San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Film gives rare look at private life of Rep. Lee
Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee has never been shy about taking bold stands during her more than two decades in Congress, even when they were initially unpopular.
But the Oakland Democrat is decidedly oldschool when it comes to talking about her personal life. She rarely goes there. Unlike some legislators, you’re not going to find Lee documenting her every waking thought on Instagram just to build her brand.
“I am a very private person, and as a public official, 98% of your life is public. But that (other) 2% — I really guard that. That zone of privacy is very important to me,” Lee, 75, said on my “It’s All Political” podcast this week. “Otherwise, I don’t know how I
could do my public work without having that private part and personal part of my life.”
That zone of privacy will expand on Friday when a new documentary called “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power” opens in theaters and online. Made by Peabody Awardwinning Berkeley filmmaker (and Lee constituent) Abby Ginzberg, one of the film’s strengths is showing how Lee’s rarely seen personal life has informed her long career as a legislator.
The movie’s other attribute is the way it introduces the rest of America to Lee’s co-star over her three decades in office: Oakland. She has unfailingly represented the progressive politics of what she calls “the wokest district in the country” — which re-elected her with 90% of the vote last year. In turn, The Town, Berkeley and the rest of her district have had her back during Lee’s loneliest days in office.
Not that Lee sought the spotlight to talk about all this. She described herself as “an unwilling participant” at first.
“My initial hesitation was, first of all, I am a public official, and I’m doing my work on behalf of my constituents. I don’t need to be the subject of a documentary,” she told me.
But Ginzberg was persistent, she said, and is “a great filmmaker.” Ultimately, Lee opened up in the film about an abusive relationship she was involved in as a young woman. And about receiving food stamps as a young single mother.
On the podcast, she talked about traveling to Mexico to have an abortion when she was 15 years old — long before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized the procedure nationwide. It is something she has rarely mentioned publicly.
Lee said she “hates talking about this,” but mentioned it to draw attention to “the experience of not having access, not knowing what to do, being unmarried. It’s a terrible thing to have to go through. It’s a horrible thing. “Women go through these decisions. They’re gut-wrenching. They’re heart-wrenching,” Lee said. “I’m just sharing this with you because it’s an example of why I have to use my personal experiences to help us change the system so that other women, that other people of color, other African Americans, don’t have to go through so much that myself and others have gone through in this country.”
Lee said that her personal experience, in part, drives her to continue to try to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortion services unless the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest or the patient’s life is in danger.
“She’s been my congresswoman (for two decades) and I didn’t know elements of her life story,” said Aimee Allison, an Oakland resident and friend who is president of She the People, which helps women of color advance in politics. “Much of America will be getting to know the depth and breadth of her personal story and commitment to justice.”
That desire to achieve a larger political goal is the same reason Lee opened up in the documentary about her experience of being involved in a violent relationship as a young woman in Los Angeles.
“It was awful. And once I escaped from that — and it was really bad — I understood what battered woman syndrome is,” she said. “I understood what takes place between two people that causes the batterer to continue battering, and for the person, male or female to remain in a relationship, even though they’re getting battered.
“Finally,” Lee said, “when I was able to muster everything I had to leave that relationship, I never looked back.”
But she never forgot it. Years later, when she served in the California Legislature, she authored the state’s Violence Against Women Act and other legislation focusing on domestic violence. Lee said the film helped her better understand her own motivations during her time representing the East Bay in the Legislature.
“Because I (had) never looked back, I didn’t understand or know why I was so adamant about all these bills I introduced” about violence against women, Lee said. “And when I look back now — and I guess the film helped me put all that together — it was like I probably was being motivated to do this without even realizing the personal experiences that I had that came into play.
“It just happens that my life experiences have been a little unique for a lot of public officials,” Lee said. “You don’t have too many Black women of my generation elected to Congress who had the experiences that I’ve had.”
When she started making the film four years ago, Ginzberg’s original desire was to share Lee’s “amazing kind of personal journey” from her hometown of El Paso, Texas, to Congress in the hope that it could “motivate other younger people to consider running for some kind of elected office.” It worked — even before the documentary was released — as young members of Congress including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., laud Lee in the film as a role model.
The filmmaker’s other motivation was to inform more people about Lee, who is still relatively unknown nationally outside of progressive circles. “If I say, ‘Have you ever heard of Barbara Lee?’ Most people are like, ‘Who?’ ” Ginzberg said. “And then you say, ‘Well, there was one person who voted ‘No’ ” on giving President Bush the ability to go to war after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lee’s career-defining vote, just three days after the attacks, is a centerpiece of the documentary. She was the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing the United States to go to war. She received death threats and, she estimates, 60,000pieces of hate mail and phone calls.
Those first days after her vote were lonely. But, as the film shows, she received comfort from her rock: Oakland.
Supporters, led by writer Alice Walker, actor Danny Glover and former Berkeley mayor Gus Newport, held a rally for Lee in Oakland. Security officials discouraged her from attending. At the last minute, she did. “When I looked out and saw all of the people there — intergenerational, multiracial — and I was with Alice, and Danny and Gus and people who were my allies in the struggle,” Lee said, “I felt like, OK, I’m not alone in this.”