Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (10 page)

A working fireplace tucked into one corner of the living room warmed the room when the outside temperature dropped below forty degrees.

The cramped New York apartment–style kitchen angled off to the right of the entryway. A sharp right just before the kitchen took you past the dining table and down a short, narrow hall. Photographs of family and friends completely filled the wall. Opposite the wall was a bathroom with a spa-type tub. At the end of the hall was the guest room.

The kitchen, as noted earlier, was reminiscent of a truncated railway car—big enough to comfortably accommodate the simultaneous occupation of four, maybe five people as long as no one moved around too much. Okay, six, as long as two remained stationary at all times. A Jenn-Air cooktop, set into a well-ventilated alcove, begged for, and received, frequent use.

Molly eventually replaced the rectangular dining table that seated six—and would have seated eight or ten if she had ever found the extensions. To facilitate dinnertime conversation she commissioned woodworker Louis Fry to build a round table. Fry, noted for his handcrafted furniture, created a stunner. The table, six feet in diameter, was made from curly maple with an inlaid circle of rare African bubinga wood about eight inches inside the perimeter. She finally broke down and told me how much she paid for the table and chairs, but my pledge of secrecy survives her.

The eight matching chairs, whose seats consisted of latticed leather strips that covered overstuffed cushions, made for ridiculously comfortable seating. The end product encouraged many long, comfy post-dinner conversations.

Meals were taken under the watchful eye of John Henry Faulk, whose large framed photograph hung in the center of an alcove opposite the table.

Faulk, arguably Texas's finest folklorist and raconteur, fell victim to the witch-hunting demagoguery of Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. For anyone who thinks the foaming-at-the-mouth pronouncements of modern-day pundits are bizarre, it's worthwhile to revisit the senator's April 16, 1954, response to a criticism leveled by Edward R. Murrow.

In his rambling diatribe, McCarthy suggests an American government penetrated by communists at every level, but he stops short of accusing Murrow and his employer, CBS, of being communist sympathizers. The allegations were eventually proved to be without merit, but it was an ugly, divisive time, and if the word “venal” had a photographic depiction in the dictionary, McCarthy's face would be there.

The House Un-American Activities Committee and fellow traveler McCarthy wreaked havoc with many in the nation's creative community at the time—a whole battalion of artists, musicians, and writers who refused either to testify or to accuse others were cited for contempt of Congress. Some got off with fines and suspended sentences, while others went to prison—some for as long as a year. Once released, they were placed on what came to be known as a “blacklist,” which rendered them unable to find work. Reputations were destroyed. Some left the country, some wrote under pseudonyms, some killed themselves. Like broken Indian treaties and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the HUAC witch hunts were not shining moments in America's history.

John Henry Faulk was one of those who fought back, ultimately winning a libel suit against AWARE, Inc., a red-baiting newsletter that had engaged in a cavalier campaign against scores of artists, labeling them as communists. His lawsuit ultimately brought the blacklist to an end—not, however, before his career was in tatters. His book
Fear on Trial
chronicles the unsettling experience.

By the time John Henry cleared his name, he was virtually penniless and one of Molly's true heroes. He died in 1990, but not before Molly promised him that in tribute to him she would champion free speech whenever and wherever she could. She made good on that promise, crisscrossing the country for years, from big cities to rural hamlets, often speaking to ACLU chapters for no fee beyond a warm place to sleep, a good meal, and the opportunity to talk progressive politics to those otherwise without access to fellow travelers.

Up to her death Molly kept a well-read copy of John Henry's book on a table between two comfy wingback chairs in her living room.

Progressives who lived through that era thought it was over and done with—until the socially conservative, Republican-dominated Texas State Board of Education successfully sought to rewrite history to soften McCarthy's image in its 2010 textbook revisions—and succeeded in the effort.

Don't be shocked: this is the same body that tried to remove Thomas Jefferson from the list of political philosophers who shaped world history. And don't blame Texas students if they are undereducated and ill-informed. They had help. As Molly was oft wont to say—you can't make this stuff up.