Betty and Mayer Segal enrich their family and community

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Each one of us can inspect our lives and explore where the seeds of our current actions were planted.

For Mayer and Betty Segal of Bayside their seeds were planted more than 50 years ago. Mayer remembers one enlightened political science professor who would mimeograph articles in contemporary magazines and use them for the texts in his classes. The students voted him the most popular professor, and that year UCLA refused to renew his contract.

"I wasn't so much an activist as a free spirit," Mayer recalled. "An iconoclast," Betty added.

After college, Mayer gravitated to Berkeley where he remained for the next 50 years. Though he made his career as a machinist, his first job was as a social worker in the dust bowl where refugees on state relief were organizing a union. "It was during the depression. Physicians, attorneys, engineers, all were on relief."

Betty Segal came to social activism only after meeting Mayer in a Jewish community center folk song group when they were in their late 30s. Now they are both 80.

Her seeds were planted in Illinois during the early 50s when she belonged to a Quaker meeting that was concerned with race relations. She moved to Berkeley during the mid-1950s and heard the talk on campus among professors who wanted to drop bombs. When the Friends (Quaker) Meeting showed a film on Hiroshima, "I fell into constructive worrying," she said. She became active in the Women's Strike for Peace.

"Then a few years later, we decided to subvert the PTA," Betty recalled. "They were still doing 'duck and cover' exercises. We led the controversy over civil defense in the PTA newsletter during the 60s.

"We were brought up to think that the government is always right," Betty added. "In the last 40 years that has changed. Now practically no one thinks that government can be trusted."

Social action for both Segals took the printed form in the mid-1960s when for seven years they published the Freedom News in the basement of their home. Freedom News was a 40-page monthly newspaper that covered such "new" concepts as organic gardening and ecology. It was done with a cadre of volunteers-the Segals, journalism students, columnists from various movements, and one paid typist. Betty covered the city councils of Berkeley and Richmond and did investigative reporting. Those were the years that led up to the first Earth Day which was launched in 1970.

The Segals, of course, are still activists. Those seeds, once planted, inevitably grow tall and strong. Their advice? "Just don't make idle statements," said Mayer. "Yes, be careful what you say," added Betty. "Don't hesitate to question authority, but be sure of your facts before you do."

People know Betty Segal most recently for being the coordinator for the Lanterns of Peace that commemorate the atomic bomb destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After she led the Lanterns project last year, she took it to the Arcata Nuclear Free Zone Commission, and the commission has adopted it as an official project of the City of Arcata. (The lighting of Lanterns for Peace will take place Saturday evening, Aug. 8 at the Arcata Marsh with lantern creation at noon at the Arcata Plaza.)

She spent two years as a member and two more as chair of the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship social action committee. She has been instrumental in getting the Fellowship to take a stand against the death penalty, for getting people involved in the South Jetty homeless evacuation and the Gay Pride Parade, and for calling people to courthouse protests against Prop. 209 (affirmative action) and Prop. 187 (anti-immigration).

Mayer accomplishes his activism in a way reminiscent of his Berkeley newspaper-he publishes the twice-a-month HOPE Coalition calendar. HOPE stands for Humboldt Organized for People and the Environment. The coalition consists of members of the Citizens for Social Responsibility and other groups that come to brainstorm solutions to various local problems. They organized a boycott of French products when that country resumed nuclear testing, took up the problems of the homeless and tackled environmental and peace issues.

"We had no record of our action," Mayer said. "I started taking notes so other people who hadn't attended could still take action. So many people out there have given up."

"I do think being angry about things gives him the energy that he has today," said Betty.

The twice monthly calendar lists activists' radio and television programs, meetings, and national and community action. On the back Mayer condenses the activist news of the day for his readers. A recent issue covered teen birth rates, a nuclear test ban call-in day, whether the Corcoran Prison probe was a whitewash by the governor, labor notes, why people should vote, and a story about an Arcata petition by Citizens Concerned about Corporations.

"I think it would be nice if more seniors took more direct interest in doing something about the state of our culture," Betty said. "I wish they could be mobilized to take a more active role."

The two moved here four and a half years ago. They are the modern-day "nuclear" family with a combination of "yours," "mine," and "ours." Mayer has one son, Betty three children, and together they have one daughter. Their daughter Mara is here where she has worked for the Co-op for 15 years and has two of their nine grandchildren.

"My greatest pleasure in life," said Mayer, "is that these kids all get along, are independent and think for themselves, even when they don't agree with us."

What keeps the Segals motivated? "I have a sense that people are good basically," Mayer said. "They need information about things and if they get to think about these things, they'll lose some of their anger and hate and learn how the democratic system works.

"I'm very fond of my family. I want them to be able to grow up in a world free from armed action and hate. I think corporations have become so powerful and PR has taken over our lives. People feel so frustrated and think they don't amount to anything as an individual."

Betty's motivation is her family, too. "As the kids grow, I think what will Humboldt County be like? What will Oregon be like? We have one 15-year-old grandchild in Oklahoma marching and leafleting for the farm workers and another granddaughter wants to go into public policy. Our kids all show signs of social consciousness," she said and added, "We're making ripples and hoping it will all spread out."

The HOPE Coalition meets every other Tuesday at the Redwood Alliance office, 761 8th Street, Arcata. For information, call 822-7005.

One-time article Copyright 1998 by Humboldt Senior Resource Center.