a cop whose life was taken by a trigger-happy false comrade and ex-con, William Gilday. Having already been targeted with prejudice in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and families, LGBTQ community members now faced routine harassment in the FBI's dragnet for Saxe. The Feds' multi-state womanhunt led to the arrest of many who refused to cooperate with the bureau.
The FBI had made routine the task of deeply troubling members of vulnerable grassroots communities---a condition re-affirmed by Aronson in a statement to the press in May 1975, "The issue here isn't Susan Saxe. The issue is the FBI coming down heavy on lesbian communities. There's a sense that the FBI would really like to infiltrate and find out what's going on." A sentiment that was often reinforced by allies, specifically in Cincinnati at the local National Organization for Women (NOW) where the rape-crisis center was closely monitored and known lesbians interrogated on mere suspicion of lifestyle.
The investigators sensationalized every aspect of their private lives, which made it easy for media outlets across the U.S. to slander their identities and sexuality---people being outed to their families in newspapers was par for the course during the search for Saxe.
With support, Susan Saxe never pivoted from her position to defend feminist rights and resist oppression by any means necessary. Outside the courtroom, a coalition grew, communities in solidarity with her sound feminist ideology coalesced as the Susan Saxe Defense Fund/Susan Saxe Defense Committee. Support came easy from Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, the Berrigan brothers, William Kunstler, clergyman and activists around the world. "Sometimes It's Very Hard for a Woman to Make Herself Heard!" with Saxe's accompanying illustration of a rifle-toting, bonneted girl became a fortifying image of militant feminism and anti-Patriarchal thought for it's day, present in periodicals, posters, fliers, and even t-shirts and miscellaneous promotional materials to raise awareness of the trial and Saxe's representation of contemporary radical ideologies.
She was defended by Nancy Gertner, in her premier case, who would later serve as a district judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (1994-2011). Saxe would end up serving 8 years of a sentence for armed robbery and manslaughter, before being released from Framingham Correctional Facility in 1982. After being released she pursued a career centered around environmental and ecological justice.
Only other known copy of this poster has Defense Committee information on bottom extending dimensions several inches further in length, justifying noticeable signs of cutting in this poster.
Only other known copy is in Labadie at University of Michigan.

( Wedemeyer, Dee & Barbour, John. "Susan Saxe: From the American Way of Life to the 10 Most Wanted List", The Courier-Journal, 1 November 1970, p. G24.

Thomas, Jack. "The Friends of Susan Saxe." The Boston Globe, 10 May 1976, p. 12

Dubin, Murray. "Susan Saxe and the Secret World of Phila." The Philadelphia Inquirier, 13 April 1975, p. 1A, 16A.

"Susan Saxe Held on $350,000 Bail". The New York Times, 29 March 1975, p. 41.

Gertner, Nancy. New York: Beacon Press, 2012. In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentent Advocate.). Good-very good condition, creased fold to center of poster, light brown soiling to top left corner, 1/2 inch closed tear to fore edge, a couple shorter closed tears to edges as well, some toning to paper, else light wear and creasing to edges and in good shape with good color to print. Item #3711

Price: $1,500.00