- How My Great Aunt and Uncle Supported Black Power and Exposed the CIA - September 15, 2022
As an integration practice and conclusion to this course on diversity and social justice in psychedelics, I have decided to explore a fascinating chapter of my family history that involves civil rights activism and explosive progressive journalism. In 1962, my great aunt and uncle Helen Keating and Edward Keating founded Ramparts magazine, a New Left literary publication known for its bravado, high production quality, and commitment to the civil rights and anti-war movements. Edward was the publisher for the magazine, and Helen (whom my mother is named after) held an important seat on the editorial board and provided the lion’s share of financial backing.
They were vehemently anti-war and supported burning draft cards, and were relentless critics of what they saw as unjust US government foreign and domestic policies.
Helen and Edward, like myself, are of mostly Western and Northern European descent, with all the privilege that entails. Yet, they believed very dearly in the causes of social justice, and made civil rights one of their greatest passions. They supported the Black Panther Party and one of its early leaders, Eldridge Cleaver, whom they posted bail for when he was incarcerated, and later hired as a staff writer. They were vehemently anti-war and supported burning draft cards, and were relentless critics of what they saw as unjust US government foreign and domestic policies. Their successors at Ramparts also published the first article on the “fake orgasm,” bringing taboo women’s issues to public light.
Perhaps most shockingly, Ramparts published a story detailing how the CIA had infiltrated the National Student Organization (NSA), and was secretly pulling the strings of student governments at college campuses across the country. This led to a huge wave of national criticism of the CIA and blew the cover for their covert funding in not only the student movement, but also within churches, the press, think tanks, and the labor movement. As Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker, “The revelation had a cascading effect, and helped to mark the end of the first phase of the Cold War.”(Menard, 2015)
It’s been quite a revelation to learn that my great aunt and uncle were bailing Black Panthers out of prison, exposing the CIA, influencing world politics, and were at the heart of the progressive resistance of the 60s. I have studied the psychedelic revolution of the 60s in some detail over the years, but it has been eye opening to understand the political revolution and civil rights movements of that era more deeply by looking at my own family tree.
INTERVIEW
To understand this chapter of my lineage in more detail, I reached out to my aunt, Karen McCann (maiden name Keating), who is the daughter of Edward and Helen.
Wesley Bellanca: From my understanding, Ed and Helen leveraged their white upper-class privilege to start a radical magazine that advocated for civil rights and supported Black activists. Is this a correct assessment?
Karen McCann: Ramparts actually started as a Catholic literary magazine. Its intent was to publish, as it explained in the first issue in 1962, “fiction, poetry, art, criticism, and essays of distinction, reflecting those positive principles of the Hellenic-Christian tradition which have shaped and sustained our civilization for the past two thousand years, and which are needed still to guide us in an age grown increasingly secular, bewildered, and afraid.” Each issue was a work of art, intelligently edited, beautifully designed, and expensively produced.
But the combination of Dad’s temper (he never could avoid picking fights with the establishment), Mom’s desire to champion the underdog, and the sixties—it all came together to make Ramparts a radical left wing magazine. And then, it attracted a wild crowd.
At first, the atmosphere was collaborative with the Catholic church, but eventually, Dad and the Jesuits fell out over content (I can’t recall the specific issue now), and pretty soon, Ramparts was publishing material critical of the church, which responded by denouncing him; I seem to recall an editorial in Time magazine criticizing Ramparts. Battles with the church soon led to battles with “the establishment” (as it was called then) over other issues; first and foremost, civil rights. One of Ramparts’ first big stories covered the murder of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. By now, the look wasn’t so artsy; it was a hard-hitting news-and-views publication. So, to answer your question, Wesley, they didn’t set out to start a radical left magazine at all. But the combination of Dad’s temper (he never could avoid picking fights with the establishment), Mom’s desire to champion the underdog, and the sixties—it all came together to make Ramparts a radical left wing magazine. And then, it attracted a wild crowd. Have you run across Warren Hinkle’s book “If You Have a Lemon Make Lemonade”? It was self-serving but does capture the spirit of the times and has lots about my dad, a little about my mom.
WB: Would you consider Ed and/or Helen as meaningful allies to the racially oppressed? Why or why not?
KM: Yes, I’d say they did meaningful work, including giving members of oppressed minorities, who might otherwise not have been heard, a platform and a voice.
WB: Do you feel like you are part of a progressive family legacy that you can be proud of?
KM: I am proud of the work my parents did in terms of breaking news stories about civil rights and other issues, organizing big marches in San Francisco to protest the war in Vietnam, and so on. They worked hard, put their money where their principles were, and stood up for what they believed in.
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WB: How have you related to the rise of social justice and BLM movements in recent years? As someone who grew up around these issues in the 60s and 70s, I imagine you have a unique perspective on this.
KM: Still fighting the good fight. As you may know, I live in Seville, Spain much of the year. In January 2017, I became a founding member of American Resistance Sevilla, an anti-Trump group, and spent the next four years organizing marches, online protests, a newsletter, a voter registration drive, etc. for Seville’s expat community. In the summer of 2020, my husband and I were in California, and we spent three afternoons a week at the busiest intersection in Marin County holding up Black Lives Matter signs, urging people to vote, etc. It was actually good fun, and there was lots of support from the community, with occasional hecklers to give it a bit of spice. And, every single time I went out to stand on that street corner, I thought of my mom. She instilled in me the belief that what I was doing out there truly mattered.
WB: Eldridge Cleaver is a polarizing figure with some serious flaws. Did Ed and Helen ever change their perspective on supporting him? I’m curious about how he fit into the picture.
KM: I remember a lot about Eldridge early on; as you probably know, he praised my dad for being “the first professional to pay any attention to my writings” in the dedication to Soul on Ice. But I don’t know how either of my parents felt about him later, whether they changed their perspectives or not.
REFLECTIONS
I took so much from this Chacruna course on diversity and social justice, both in terms of how it applies to the psychedelic movement, and as a deeper introduction to these causes at large.
I took so much from this Chacruna course on diversity and social justice, both in terms of how it applies to the psychedelic movement, and as a deeper introduction to these causes at large. One of the first things I was confronted with when dealing with this material was my own whiteness and privilege. It was hard to not feel like I was de facto guilty, part of the problem, ashamed of my lineage, and under some kind of implicit attack. My first instinct was to defend myself: to talk about my beloved lesbian aunts and cousins, my many BIPOC and queer friends, my history of writing about the racist War on Drugs, my advocacy for drug policy reform, my platforming of diverse voices in the psychedelic movement on Psychedelic Times, and so on.
All of this stemmed from an insecurity about being judged by the color of my skin, and that’s when the first big lightbulb went off. This is exactly what minorities have been dealing with for centuries, or perhaps for all time. Their personal choices, morals, accomplishments, and unique gifts are often overlooked and bypassed by the privileged majority because they are prejudged based on the color of their skin and outward appearance. I’m not saying I was prejudged in this course, which was very welcoming and inclusive, but for the first time in my life, I felt that fear. And that really drove home how much privilege I have actually had for my whole life. This is not to say I experienced even a fraction of equivalency, but it is to note that my felt experience of possibly being prejudged based on my skin color gave me a profoundly deeper empathy for non-white people and a crystalized understanding of white privilege.
This course also coincided with a renewed interest I’ve had in my own family lineage. For most of my life, I have defaulted to the identity of a “White American.” I rebelled against my fairly politically-left but socially-conservative upbringing, and did a lot of things I’ve been proud of, including running an ecovillage for many years, teaching permaculture, studying world religions, making and exhibiting visionary art, working in the psychedelic field for eight years, and now, being a core staff member for Fireside Project. But I have always felt fundamentally untethered with no real connection to my roots.
Thanks to this course, which led to the above conversation with my aunt Karen, and other conversations with my family members, I feel like I have a deeper appreciation for my family lineage. The legacy of my bloodline is that of strong women. My great-great-grandmother, Molly Langley, was the first woman to own an oil company in the United States, and not only that, it was entirely owned and funded by women investors. Molly was also allegedly a friend to Susan B. Anthony and was involved in the women’s suffrage movement. My great-grandmother, Ramona Langley, was a silent screen starlet. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a beloved matriarch who adopted Advaita Vedanta spirituality half a century before it was trendy, and introduced me to it as a teenager. My grandmother on my father’s side is a great oil painter. And, as shown above, my great-aunt and uncle were the source of a profoundly impactful literary magazine, and my aunt is an accomplished writer and activist.
I feel like I have a clearer understanding of my roots, of whiteness, of BIPOC and LGBTQAI struggles, and of how I can contribute to a better world by leveraging my privileged position to uplift oppressed voices, speak truth to power, advocate for a more just world through the power of the written word, and nurture family and creativity as my ancestors have done before me.
I feel like I have a clearer understanding of my roots, of whiteness, of BIPOC and LGBTQAI struggles, and of how I can contribute to a better world by leveraging my privileged position to uplift oppressed voices, speak truth to power, advocate for a more just world through the power of the written word, and nurture family and creativity as my ancestors have done before me. As I work on the front lines of the psychedelic movement at Fireside Project’s peer support hotline, and help to manage our equity initiative and empower BIPOC, military veteran, and trans voices, I can do so knowing that it is part of a tradition my family has been involved in for over half a century (or over a century, considering my great-great-grandmother’s rumored part in women’s suffrage). This brings an even deeper meaning to my work, knowing that I come from a lineage of progressive activists and allies to the oppressed.
While this essay is focused on my family history of allyship, it represents just a small fraction of what I have taken away from this course. I also have a much deeper understanding of the relationship between gender and psychedelics, how microaggressions and tokenization are pervasive in the psychedelic movement, and why it is so essential to have psychedelic therapists of different races and identities, just to name a few.
I have tremendous gratitude for Chacruna and all the course instructors, for this profoundly important teaching, and the process of self and family introspection that it has catalyzed. These insights I’ve taken from the course are just the beginning, and I will honor this course by continuing to reflect on and integrate these revelations throughout the rest of my life.
References
Menard, L. (2015, March 16). A friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deception.. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-friend-of-the-devil
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