(02/09/69)
NOW has proclaimed this week as “Public Accommodations Week”. Join us in our national actions at “men only” restaurants, bars, and public transportation across the country, including: New York City, Syracuse, Cochester (CT), Pittsburgh, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles, or start your own!
The assumptions behind policies like this are that women are not involved in business. Further, that unescorted women in bars were there for only one purpose: soliciting men for prostitution. In the Call to Action, Karen DeCrow, the national coordinator of the action, pointed out that Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination against anyone on the basis of race color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation but did not exclude discrimination on the basis of sex. Yet, she wrote, “the most basic right of all may be the right to equal treatment in places of public accommodation.” Deman equality of treatment in public accommodations!
Among the places to be picketed are the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel in New York by New York NOW, Stouffers Grill in Pittsburgh by Pittsburgh NOW, the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles by Los Angles NOW.