She does have a personal connection to the aid-in-dying movement. Roberts said she spoke up for their rights, although she is not a lesbian and has no gay relatives. When she took office in 1985 as the first Democrat elected secretary of state in 110 years, Roberts invited the Portland Gay Men's Chorus to sing at her swearing-in - and took offense when the master of ceremonies sought to omit the word "gay" from the introduction. The talk laid out her case against a constitutional amendment that would have labeled same-sex relationships as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse." Voters defeated it, 56.5% to 43.5%. The only speech from her governorship that Roberts included in the book was her 1992 talk to the Eugene Rotary Club. Two other sections focus on Roberts' speeches on behalf of the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people, and the aid-in-dying movement known as "death with dignity."
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Among them: People with disabilities - she was an advocate for the educational rights of her son, Mike Sanders, when she first came to the Capitol in 1971 - plus the rights of women and the nature of Oregon's people, government and environment. Some of her topics were the same issues she rose to prominence on. "This book was important to show that we should speak out, take stands and make a positive difference where we can on issues that matter to the culture, to citizens and to Oregon." I decided I would pick the most interesting of those speeches and publish them. I needed to narrow them down and either donate them to my papers at Portland State or recycle them.
"That's when I started thinking about the content of the speeches and dividing them into categories. I knew I needed to dispense with some of them some of them had no real long-term value," she said in an interview.Ī D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
I had hundreds of speeches I had given over 40 years. "I began cleaning out my files and boxes. Her personal papers are in special collections at Portland State University.Īt the onset of the coronavirus pandemic more than two years ago, Roberts was moving out of her condo in Portland's Sellwood neighborhood to a senior community in Lake Oswego. She was secretary of state when the Legislature authorized the building in 1989, and governor when it opened in 1991. Roberts' official papers are housed at the Oregon State Archives in Salem. She also spent three years after her governorship as director of a program for state and local government executives at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and five more years as associate director of leadership development at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, where she was a founder of the Center for Women's Leadership.
(Years after she was governor, she was an appointee to the Metro Council and served two years.) The other in 2011 was her autobiography, "Up the Capitol Steps: A Woman's March to the Governorship," one of just a handful of memoirs by the first women elected governors of their states.īefore her election as governor in 1990, Roberts had a long record in public office: Parkrose School Board, 10 years Mount Hood Community College board, four years Multnomah County commissioner, one year Oregon House, four years, two of them as the first woman to be majority leader, and Oregon secretary of state, six years. It is part personal memoir and part practical guide to death and grieving.
One was "Death Without Denial, Grief Without Apology," first published in 2002 and revised in 2016. (Pierce later served 10 years in the U.S. She now has been out of the governorship 27 years - as long as Republican Vic Atiyeh, who ended his two terms in 1987 and died in 2014, and Democrat Walter Pierce, who ended his term in 1927 and died in 1954. "At age 85 - and believe me, I've never said that before - my passion is still strong for those causes that colored my life," Roberts said to laughter at the Oregon Historical Society gathering. Roberts, who turned age 85 in December, plans more in-person appearances later this year. She spoke about the book at an appearance at the Oregon Historical Society and in a recent interview. "A Voice for Equity," published by NewSage Press of Tillamook, consists of 22 of her speeches - all but two made after her term as Oregon's 34th governor from 1991 to 1995. When many older people downsize their housing, it results in a lot of trash or recycling.įor Barbara Roberts, it resulted in another book. Barbara Roberts focuses on themes of public life over decades 'my passion is still strong for those causes'