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| A Loving Tribute to Henry Spira by Karen Davis "Animals Are Not Edibles"--Henry Spira "I don't think one can articulate a satisfaction with harming another being whether it's human or nonhuman."--Henry Spira In the mid-1970s, Henry Spira questioned getting involved inthe farm animal issue because, as an animal advocate told me whenHenry died of cancer on September 12th at age 71, the farm animalissue was just too big, too "unwinnable." This is the man whowent on to become a vigorous, prolific, courageous, wry, testy,ingenious, and globally famous advocate on behalf of farmedanimals. He began his animal advocacy career in 1976 by drawingattention to some hideous sex experiments on cats that were beingconducted at the American Museum of Natural History, which hesucceeded in stopping. Later, in a dramatic full-page ad in TheNew York Times, April 15, 1980, Henry Spira opened the world'seyes (including mine) to the fact that cosmetic companiesroutinely blind and poison animals to test ingredients inlipsticks, shaving lotions, and similar products. He asked: HowMany Rabbits Does Revlon Blind for Beauty's Sake? The New York Times article about him that appeared onSeptember 15th explained that Henry, who was born in Belgium andworked in a manila folder stacked New York City apartment wherehe lived with his beloved cat Nina, "brought half a lifetime ofactivism in the labor and civil rights movements to the animalrights world when he became involved at the age of 45. Hisinterest in what he once called 'the most defenseless of all theworld's victims' was aroused when a friend left him with a cataround the time he first read 'Animal Liberation,' a 1973 essay[in The New York Times] by Peter Singer, an Australianbioethicist [author of the 1975 book, Animal Liberation, whichspearheaded the modern animal rights movement]. "'I began to wonder why we cuddle some animals and put afork in others,' he often said," The Times article stated. I would like to say a few words about Henry the man I knew.Henry Spira, the founder and president of Animal RightsInternational and the Coalition for Nonviolent Food, wasinseparable from my decision to start United Poultry Concerns in1990. He was a member of our board of advisors from thebeginning. On October 20, 1989, Henry ran a full-page ad in TheNew York Times that showed Frank Perdue with a Pinocchio nose(for being a liar) with two chicks at the end of it. It said:"FRANK, ARE YOU TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR CHICKENS? Is FrankPerdue's advertising just a pile of poultry puffery hiding thebrutal realities of an inhumane industry? The ad went on tartlyto answer these questions. Henry put the spotlight on chickens, the largest number ofabused warm-blooded animals on earth. He put a face on thepoultry industry by way of Frank Perdue. "The reason for focusingon Perdue is that the vast majority of factory farmed animals arebirds, and because Frank Perdue has spent hundreds of millions ofdollars on ads which deliberately deceive consumers about thebrutal realities of poultry farming," he wrote. When I wasteaching English at the University of Maryland, College Park andrunning the student Animal Rights Coalition which I started in1989, Frank Perdue was appointed by the Maryland governor to theUniversity of Maryland System Board of Regents in 1991. Henryjoined our campaign to cancel the appointment. He ran feisty adsin UM student newspapers--the P. word. There's a word for someonewho does bad stuff for money. Perdue. He took the train from NewYork City to UM campuses to speak at our rallies against Perdue,who was appointed because he gave the university system millionsof dollars to build slaughterhouse replicas and set up businessschool programs whereby to clone himself. Together with thestudents, we attended board of regents meetings around the statewhere we followed Perdue with our chant, "Cluck You, FrankPerdue!" Below is an excerpt from the June 1991 Vegetarian Timesarticle by Jack Rosenberger about our campaign, which got us alsointo Time Magazine and The New York Times. Davis demanded Perdue's resignation, informing the regents at the College Park campus that Perdue has a "documented record of abuse--not only of chickens, but of his employees and the environment.". . . Working with Davis is Henry Spira, a long-time vegetarian and founder of the New York-based group Animal Rights International, who targeted Perdue last year. Spira's full-page ads have run in The New York Times detailing animal abuse on the Perdue farms. "Frank Perdue represents far more than abused chickens," Spira says. "He not only abuses chickens for profit, but he also treats his workers--mostly poor, minority women--as an expendable commodity." Davis agrees: "His whole lifestyle is repressive and mean," she says. "He has the soul of a gangster." On a Sunday morning in February 1992, Henry took the trainto College Park, and he, I, and two other people drove toSalisbury, Maryland where we spent the morning sneaking aroundand taking pictures inside Perdue chicken houses. That was whenwe took our "Misery Is Not A Health Food" photo of a dead chickenin a pile of dead birds on the ground outside one of the Perduehouses. When I picked up a day-old chick from the thousands ofbaby birds at our feet inside a house, I couldn't put him downand we took him away with us. When we got back to College Park,Henry and I sat in my car looking at this chick, who was at thatmoment fast asleep. I said, "This is 'Perdue.'" Henry said, "Iknow." It was then and there that he said this bird should be named Phoenix after the mythical bird who eternally rises fromthe ashes of death. (If you look at the handsome rooster in theupper left-hand corner of PoultryPress, that is Phoenix.) Phoenix died of congestive heart failure at our sanctuary onApril 18, 1993, 14 months later. I watched him die. Henry wroteto me on April 20, 1993: "Dear Karen, You and Phoenix had a greatlife together, from the day we found him. You did everything, andmore, that could be done to give him as happy and satisfying alife as is possible, within the parameters of his genetic makeup.Certainly Phoenix, true to his name, will live on, not just inour memories but in that, thinking of Phoenix, we will beenergized to fight harder for all his brothers and sisters. Love,Henry." When you see the video that Henry's mentor, friend andcolleague, Peter Singer, did to honor Henry just before he died,Henry Spira: One Man's Way, there's a scene of Henry shoutingthrough a bullhorn--that's our UPC bullhorn. The footage wastaken by Ron Scott in front of the Perdue chicken slaughter planton U.S. Route 50, in Salisbury, MD on Friday, May 1, 1992. Theoccasion was UPC's Second Annual Spring Mourning Vigil forChickens.. Henry, a co-sponsor of the Vigil, came down from NewYork on the train to be with us and with the chickens who werebeing slaughtered a wall away from where we stood with our signsnext to the slaughterhouse, across from a McDonald's, surroundedby Perdue trucks stacked with plastic crates containing thoseindividuals who represented, in Henry's words, "the largestuniverse of pain and suffering" in the world. May 19th, 1991. Dear Karen, I look forward to your participation at our "Opportunities, Priorities and Strategies for the 90's" round table discussion on Saturday, June 1, 1991 at the NY Academy of Sciences, 2 East 63 Street, in New York City from 9am to 5pm. Peter Singer will be the luncheon speaker. There are several reasons why a meeting along these lines could be productive at this time, among these, indications that there will be an expansion in the movement's agenda for the 90's. Due to the efforts of many organizations and individuals in the '80s, there's been a revolution in our culture,--a broad based recognition that the suffering of non-human animals does matter. It is now inevitable that the movement will expand into the arena of factory farming which accounts for 95% of all animal suffering--an arena with correspondingly far greater challenges. . . . Factory-farmed animals and vegetarianism were Henry'sleading themes in the 1990s. His full-page ads in The New YorkTimes showing steers being branded on the face with red hot ironselicited the public outrage that was decisive in putting an endto this U.S. Department of Agriculture practice in 1994: THIS ISWHAT USDA POLICY LOOKS LIKE. CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT IT FEELS LIKE?He ran a series of full-page ads in The Washington Times in 1996,Five Good Reasons to Eat Your Cat or Dog. The ad shows a catgoing through a meat grinder onto a dinner plate, and ends withthe challenge: "Loving and petting one kind of animal whileignoring others who feel exactly the same pain is what's reallyirrational." Henry attended my book-signing party at Debby Tanzer's homeon May 17, 1997, and purchased many copies afterward. In PrisonedChickens, Poisoned Eggs I include yet another one of his openyour heart wake up your brain challenges. He asked: "What givesus the right to violate the bodies and minds of other feelingbeings?" The last time I talked with Henry was in July, on thetelephone. I knew he had cancer, but I didn't know he was aboutto die. I called him to ask if he would like to contribute to anad we were planning to run in the September issue of DVMNewsmagazine, urging veterinarians to oppose forced molting, theprolonged deliberate starvation of hens used for egg production.Henry said, "Sure," and sent us a check immediately. This wasHenry. He worked for animals until he died. As he said aboutPhoenix, so it may be said about him. Henry Spira will live on,not just in our memories but in that, thinking of him, we will beenergized to fight harder for all his brothers and sisters. Thisfight was what justified human life for Henry Spira, and heexemplified his belief. Home | What's New? | Online Resources | Links | Merchandise | Poultry Press | Action Alerts | |
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