Ceaseless and Inspirational

"She is one of the great assets the State Department will have. She has a great deal of grace and pride." says Preston Moore of Susan G. Baker. Moore, who served as CFO and Assistant Secretary for Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Bush Administration, has come to know Mrs. Baker as a tireless leader who has fought for several causes since her move to Washington D.C. in the 1970's.

Susan G. Baker, wife of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, began a life of public service after moving a blended family of nine, soon to be ten, to Washington D.C. when her husband was asked to serve as undersecretary to President Gerald Ford in 1975.

But before her life of fighting for justice and social causes around our nation's capital, Susan would have to navigate some rough terrain of her own.

As a fairly sheltered Catholic Texan, Susan grew up shooting snakes, picking cotton, and swinging from grapevines on her family's Brahman cattle ranch in Danbury, Texas. As a child, Susan and her three siblings were expected to toe the line rising at 5:30 each morning for prayers and chores. Susan learned at and early age the importance of helping others. In 1958 her mother, Mary, started a clothing center for the needy at the local county courthouse in Angleton, Texas. She was also a charter member, and later chairman, of the county child welfare unit. She volunteered at the county family service center, the local welfare planning council, the American Red Cross, and the Brazoria County Historical Museum (which is now the Angleton Danbury Medical Center). Susan's parents were both very active in politics, campaigning for local, state, and national GOP candidates, as well as attending local and state party conventions and contributing financially to candidates and the party.

Susan, along with her sister, Klinka, left the local school system in junior high for a better education at Marymount boarding school in Virginia. The following year, they moved back to Texas to attend St. Mary’s Academy in Austin and two years later they went on to the Kincaid School in Houston, living in an apartment together thirty-five miles from the family ranch. Susan went on to the University of Texas at Austin where she pledge the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She spent her junior year abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris where she enjoyed many experiences (including a sobering visit to Normandy Beach to view post WWII damage) that enlarged her understanding of the world and came to have a much greater appreciation of a life in the US. She withdrew from UT her senior year after a whirlwind courtship with James Winston, heir to a prominent Houston family and former Marine with a reputation for partying and drinking. After several years the marriage ultimately failed, leaving Susan as a single mother of three young children.

"Serving others prepares you to lead others" 

- Jim George

In 1973, Susan met and married James A Baker, III, a prominent Houston attorney, widowed with four boys and in 1975, Jim was asked to serve as undersecretary (one year later ‘acting secretary’) to President Gerald Ford. The new family of nine packed up and moved up to Washington, D.C. In navigating her way to her husband’s office, Susan’s route frequently took her past a number of people who lived on the streets. Unkempt men and women, in need of baths, clad in foul-smelling clothes, some without shoes, their feet wrapped in newspapers, panhandling or sleeping fitfully on cardboard mattresses.

When Susan returned to Washington in 1981, she noticed these same people, and more, still sleeping on the streets. She was introduced to food banking and became involved in working with the homeless.

She became involved with “America’s Second Harvest” which saves more than 2 billion pounds of groceries that would otherwise be destroyed each year, and feeds 25 million Americans. Their efforts helped change government regulations to permit farmers, food distributors, and grocery chains to write off donations of food.

By May 1983 Susan, together with a political and civil activist, a priest, arabbi, and aprofessor, founded the National Citizens Committee for Food and Shelter (now the National Alliance to End Homelessness). Susan took advantage of her husband’s political position to help the cause and worked together with Barbara Bush to host meeting at the vice president’s home to educate cabinet wives about homelessness. They solicited donations of surplus items from the federal government and distributed them to the nonprofit organizations that helped people on the streets and with the help of Caspar Weinberger, the defense department steered loads of surplus goods their way. At the same time, she persuaded the Department of Housing and Urban Development to turn over 10 empty houses it had repossessed in Memphis for temporary housing for homeless families and helped negotiate the transfer of Federal City College in Washington to use as an emergency shelter for 800 people.

"The key is to get the homeless back into housing as quickly as possible" 

and to help others before they slip into crisis mode," says Susan

With more than 5,000 members, most being housing and service providers and government officials, but there are also foundations, businesses and individuals, they work with Congress and the administration to create better policies and programs to help the people who have nowhere to live.

In 1985, together with Tipper Gore, Sally Nevius, and Pam Howar, she started an organization called the Parents Music Resource Center that worked to educate parents and teachers on the explicit and violent content of some rock music lyrics. This group successfully, though not without a battle, suggested a voluntary move by the Recording Industry Association of America (an organization that represents 85% of recorded music in America) to develop guidelines and/or a rating system that would help parents protect their children from the explicit sex, violence and other destructive themes in some popular music. At the Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate hearing Susan testified that “There certainly are many causes for these ills in our society, but it is our contention that the pervasive messages aimed at children which promote and glorify suicide, rape, sadomasochism, and so on, have to be numbered among the contributing factors." In November of 1985, an agreement was reached and the RIAA announced that participating member companies would put warning labels on recordings with ‘explicit sex, explicit violence, or explicit substance abuse.”

In the 1990’s Susan enlisted in the war against pornography joining the National Coalition Against Pornography and began speaking on the abuse of women and children in pornographic magazines and videos. In her presentations and lectures Susan stated that “If this were being done to animals there would be a huge uproar in the press,” and questioning where the ACLU was while women and children were being exploited.

For four years Susan worked with Dr. Mack Harnden on a project to take place in the Holy Land to celebrate the 2000th birthday of Jesus by honoring His teachings about love and forgiveness. The project, A Gathering of Friends, was comprised of high level global dignitaries, the royal family, diplomats and government officials, including Jordan’s King Hussein and Queen Noor, and after cancer claimed King Hussein’s life, newly installed King Abdullah and Queen Rania, Prince Albrecht zu Castell of Germany and his wife, and former prime minister of Israel, Shimon Peres. With six days of events scheduled speakers and registrants from sixty countries and many faiths were in attendance. Through a series of talks given by speakers from around the world, attendees heard stories of personal suffering at the hands of their enemy and their deep desire for peace and reconciliation. Through Susan’s work on the project she has been instrumental in helping others to grasp the principles of forgiveness and begin to put them into practice.

"A noble leader answers not to the call of self-promotion" 

but to the hushed whispers of necessity." - Mollie Marti

In addition, she has served on the boards of many organizations including Families for the Homeless, a bipartisan group of concerned families with ties to presidential administrations, Congress and the media. This organization produced a museum-quality photographic exhibition that was made into the book, Homeless in America, as well as Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (the Advisory Board of the Houston Food Bank); and the Enterprise Foundation, a non-profit organization that assists the creation of low-income housing.

The tragic drowning of her seven-year-old granddaughter, Graeme, when she became trapped under water by the powerful suction from a hot tub drain, led Susan to work with her daughter-in-law, Nancy, to advocate for pool and spa safety. Together they actively lobbied Congress to win support for a law to require anti-entrapment drain covers and other safety devices, as needed. The statute, which was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, was signed into law by the President in December 2007.

Also that year, she led Phase II of the New Century Campaign, a project hosted by Neighborhood Centers Inc., which funded a new community center and international marketplace within a Houston neighborhood. Inspired by a belief that “residents of every section of the city should have a fair chance at proper living conditions and moral surroundings,” Susan became the agency’s first president, creating a legacy that is continued by the support of the Baker family and other leaders in the community. The vision for this project is a place where families can access resources, education and connection to economic development, community leadership and civic engagement, immigration and citizenship, as well as health and education. City leaders have described the New Century Campaign as ‘the most important civic endeavor for our region.’ With Susan’s leadership, the campaign raised more than $12 million toward their $20 million goal.

At the same time that year, she was publicly recognized with the Eisenhower Distinguished Public Service Award for her work on behalf of the homeless. This prestigious award is given by the Eisenhower Institute to recognize individuals whose lifetime accomplishments reflect Dwight D. Eisenhower's legacy of integrity and leadership.

Susan Baker has been instrumental in making dreams happen. She has sacrificed the conventional ways of victory to seek the greatest good for others. She has devoted herself to serving the needs of others and focused on meeting those needs. Being influential in helping to facilitate personal growth in all who have worked with her, Susan possesses a valuable trait, selflessness, and is willing to risk her own fate in order to do what is right. The impact of her work has been inspiring because she has invested her time and care into working for change to make a difference. She is a true servant leader.


References:
"About the Baker Institute". James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

City of Houston: Procedures for Historic District Designation. City of Houston.

Susan G. Baker, Passing It On: An Autobiography with Spirit. (Houston, TX 2010).

James A. Baker, 3rd, Current Biography, March 2007.

Dumas, Bob. "Troubled Waters" Pool & Spa News. October 2003

Chow, Shern-Min. "Former Secretary of state pushes for hot tub safety standards". Vac-Alert. June 29, 2007

"Virginia Graeme Baker Pool And Spa Safety Act". Consumer Product Safety Commission. at Vac-Alert.

“Susan Baker speaking at A Chrysalis Occasion,” www.hopeandhealingcenter.org

“Mrs. James A. Baker, III leads Phase II of New Century Campaign,” Catalyst, September 2007. www.neighborhood –centers.org

www.susangbaker.com

www.endhomelessness.org

“Homeless Covet White House Leftovers,” LA Times, Nov. 30, 1988

“James and Susan Baker receive 2007 Eisenhower Institute Awards,” www.gettysburg.edu

“Susan Baker shares her experiences in a new book,” Houston Chronicle, www.chron.com

“High Level Political Wife Shares Realities of Life on Top,” Social Newsroom of Bright Sky Press, www.i-newswire.com

“Homelessness in America: An Exploration of Poverty, Human Services and Social Change,” Campus Compact, www.compact.org