By Kathy Wang
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
CONEY ISLAND — When thousands of people poured into Coney Island to celebrate America’s birthday last week with hot dogs and beach games, 88-year-old Molly Klopot fought her way uptown for a different kind of celebration.
Last Wednesday on July 4 in Central Park’s Strawberry Fields, Yoko Ono’s memorial to John Lennon, members of the Granny Peace Brigade, a group of 18 grandmothers who were arrested after they tried to enlist in the army, were reading, or in some cases reciting from memory, passages from the Declaration of Independence and the Consitution. Among those reciting was 88-year-old Molly Klopot, a former social worker who has no intention of slowing down as a Grandmother Against the War.
Klopot has been described by her friends as the living image of a charming, storybook granny: “little, roly-poly, white-haired, cute.” But speak with her and her agility and piercing blue eyes will hint at the mental and physical strength beneath that cottony hair.
“She’s mentally very sharp and a wonderful role model for how to grow old gracefully and productively,” said Joan Wile, who founded Grandmothers Against the War in 2003.
As a member of Grandmothers Against the War, which later became the New York affiliate of Grandmothers for Peace International, Klopot has been at the forefront of the anti-war movement in New York. She has led peace vigils throughout the city and taken part in phonathons to Congressional representatives. A few of the Grannies’ protests have even made it to YouTube, where they have received thousands of views.
“Social workers are enablers, and one thing I teach my students is that you begin where the client is and enable them to know the resources out there,” said Klopot. “You dig where you stand, you work in the community where you are, and then you spread out from there.”
Nydia Leaf, a close friend who got to know Klopot through Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), said “Molly’s a mainstay in the peace movement in New York.”
‘To Form a More
Perfect Union’
Reading the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution each July 4 has been a longstanding ritual for attorney Norman Siegel, former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union who defended the Grannies pro bono during their enlistment trial last year. This year, a total of about 100 members of various peace organizations were present, and Yoko Ono composed for the Grannies a poem and a statement, which were read at the event.
“Molly was energetic as always, very spirited, focused, had a world of activism experience and people gravitated to her as the leader of the group,” said Siegel.
Siegel said the Grannies took turns to read the Amendments. “For the First Amendment [about the freedom of speech], I tried to think of somebody who really embodies it, and I thought of Molly. I whispered in her ear, ‘Would you read it?’ and she said, ‘I don’t need to read it. I know it by heart.’
“Molly not only knows the 44 words by heart, but she lives it every day,” said Siegel.
‘Granny Jailbirds’
The event that has sparked the most publicity for the senior activists was an attempt in 2005 by the Granny Peace Brigade to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces at the Times Square recruitment station. The 18 brigade members came from various peace organizations including Grandmothers against the War, Raging Grannies and WILPF.
“That’s the big thing — to end the war. I was there to protest this unjust, illegal war that is an intrusion on our civil liberties,” said Klopot. “We wanted to use our powers and responsibilities to our grandchildren.”
The grannies held anti-war banners, distributed counter-recruitment flyers, chanted songs and read a statement of their purpose — and after a futile warning from the police, were carefully arrested one by one, charged with disorderly conduct and placed in jail at Midtown North.
Klopot, though, recalls the event with fondness.
“Some were scared, but we all had this tremendous feeling. I was celled with Vinie Burrows, the famed Broadway actress/playwright,” said Klopot. “You’ve seen this sisterhood develop and grow. We became the Granny Peace Brigade.”
All 18 Grannies were eventually acquitted after a six-day trial and last year Klopot, along with other “Granny Jailbirds,” made a 10-day trek for peace from the Times Square station to Washington D.C., where they read the names of all the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers killed. The Grannies also later traveled to Germany to speak before peace groups about their experiences.
“We want people to use their powers as citizens and to use their constitutional right,” said Klopot. “We’re hoping grandmothers all over are inspired.”
A Lifetime of Activism
“I’ve been an activist all my life,” said Klopot, who points out that her name means “trouble” in Polish.
Born in Detroit in 1919 with a father who championed progressive ideals, Molly Eisenstat was involved with the unions’ movement from a young age, and her earliest memories include the Sacco and Vancetti trial and the McCarthy era.
“The U.S. has the bloodiest labor history in the world. People were killed fighting for eight-hour workdays,” said Klopot. “That’s our history.”
Even as a young woman, Klopot taught others how to properly conduct a sit-down strike, and during the Depression, a 13-year-old Klopot participated in the Ford Hunger March.
She went on to major in psychology and social work in Wayne State University and got a job organizing unions after passing the civil service exam in 1940. At the outbreak of World War II she worked, ironically, in a Ford factory in Detroit where she became the first woman ever to be elected as a committee member.
“I was going to be a doctor until one doctor said to me, ‘You’re Jewish? And a woman? And poor?’”
Klopot remained adamantly against becoming a medical social worker and even gave up a full scholarship to Columbia that required her to be placed in the medical field. In another ironic twist, Klopot later moved to Brooklyn and worked for more than 20 years at Coney Island Hospital, starting classes for pregnant teens and organizing a daycare center.
In 1959, she married Morrie Klopot, a truck driver for the Teamsters Union and later a delegate at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center who passed away in 1997.
“My husband was a seaman — that’s why we’re here,” Klopot said of the couple’s move to a co-op across the street from Nathan’s in the early 1960s. “I remember going to Nathan’s and for six cents getting a hot dog and a drink, and then hopping on the F-train.”
Klopot has remained in Brooklyn ever since.
Working for a Better Day
“I feel sorry for youth today. They have this pressure to own things and wear this kind and that kind of clothes,” said Klopot. “People have to be for themselves, and I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to have that.”
“She has more energy at 88 than I did at 78 — even 68,” said Roz Boyd, 80, another friend of Klopot and a fellow Granny. “She’s such an optimist and I’m a pessimist, so just to argue with her about politics is a joy.”
Klopot doesn’t have any special techniques for staying healthy, but she still climbs several flights of stairs every day.
“I have to climb — I counted — 128 steps up to the office every day,” said Klopot. “And I’m grateful, because when I come home, I read and I sit. So whether I remember to exercise or not, I have the steps.”
“And when you’re a grandmother, you have a special responsibility, but also a special freedom,” said Klopot. “We, as grandmothers and the elderly, have the time now. That’s one of the reasons why we can do all that we can.”
She attributes the Grannies’ influence to the time they invest and to their connections: Almost all of them are either leaders or members of other peace organizations.
Klopot herself has been chair of the New York branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) since 1998. It was founded in Geneva in 1915 with member groups in 38 countries, and claims to be the oldest and largest women’s peace organization in the U.S. Klopot still makes the journey from Coney Island to the WILPF office on the Lower East Side every weekday.
Just as the connections between the grannies enhance their influence, Klopot said “it’s the collectivity” of her experiences that have infused her with so much passion for what she does.
“I don’t feel old,” said Klopot. “When you’re an adult, you’re an adult. It’s a continuum. You’re a human being working for a better day — that’s the important thing.”
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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