Remarks at the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame Ceremony
August 22, 1998
Naming the Griffin Building

When I was 14, I went to work as a waitress at Katz Drugstore at 7th and Locust in the Flynn Building for 35¢ and hour to help support my family. Many years later, my husband, James Conlin, bought that building. I always enjoyed that fact. It seemed like a little part of the American dream. I knew nothing of the history of the building or the important, but unfortunate, role it played in the civil rights movement ten years before I got my first job there.

I have known Edna Griffin, of course, for many years. We marched together. We demonstrated together. We organized together. And sometimes we made a little trouble together. She was and is a good friend and a good example.

It is with great pleasure and pride that James Conlin and I announce today that the building at 7th and Locust, the building where Edna Griffin could not get served will now, fifty years later, be named after her. It will be the Edna Griffin Building. There is a wonderful symmetry, and a delicious irony in the name change. James and I are truly delighted to be able to honor Edna Griffin's enormous contribution in this way and to show our appreciation and the appreciation of our community in a tangible and lasting manner.

Edna, you were the very embodiment of courage, of passion, of rectitude. You and your colleagues won a great victory for all of us. This is to thank you.