An out lesbian and abortion rights activist, Marie Equi got locked up for espionage
She threatened police officers with poison hat pins, but the president still shortened her sentence
She carried a banner. “Prepare to die, workingmen,” it warned. “J.P. Morgan & Co. want preparedness for profit. Thou shalt not kill.” It was June of 1916, and the country was headed for war. The town of Portland, Oregon, was holding a preparedness parade, a show of patriotic unity and an effort to drum up support. Then Marie Equi, a lesbian anarchist and abortionist, showed up with her banner.
“The lawyers attacked me first, then the Knights of Columbus,” she recounted later that night at the police station. A group of men marching in the parade approached her car and tore the sign to pieces. One struck her with a staff and a scuffle ensued. Equi was bruised and her hand bloodied. Then another man offered her an American flag. “I was perfectly calm. I said, ‘Very well, brave American gentlemen, your flag is no protection to me,’” and she tore it up.
At the police station, two men involved in the showdown filed charges against her for desecrating the flag. Equi faced no jail time and continued to protest the U.S. involvement in World War I. At the same time, she and Margaret Sanger were distributing pamphlets about birth control. Then the federal government charged her with sedition.
Marie Equi was born to working class Irish and Italian immigrant parents in 1872. She grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, only to drop out of high school and work at a textile mill. But her high school girlfriend, Bessie Holcomb, soon enticed her away to Oregon, where the pair settled down to homestead.
Placid home life did not last long. In 1893, Equi marched to town with a bullwhip. She stood outside the building of a local school superintendent. Every time he attempted to escape, she lashed him. He had cheated Bessie out of her rightful salary. Onlookers gathered and cheered. It was Equi’s first taste of justice, and far from her last.
A few years later, the couple moved to San Francisco, where Equi enrolled in medical school. She completed her degree at the University of Oregon in Portland, however, after splitting with Bessie. There, she settled and set up a family practice specializing in women and children. Along with general medicine, she also offered abortions. She charged patients on a sliding scale according to income, thus offering a rare, safe choice for poorer women in a state where abortion was roughly 65 years from legalization.
Nevertheless, Equi was a respected physician and local leader. After the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, she volunteered as a relief doctor. Under temporary military purview, she became the first female to achieve doctor rank in the Army. After serving, she earned the branch’s prestigious commendation and an award from President Theodore Roosevelt. Back home, she advocated for women’s health issues and marched for suffrage. Peers considered her a powerful ally; she spoke with forceful articulation and never backed down from confrontation. She often carried a pistol and several hat pins to defend herself. In later years, Margaret Sanger would described Equi as a “rebellious soul,” and labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn likened her to a sea bird, calling her “the stormy petrel of the Northwest”
Sanger and Equi were rumored to have engaged in a romantic relationship, though it may have been unrequited. After first hearing Sanger speak, Equi became enamored and reportedly sent numerous love letters. Equi was open about her same-sex preferences during an era when lesbians were overlooked at best and violently targeted at worst. In 1905, Equi met Harriet Speckart, an heiress to the Olympia Brewing Company. Their relationship threatened Speckart’s inheritance, however, and she would spend years battling for her rights in court. After 10 years of partnership, the pair adopted an infant daughter named Mary, who later became the first female pilot in Oregon.
But for her open lifestyle and work on Progressive Era reform, one encounter marked a turning point for Equi, after which her community would never view her the same way again. In 1913, she attended a Portland cannery strike where female laborers (and some of her patients) argued for better wages, with some making only five cents per hour. Especially during summer, conditions in the factory were dangerous: Despite the heat, floor bosses locked the doors to keep workers productive and union organizers outside.
One day, the strike turned violent and Equi clashed with counter-protesters. Then she watched as a police officer struck and forcibly dragged a pregnant woman to jail. It was the last straw. She declared herself an anarchist and a socialist, and publicly supported the radical labor union Industrial Workers of the World. Days after the strike, she climbed onto a chair in the middle of Portland’s city hall and threatened to “shed blood” if anyone stood in the way of the cause. Her weapon, she snarled, would be a poisoned hat pin to cause a “slow and lingering death.”
Afterward, the media watched Equi’s every move. She was arrested for poking a police officer with a hat pin and for distributing birth-control literature. She marched and led rallies that berated wealthy corporate bosses and public officials. Then her anti-war banner made national news.
Two years later, in 1918, after the war had ended, a Portland court convicted her of espionage. She was sentenced to three years in prison plus a $500 fine. At the trial, a representative from the Department of Justice reportedly sent Equi’s “woman companion sprawling on the floor” because she had “blocked his way and insulted him.” Her appeals to higher courts were rejected and she was sent to San Quentin in California to serve her time. President Woodrow Wilson shortened her sentence to one year. She spent her time behind bars treating her fellow inmates’ medical ailments and reflecting on a life of unrestrained passion. In a letter to a friend, she pondered whether her “queerness” was a defect. Her friend replied, “You are perfectly sane, perhaps unusually out of the ordinary,” and urged her to never change.
With considerations for good behavior, Equi was released after 10 months. She was 49 by this time, ready to return to her medical practice and live a mostly quiet life. Equi and Speckhart had separated years before but continued to co-parent their daughter until she eloped. In 1926, Equi invited her close friend Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to live with her in the west hills. Flynn’s health was poor, and Equi suffered from heart disease. The latter only emerged from retirement for a couple of causes or events, including in 1934 when the Portland Police Bureau issued a “Red List.” Equi called the chief of police and threatened to sue the city if her name was not added to the top of the list.
She died largely forgotten in 1952, at age 80, in a Portland nursing home, just as the Red Scare was cresting.
