Who can ignore the irony of singer and actress Eartha Kitt passing away on Christmas Day? After all, her sexy, sultry "Santa Baby" brought holiday spice to the season long before any of the Spice Girls were even born.
Yet if Kitt could be remembered for an act of courage rather than a seductive pop song, that would better serve the legacy of a woman who told the truth even when the truth cost her.
The Chicago Tribune online has the story of that brave act:
Kitt...was, in 1968, an internationally acclaimed music star....So it came as no great surprise when she was invited to a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. But the first lady was surprised when she asked Kitt about the Vietnam War. "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," the singer told the first lady and the 50 other women at the luncheon. "They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."We're all familiar with what happened to the Dixie Chicks -- how the country music superstars were dropped from radio station playlists when lead singer Natalie Maines spoke out against President Bush and his push for war in Iraq back in March 2003. But how many of us knew that Eartha Kitt did something similar 35 years earlier and experienced the same backlash? She didn't work in the US for years because she spoke out against a war our nation came to regret.The first lady reportedly burst into tears. The president was furious. Kitt was blacklisted. She was investigated by the FBI and the CIA and ended up on the "enemies list" of Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon....
Years later, Kitt recalled her White House visit in an interview with Esquire magazine, saying, "The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth—in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth—you get your face slapped and you get put out of work."
We can't always choose what we will be remembered for after we are gone. But I'm sure that in her lifetime, Kitt was prouder for having said those words about a war she opposed than providing the vocals for a song that sealed her fame. At the very least she deserves to be remembered for both.
Photo © Brian Bedder/Getty Images
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What Mz Kitt went thru sounds very much like the recent creation of the misnomer “Obama Truth Squad” his campaign set up in Missouri with the help of his supporters in the capacity of: prosecutors and sheriffs with law enforcement powers. Essentially, creating an atmosphere where Missourians were afraid of being prosecuted for having the AUDACITY to publically criticize Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.