Kay Adler overcame many roadblocks, dead ends, and obstacles throughout her life. At 85, Adler’s an inspiring woman who’s committed to seeing beyond life’s ups and downs. It’s not easy going along the path to discover true selflessness. Adler’s lifetime of advocacy and support for human rights and civil liberties is her most fruitful achievement. Her inspiration and tireless dedication to the less fortunate in our community are something so-called Christians of today could learn from.
Tom Diventi: Let’s start at the beginning. You were born in Baltimore?
Kay Adler: Yes, I’m a Baltimorean, and I’m happy to say that in October, I’ll mark my 85th year. That is a biggie for me considering my past as an IV drug user, and at some point in my life, when I had no hope, I was satisfied that I’d probably die with a needle in my arm. Sometime around my 30s, there were many people who saw something in me that I didn’t. That’s just the beginning of my story.
TD: That’s quite a story so far. I also had drug issues in the past. Somehow, I mostly overcame them.
KA: I’m proud to say that 1966 was the last time I was incarcerated. That was in Norfolk, Virginia. My mother came to visit me, it was a surprise visit. She said to me, Kay, you’re my daughter, and I love you, but you haven’t killed anyone. It was in that year that I went to Daytop Village. Daytop Village was an example of a program in California called Synanon. That’s really how I got my act together, and later I went on to direct therapeutic communities in the South Bronx. Later, in New Mexico, I established a therapeutic program in a men’s prison in Los Lunas, New Mexico.
TD: That’s very heavy.
KA: And with dedication, I know that therapeutic communities work, we can assist and help one another. People can’t come to you and me with a game; we’ve been there and done that. We know the whole story.
TD: Did you bring that knowledge and experience back to Baltimore with you?
KA: I did, and I worked for a brief time with a program in Baltimore called New Beginnings. It was an outpatient program, but they also had therapeutic counseling. I don’t know if that program still exists.
TD: I remember back in the 1970s there were a lot of interactions between the prisons, with artists and poets going inside the prisons to work with the inmates. I don’t know if that still happens today. I’m sure, in some form, it does.
KA: You just jogged my memory. I also worked for the Theater Project, as an aside, the director at that time, Phillip Arnoult, and a theater group took a play inside the prison. It was called Baltimore Voices. I also returned to the jail and penitentiary with a group of women who did inmates’ hair and gave them manicures and pedicures. I was involved with that years ago, because part of who we are and what we do is to give back.
TD: Do you consider yourself a religious person, or a spiritual individual?
KA: I’m a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, but not a religious person. Speaking of spiritual, I’d like to share a story with you, it was a very high honor for me. I live about a block from the cathedral downtown, and I go there sometimes because I appreciate the atmosphere. I can go there and meditate, and I can also take photographs. This was maybe two years before the pandemic. They had a huge leather-bound book you could write in, called the Book of Intentions. I wrote, Please pray for my friends who had been nuns and priests. This group of special people are advocates against nuclear warfare. I asked them to pray for them. I don’t know if they knew them or not. About a year later, I got in the mail a special epistolary prayer and blessing from Pope Francis. I framed it. They were known as the Plowshare Seven. They were in jail and sentenced for protesting nuclear armament and weapons of mass destruction.
TD: I was young at the time of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, but it was a powder keg waiting to explode. I remember the struggles then.
KA: Another one of our friends, whom you may know, is Marc Steiner.
TD: I know Marc through his radio show.
KA: He still has a radio show with the Real News Network, a Baltimore-based progressive platform. It’s been the Marc Steiner Show since 2018. He was once a talk show host with WEAA. That was during the time when my granddaughter, who goes by the name Micah Unordinary, graduated from Morgan State’s School of Global Communication. She now works with Atlanta’s NPR.
TD: Were your times during the Black Panther Party and the Civil Rights movement scary?
KA: Let me give you my history during that time. I was at the very end of my drug addiction as an IV drug user with heroin and cocaine. I was very aware of what was happening, but in the haze of addiction, it really didn’t phase me much. The most significant thing was where and how I was going to get my next shot. It wasn’t until my rehabilitation that I worked my way through to become one of the directors of Day Top in the South Bronx in 1969/1970. I became acquainted with the Young Lords Party and Angela Davis. I heard Malcolm X speak on separate occasions in Harlem, before his assassination in 1965. That was the first time something was awakened inside me, and I had to get my act together. I heard what Malcolm X said, and it’s interesting to note that when he spoke to the people, he spoke from atop a wooden ladder. His voice could carry over the crowd. It is one of my fondest memories of living in Harlem at the end of my addiction.
TD: There was so much turmoil and chaos, kind of like what’s going on now with the blatant racism of the extreme right.
KA: I share that feeling, and I’m happy to see the turn of events. I’ve always held the opinion that the good people and sensible people will vote fear-mongers and racist politicians out of office. Then there’s always the undercurrent of fear that we were surprised years ago when Trump was elected president. I have mixed emotions, but I’m happy to see that now at least we have someone who can beat Trump and his 2025 agenda. Many people, including us, understand exactly what’s happening and will mobilize and pull in others to get rid of this guy. He has no sense of decency. He’s running scared because he’s no longer dealing with Biden.
TD: People don’t know what’s real or fake anymore.
KA: Trump panders to a philosophy and racist belief that many white people have held in secret. He has hit upon that, and his popularity has grown. But they will realize that they can’t do this because democracy will not be torn apart. I do have misgivings because I think of the Palestinians and other countries that aren’t recognized. But that’s politics. It’s unconscionable that we have a convicted felon running for president of the United States.
I’d like to speak to the prison system in our country for a moment. In the early-1970s, I was a guest on the David Susskind’s television show. I was on there twice with my friend David Rothenburg. In 1969, he established the Fortune Society. He has a book called Fortune in My Eyes, a memoir of Broadway Glamour, Social Justice, and Political Passion. We talked about the penal system, and you can compare our prisons with a quote from Dostoevsky that says, The degree of civilization in our society can be judged by entering its prisons. If you enter American prisons, it becomes clear that we’re not as just a society as we claim to be. The Fortune Society in Long Island has a successful program for men and women coming out of prison and a therapeutic community to support them coming back into society. Mothers and their children are welcome as well.
TD: I’ve seen your photos of homeless people on the streets of Baltimore, around the main library near where you live. If they truly made a difference in our society, you would see it, and nothing has changed.
KA: It’s painful, and I’ve been a photographer for many years and was even given a scholarship by then-city councilman Kweisi Mfume, now a congressman. The scholarship allowed me to go to MICA, where I learned photography and art. Homeless people, and I’ve been homeless in my addiction, so you know how painful it is. I’ve taken a number of homeless photographs so that people can see exactly what it looks like. It’s ironic and insane that in my neighborhood, right next to the Catholic Church and My Sister’s Place, there are so many homeless people. They go to the public library because they have nowhere else to go. The Enoch Pratt Library allows anyone to be a part of the library. Another thing I would like to mention, in terms of Baltimore, is that in 2013, I joined hundreds of people in the poor people’s campaign and marched to Washington, DC. Sharon Black, the leader of the Poor People’s Congress, marched to stop police terror and have jobs, not jails, so my activism continues here in Baltimore. That’s a big part of my calling. One thing I’ve come to recognize about myself is that I’m a very wealthy woman. Wealthy internally. I recently posted that on my social media and suddenly got a lot of inquiries from men. I had to go back and state that I’m wealthy in spirit.
TD: That’s beautiful. I’ve posed this question to every person I’ve interviewed and never heard the same answer twice. Your thoughts, not necessarily your philosophy, on the concepts of life, death, heaven, hell, and the afterlife if there is one.
KA: I think this is it. We create our own hell here. In terms of the afterlife, I’d like to believe that there is such a thing as karma. I believe this is hell. We have to pay a karma, and I work on being a better person today than I was yesterday. Spiritually, we have a responsibility to one another as human beings. I understand why people believe in heaven. It gives them a guideline. It’s unfortunate they get stuck in there and can’t get beyond it because they’re afraid of who they are. If you have never thought about, well, who am I, and where am I going in life? It can be very scary because there’s a dark place in there. If you’re unable to do that, then you’re going to cling to religion and the god theory because it makes life tolerable.
