On a day when Sweet Briar College honored one of its most generous benefactors, writer and feminist activist Sally Bingham’s keynote speech was appropriate, her words provocative.

Bingham spoke about women, power and money.

The occasion was the Founders’ Day Convocation on Friday, Sept. 22, a ritual that traditionally opens the College’s annual heritage celebration. More recently it has marked the official start of Homecoming Weekend, which wrapped up on Sept. 24. This year’s Homecoming theme was “women who go out and make a difference.”

Before Bingham delivered her speech, Elizabeth Perkins Prothro ’39 accepted the 2006 Distinguished Alumna Award, one of the highest honors Sweet Briar bestows. Few alumnae have had as much impact on the College as Prothro.

She was a charter member of the Keystone Society when it was created in 2002 to recognize donors whose lifetime commitments to SBC have totaled more than $1 million. She is also the first of five Prothro women spanning three generations to attend SBC, and has set an example of philanthropic generosity that has benefited five universities and a university medical center in addition to SBC.

“This is an honor that really belongs to all our family, not just me,” Prothro told the assembly, referring to numerous gifts made to Sweet Briar by both the Prothro and Perkins families.

New Keystone members also were inducted during Convocation. The 2006 inductees are Ann Young Bloom ’59, Charlotte Heuer de Serio ’57, Donna Pearson Joey ’64, Helen Murchison Lane ’46, Richard and Eleanor Leslie, Mary Lee McGinnis McClain ’54, Margaret Jones Wyllie ’45, and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, represented by Mary-Beth Johnson.

SBC President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld then introduced Bingham, saying “I dearly wish we could claim her.”

But Bingham attended Radcliffe, where she said she was once summoned by a dean, a “terrifying figure in suit, hat and gloves with a hateful little dog under her desk.” It was the 1950s. Her transgression had been publishing a short story in the Harvard Advocate in which she revealed that young men and women sometimes had sexual relations.

In her address, the playwright, poet, and author of numerous books and short stories explained that she used some of her share of the Bingham family fortune (“ill-gotten,” she said, because it was earned by those who worked for her family’s “monopoly corporations,” especially women secretaries and cafeteria workers) to found the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Women can wield power when they give away their money, she said, but there’s a caveat: Avoid charity that puts “band-aids” on problems. For example, do not fund a cure for breast cancer while ignoring what is causing the disease in so many women. “Confronting root causes is difficult, but it is the most worthy exercise of power and intelligence.”

“To give with power” in the fight against root causes, she said, citing such examples as discrimination and economic exploitation, “brings us into the gun sights of those who want to control reality. But it also brings an incredible sense of satisfaction — whether our goals are achieved or not.”

Bingham created her foundation to support “women artists who are feminists — who use their art for social change.” Most organizations that support women — she acknowledged there are a few more today than when she started KFW 15 years ago — give money for basic survival needs. “Band-aids, expressions of empathy — but useless in attacking root causes.

“If you believe as I do, that the highest form of art alters the atmosphere and shapes the unconscious of its partaker, then you will understand why I feel the work of the [KFW] is revolutionary. With each of our grants we are saying, ‘This woman is important, her art is important,’ and it will cause a change in those who see it, hear it or read it.”

Bingham said the foundation was criticized in its early days, and warned the young Sweet Briar women in the audience that they could expect the same in their future endeavors. “Mainly we were accused of being crazy idealists and also possibly lesbians — the same criticism that is launched whenever women exercise power.”

Nonetheless, she told her listeners to be alert for life experiences that might provide a “sharp goad to bring about change.” For her, the spur was the discovery of art as a child and later, as a writer, the power of words.

Everyone must journey from the “innocence of helplessness to the wisdom of power,” she said. “There is pain and terror along the way. … But when you have learned to use your money, and your power, you will arrive at an appreciation of your womanhood unlike anything you have ever imagined.”

– By Jennifer McManamay, SBC staff writer