Anastasia Pittman

Oral History Interview

with

Anastasia Pittman

Interview Conducted by Tanya Finchum December 27, 2007

Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project

Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project

Interview History

Interviewer: Tanya Finchum Transcriber: Jill Minahan Editors: Tanya Finchum, Juliana Nykolaiszyn, Latasha Wilson

The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Project Detail

The purpose of the Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project is to gather and preserve memories and historical documents of women who have served or are currently serving in the Oklahoma Legislature.

This project was approved by the Oklahoma State University Institutional Review Board on November 10, 2006.

Legal Status

Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Anastasia Pittman is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on December 27, 2007.

Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project

Anastasia Pittman – Brief Biography

Anastasia Pittman was born in 1970 in Miami, Florida. After graduating from Star Spencer High School in Oklahoma City, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Public Relations from the University of Oklahoma. Pittman then earned a master’s degree in Urban Education and Behavioral Science from Langston University.

After college Pittman served as legislative, research, and administrative assistant in the areas of media, health, human services, education, and child welfare for the Oklahoma State Senate from 1999 to 2006. She served as precinct chair/vice chair to District 99 from 2004 to 2006. Pittman hosts her own radio show, “The Anastasia Pittman Show.” She has taught Spanish and is a registered tutor for Oklahoma City Public Schools. She is also a dual- certified Case Manager and partners with local agencies.

In 2006, Pittman was elected to represent District 99 in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Pittman serves on the Banking Subcommittee on Economic Development and Financial Services, Aerospace and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Technology, Human Services Committee, Elderly and Long-term Care Subcommittee, and Health Subcommittee on Public Health.

Pittman is involved in numerous organizations in the community, including serving as a board member for the YWCA, Metropolitan Better Living Center, Aids Walk of Oklahoma, and many others. She is a mentor and tutor for the Weed and Seed Program, and the United States Department of Justice Western District PTA. Pittman serves also as President of K.I.P.P. PTA College Preparatory School and is involved in Urban League of Young Professionals, A. Phillip Randolph Institute, Metro Federation Democratic Women’s Club, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Northeast Church of Christ, Top Ladies of Distinction, Eastside Capitol Gateway, State and Community Organizations Promoting Education, and NAACP.

She has received many honors, including Outstanding Community Service Recognition from President Bill Clinton for the Magic Star Foundation that she started, Cooperative Extension-Outreach Service and Leadership Award from Langston University, Unity in the Community State Award from Oklahoma Federal Executive Board, Outstanding Black Woman’s Award from a Girl Scout troop, Outstanding Leadership Award from Chief E. Kelly Haney honoring Seminole women, Lecia Swain/Theodis Payne Media Award from NAACP, Media Advocacy Award from the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and the Oklahoma Achiever’s Award from Metropolitan Better Living Center.

Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project

Anastasia Pittman

Oral History Interview

Interviewed by Tanya Finchum December 27, 2007 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Finchum Today is December 27, 2007. My name is Tanya Finchum and I’m here with Anastasia Pittman who is in the House of Representatives of Oklahoma—was elected in 2006, right?

Pittman Yes ma’am.

Finchum This is part of the Oklahoma State University Library’s project called Women of the Oklahoma Legislature, Past and Present. Thank you for joining me today. Let’s have you start by telling a little about your childhood and then we’ll move forward.

Pittman Okay. As you stated, I’m Anastasia Pittman and I was born in Miami, Florida and that was a long time ago for me but actually it was 1970. I lived in Miami, Florida—lived in Dade County, lived in North Miami Beach. My parents worked there. I had an older brother at the time, and we migrated back and forth from Oklahoma City to Miami during the summer. One summer my grandparents had us and they [parents] didn’t return on time so she enrolled us in school. We got our immunizations and we started attending school in Oklahoma. My grandmother later became our legal guardian and continued to care for us. We finished high school and college here in Oklahoma.

Finchum Which high school in Oklahoma?

Pittman I attended Rogers Middle School, Star Elementary—which no longer exists—Rogers Middle School, Star Spencer High School. I attended the University of Oklahoma, graduated with a bachelor’s in Journalism and then I attended Langston University and got my master’s in Urban Education. So I had a very fun and balanced childhood. When you have grandparents raising grandchildren, it’s a unique balance. They are always there because they’re retired, and you later learn what that word means—that you never leave, you never go to work.

I’ve had the best of both worlds by having both my maternal and paternal grandparents in Oklahoma with just a rich, rich history. My father’s side was educators and entrepreneurs, and my mother’s side was in medicine and they were sharecroppers. They were Native Americans, and they did their own thing, but mostly it was in medicine and in teaching spirituality. It was just great on my mother’s side of the family.

Finchum And were they native Oklahomans?

Pittman Yes. My maternal grandmother was Mary Lee Thurmond Taylor and she was born in Cromwell, Oklahoma. They lived in Sasaqua. Those are Native American towns just outside of Seminole, in between Seminole and Shawnee. Sasaqua is where they had land. We still own that land today. We have Thomas Town, Thomas Town Baptist Church—they had a little red house school there and it’s called Little River.

So when you talk to older people who are from what they call “down- home” because the city was the city and they would say “down-home” or “Little River.” That was where we learned a lot of our traditional dishes, our main course meals and little things that went with every meal called fry bread, and it looks like what we call today, the little Chinese bread, but it’s fry bread and it’s made from an Indian recipe and it is like a delicacy. You have it with every meal. Nobody eats without fry bread.

So living down there, she came to Oklahoma City at the age of 16. She’s the eldest of eight children. She was the oldest but she was called “Little Sis.” Everybody had a nickname for everyone and by her name being Mary, she had her grandmother’s name. She was raised by her grandmother, as well.

Finchum And so do you have a nickname?

Pittman I do, I do. I have several.

Finchum Do you want to share?

Pittman My nickname is “Sunshine.”

Finchum Okay.

Pittman I was born in the “Sunshine State” so it was very easy for my dad to say, “Hey, Sunshine.” I thought it was because they were referring to my skin color, as my brother most often did. He very often referred to me being fair-skinned and very bright, so that was his take on sunshine or being yellow, as he called me. But my dad reminded me that I was always the first one to wake him up, first one in the bed, so he would

say, “Good morning Sunshine.” When my eyes open, I’m ready to eat, My grandmother was always up early, always up before everyone and when food permeated in the home, it was time to wake up, so we did and we had a very healthy childhood.

Even though it was fragmented with family members because African Americans and Native Americans tend to live with extended family members, it’s kind of unique. It’s not so much today, but when I was growing up and other friends had just their mom and dad in the home, living with your grandparents or maybe an uncle or an aunt—it was unique. They wondered why are were so many people in the home but it worked well for us. It kept us balanced because everybody had a different perspective on how to raise children…

Finchum I’m sure.

Pittman …and it was better for us to be raised by our grandparents than our parents at the time because they had an opportunity to do it over, and made it easy, made it fun.

Finchum Did you discuss politics around the dinner table?

Pittman No.

Finchum No?

Pittman No, not often. It was more so a spiritual type gathering, and it changed as we got older because then you were taught, “This is what’s right, this is what’s wrong, now you choose.” We find ourselves making decisions for those grandparents who raised us and it was unique when the tables turned. At nine years old, I began to give my grandmother medications that required discipline. You’ve got to lay these meds out there every day and that’s what you do. But you did it and that was a part of your lifestyle. You didn’t know they needed it to live, and they were really depending on you.

Finchum Were you a Girl Scout?

Pittman I was a Brownie, which is before Girl Scouts. I had the option of choosing between Campfire Girls and Brownies. I was in Brownies. They were a little more active. My brother was in Boy Scouts and my dad was a very active outdoorsman. It was unique because we had sports. I was always outside. I was a tomboy. There were all guys in the neighborhood, and I was the little sister. I was the baby, and it was very difficult because they didn’t want you to go outside. They didn’t want you to participate in those sports. My dad was a fair guy—if you wanted

to go with him hunting, camping, fishing, bowling, anything, he allowed you to do it even if you were a girl. So I learned about cars, martial arts, fishing, chess—and he was just great. Now my mom is a little more of a strict person. She’s a no-nonsense type of gal, and her rules were rules and she’s very vocal, very boisterous—a lot of fun. She just held her own and she grew up with mostly brothers and raised two younger brothers but she came from a large family, as well. Altogether it was seven of them and only two girls and five boys. She learned that if you want a piece of the pie you’d better reach in and grab it, (Laughs) and they did.

Finchum How early on did you get interested in the political arena?

Pittman I was about 12 or 13.

Finchum That’s pretty early.

Pittman Well, when you hang out with old folks, you learn the little clichés. My grandmother always spoke to us in parables, and you’d figure it out later on as you grew up that they didn’t speak directly to you. They gave you innuendos or affirmations or things that they believed in or things that they held dear to their heart to be true. You quickly learned that when they said things it came to fruition, it came to pass. You learned wisdom at an early age, and in politics—in school, I guess I began to perfect politics when it was time for me to get in trouble. And if I was to get in trouble, I was able to articulate what I was thinking at the time of my behavior, whether it was against the rules or within the rules. If you allowed me the opportunity to share with you why my behavior was as such, then most often times I was not in trouble. So that was a good thing for me and debate became of interest to me.

But at 12 years old, I was at Rogers Middle School and we had a career day, and there was a teacher there. I believe she was a special-ed teacher, she wasn’t one of my professors but her husband came to speak with us, and he was an attorney. When he spoke, even though the room was filled with children, I felt as though I was the only one in the room—the only one that he was talking to. He helped people. He fought for justice and things that weren’t right. He did what he could to make them right. And he balanced that by the mandates and rules of the laws of the land, and that was of interest to me, and that was my ticket—that was my interest. After he spoke, I made my way through the crowd and met him and introduced myself and told him that I wanted to be a lawyer and I loved what he did and it just sounds like he was just talking directly to me, and that was my purpose in life. That was my calling, if you will.

He said to me, “I’m gonna tell you a secret, Anastasia. I believe that you can be anything you want to be, and you’d certainly make a great lawyer, a great attorney, a great council person. But the secret to being an attorney is learning how to write.” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yes. Do well in English. Learn how to write because we pay people to write briefs for us and to do research for us. If you can do that yourself then you would make a great attorney and you wouldn’t have to pay someone else to do that research for you.” From that point on, my academics were geared toward journalism and public relations and learning those skills, honing in those skills on how to write.

Even though we were active in city council, we were active in student council, human relations, you name it, we did it in school. I was the freshman class president, the sophomore class favorite, the junior class president, and I just flourished because I had great teachers. They communicated with your parents. They really fostered an environment for learning, and learning was not an option. You learned what they taught and you embraced it. You really felt good as a child to do well and make your teachers proud, and I had wonderful teachers— wonderful people who encouraged me.

As a little girl, not knowing that I was poor or was borderline poverty, we never missed a beat. We had everything that we needed—a home full of love. We had our challenges, you know, with various people in the home. Not everybody agreed on everything. Not everybody included children, but my grandmother did and we were part of the decision- making process. We were a part of how we were to plan out our education. So you made the decision as to whether or not you wanted to go to college because they worked and they went into the military and not all of them went to college. I was thankful that I had some opportunities, thankful that I had some privileges.

Finchum And you chose OU for any particular reason?

Pittman Yes, yes. As a kid, my dad is from Oklahoma as well, and at the time he went to Central State University, graduated from what we now call University of Central Oklahoma—but he was a swimmer, captain of his team. He bowled, he was just great at football, and by the time we came along and moved back to Oklahoma—because my parents were away for quite some time and they lived in California at the time while we were living here with our grandparents—well, when he returned to Oklahoma, he was a sports fanatic. And we played sports and he took us to OU. We’d frequent the University of Oklahoma library. We went to OSU a couple of times, but it was a longer drive and we were more interested in the crimson and cream, and just being on the campus, it breathed a new life into us. We were able to reach for the goals that we

had, and going to college was not just a dream, it was actually tangible.

So when I got the opportunity to receive scholarships from the University of Oklahoma—a lady named Marian Brown came to my high school and she recruited me. I was torn between other universities outside of the state, but my connection was my family. My grandparents were older and at the time they were having health challenges. They were a little bit more dependent on us, and they sacrificed so much for us and so we made the choice to stay here. And going to OU was a lifelong dream, and when Ms. Marian Brown came to Star Spencer High School, it was the best thing for me to say “yes” to the academic honors and even have some athletic opportunities to attend the University of Oklahoma.

Then when I got there, I had too many options and I had to make some choices. It was either gonna be academics or athletics, and I chose academics. I had four scholarships in that area and now President Boren and I, we joke. I used to have meetings in the Boyd House which is where they live. They came back and restored the Boyd House, the President’s House. We had presidential leadership classes and our meetings were in that house. So I look back and look on the University of Oklahoma—it was my training ground for what I do. As a freshman, I was selected as a student delegate and I was able to travel for the University of Oklahoma in student government. That was when it was a Big VIII school and now it’s a Big XII school. It may continue to grow but I traveled for the university, on black student government, with the Black Students’ Association, and it was great. I was a journalism major, had a lot of beats to cover, had journalism scholarships, National Merit scholarships—it was just great.

Finchum And then at some point you became a Senate staffer?

Pittman Yes.

Finchum You did some of the writing and research for that too?

Pittman Yes, and that opened great doors. Actually the connection came from OU. I was still writing for the Oklahoma Daily even after I’d graduated. I did a story on a local newspaper which was the Ebony Tribune, and I did a research project on a local black-owned newspaper. It was edited by Lecia Swain-Ross who later became a very good friend, very close friend, but at the time that I was interviewing her I was still writing for OU. She was the legislative assistant to Senator Angela Monson, and that was my connection. So after I did the research project and did my interview with Lecia and found out a lot of things that I knew but really didn’t know that my family was connected to Lecia Swain and her

mother and father, Alice M. Swain and Robert Swain, Sr.

We began to talk and chat and after the project was over she said, “You ought to come and write. Come in and do an internship here at the Tribune.” And later she mentioned to Senator Monson, “I’ve got a writer. You should meet her. You need to know her. We’d like for her to come do an internship at the Oklahoma State Senate.” Well, lo and behold, all of these ladies that I was now meeting again, I had met earlier in my childhood because they were all musical students of my grandfather, who was a jazz musician. And at the time, he traveled from school to school and taught music to African-American students and they were in photographs in a picture in his book. So the greater inspirers for me were Angela Monson, Vicki Miles-LaGrange, the Honorable Lecia Swain-Ross, even Senator Constance Johnson was his student, as well. They all took music from my grandfather.

So when I met Angela again, I said, “I’d like to intern,” and she said, “Well, you should tell me these things because I know who you are.” Little did I know that the pictures I was looking at as a little girl, which I thought was me, it was actually Senator Monson. She was taking flute lessons from my grandfather and Vicki Miles-LaGrange was the senator at the time that I was becoming interested in politics when I was 12 and 13, and even at 17 her, Senator Vicki Miles-LaGrange, her dad, Charles Miles, was my principal at high school. So I received an award from Senator Vicki Miles-LaGrange at 17 for being a “Kids Who Care.” That confirmed my interest in politics because she was the first African- American female elected [to the Senate]. So that says, “It could be done. The doors are open.”

Then when I got closer to the dream, the person who really opened the door and said, “Come on in,” was Senator Angela Monson. And that’s how I got to the State Senate as a media intern. I began writing news columns, press releases, wrote releases, all of those things for all of the Senate really, all of the various senators that were there at the time, like Senator Paul Muegge and Ben Robinson and Dave Herbert. So I had a lot of great leaders, like Penny Williams—but Senator Monson made it possible, she sponsored me. And after a year of being a media intern, she came to me and said, “Would you like to learn the legislative process?” Well, I told her, “Yes.”

I had a mentor there who I always went and spoke to. It was Enoch Kelly Haney who was also a senator, and he was an artist. His office was at the bottom of the stairs, so every time I came down from media, his office was the first office that I could go to when I was delivering the mail clips and the things that we wrote. I would go in and say, “Senator Haney, what do you feel about this? How do you think about that?” He

said, “What do you want to do next?” I said, “I want to go to law school.” He said, “Well, if you’re gonna stay here and learn the legislative process, law school’s a great place to go.” He was someone that I confided in and talked to and Senator Monson encouraged me and opened some doors.

Senator Haney encouraged me to go to law school here at the Oklahoma City University (OCU) because he was there. He sat on the Appropriations Board and he sat on a board at OCU and said, “Don’t go to OU. Go to OCU.” I tried it for a little bit but I couldn’t balance the work and the workload from my family. My grandmother was ill, and I just said, “Well, there’s gonna be plenty of time for that.” Plus I was a parent as well, so just entering in the legislative process was the best thing that I could have done because I was able to get training. I was able to learn the legislative process, stayed there, did it for an additional six years.

I was able to travel with Senator Monson to the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL). I was able to receive scholarships from NCSL to attend health seminars and trainings and those types of things. And as I worked on committee staff, I was able to be exposed to the work that— the legislative writer was Connie Johnson. So just a rich history of watching what she did in Health and Human Services, able to share her workload and learn and not only just work in that area, but I worked in various areas. I worked as a clerk, as an administrative assistant. I worked in enrollment and engrossing and filing bills and re-doing files. I worked in the Senate post office—wherever I could help out.

I was a troubleshooter, and I was very flexible so I learned everything that I could and in the process of learning and just being present. Bill Toms was a great writer and he was one of the first writers I encountered on legislative committee staff. Suzanne Broadbant, an attorney, great attorney, worked on that floor. Brenda Price—just people that I worked with—Tom Walls, Caroline Dennis, even Connie Irby was there when I was there and gave me opportunities to work in different areas. And through that, I met lobbyists. I met people who represented different organizations. I met the governmental liaisons for the health department and the different areas that I worked in. I was able to participate in bill drafting and short-title writing and began to just be flourished with information and opportunities.

But it just—the timing—it was not there. As the turnover began to occur, term limits began to limit our senators. Constance Johnson was able to capitalize on the term limits of Angela Monson. So after being in the legislature for seven years—a little over—when the space became available when House District 99—Representative Opio Toure was term

limited, then I resigned. I resigned and said, “I’m gonna run for office.”

Finchum No hesitation?

Pittman Well, there’s hesitation in the background. (Laughs) It’s a balance to juggle your family and politics, but I had a great support system. I had great community service and connections. As a writer, you’re able to use those credentials to go into various areas of your community and tell their story. When you’re the eyes and ears of the public, they trust you, and when they see their story, it validates what they do. It encourages them in their purpose, and you begin to sharpen your skills. The more you write, the better you get. I was able to spread that rich history— writing from cheerleaders to foreign currency. Everything that I was able to learn at the University of Oklahoma, I was able to capitalize on it. Then my specialty grew after I had a child because I wanted to educate her and learn more things, and so I went back to school and got a master’s in Urban Education. That also created a platform for me to know more people and be engaged in the community in various ways.

Finchum Did you have a campaign manager or were you it?

Pittman No, I had a campaign manager. I had great people who had been in politics. I had participated in politics. At the time, Lecia Swain-Ross, who was the editor of the Ebony Tribune—she was also the legislative assistant to Angela Monson—but she, at the time, was the co- chairperson of the democratic party on the county level. So I was able to enter into some grassroots learning, find out what they did in the private sector of registering people to vote, understanding the value of organization.

And I met a friend through Lecia Swain at the newspaper because we not only wrote the newspaper, we folded it and we distributed it. We did everything in-house. I met a lady who would come every Friday and fold papers. She was the president of A. Philip Randolph Institute and they networked in different communities on certain political issues to get people to vote. Her name is Theresa Hill—Theresa R. Hill—and she would always say, “Lecia’s gonna run for office. You should, too.” And Lecia and I, we talked about going to college, going to law school together. We sat down and we mapped out a plan, and ten years later it came to fruition.

Theresa Hill was one of the grassroots persons. She was my senior advisor. She couldn’t be my campaign manager at the time because she was an outreach coordinator for the National Democratic Committee (NDC). She was an employee of the DNC so she couldn’t really foster a campaign but she could advise us and tell us what should be done. We

have been friends for ten years. We’d lost touch. She’d see me in public. She’d say, “Are you ready? Are you gonna run?” I said, “Well, I’m in school. I’m working on a master’s. Not now.” And two years later, she’d see me again and she’d say, “Are you ready?” I said, “Theresa, I have a kid. You know, my focus is my family. We’re moving around. Her dad’s a coach so he’s moving around.” And she said, “I’m gonna help you run for office whenever you’re ready.” I said, “Why don’t you run first?” And she said, “No, I’m a behind-the-scenes person and I help get people elected, that’s what I do, and I want to help elect someone that I’m proud of.”

Lecia and I, we talked about it. Theresa and I, we talked about it. And I just had great motivators. They mostly were females, of course, but when it came time to make the decision to quit my job, I’d already talked with my family a year ahead of time. I’d talked to them in ’94 because I was working on Representative Toure’s campaign and we were doing our last mail-out and one of the things that honed in with me is that he said, “This is it, guys. This is our last campaign,” because he was going to be term-limited. And my daughter and I were putting stamps on envelopes and I was like, “Oh, god,” you know, “What are we gonna do? Our representation may be gone.” My grandmother said, “Well, there will be people who will seek that office.” Never in my life did I think that I would have the opportunity that I did and the background knowledge that I had.

And so I had a campaign manager. His name was Garland Pruett, and he was a good friend of Theresa’s, and it was just like a family reunion. I had a new person, Ms. Trina Bias, who was from my church, and she worked on various ministries. I worked on various ministries and we were always at church, even after church hours. Finally my pastor, Arnelius Crenshaw, put us together on a committee of four ladies—very wonderful ladies—as administration for our chorus, for our church choir because we worked on special projects. I worked on black history programs, Christmas programs, homecoming was my specialty. He put us together and we had a team of four ladies—one was a computer tech, one was the president, I was the vice president. Ms. Trina was the administrative glue, and her level of expertise was phenomenal. Never in my life did I think that such a quiet person who didn’t talk but was very skilled would say, “I’ll work for you, I’ll help you.” What better way, to be surrounded by your spiritual family, too.

So you have your nucleus of family, you have your legislative family, you’ve got a community-based family and then you’ve got a spiritual core. My support system and timing was phenomenal. There was no way I could do it any other way. So I had Theresa Hill, Garland Pruett, Trina Bias, myself—my daughter had made the decision that she was gonna

help and then two more ladies from my church. One of them was on the first committee of four, which was my computer person, and she came on board and later became my bodyguard and then…

Finchum You had to have a bodyguard?

Pittman Well, it’s just what we called her. They were two ladies, they were in the military and they were very, very strict and very stern. At the time we needed the structure and the discipline to kind of corral our volunteers, to have that work ethic that you need in a campaign to where you have an understanding family that will carry on without you. Those ladies were phenomenal. I couldn’t replace them. They made it happen. They were there at my swearing-in ceremony, and I made sure that those ladies became my employees, too.

Finchum Did you knock on every door, or most of them?

Pittman Yes. Yes. Not only did we knock on every door, we knocked on every door twice. And we touched them four times, two mail-outs and two sweeps of the district and then we made robo-calls. We called for fundraisers, we sent out fliers and mailers, and we had some help. We had some endorsements that really made the difference because we had a very tough primary race with four other candidates.

Finchum Male or female?

Pittman All male. I was the only female. And we were the top vote-getter in the primary, but we didn’t reach the 51% so we had a run-off. That was more work, more money and a short amount of time to get there. We raised the money and we did the work and we were the top vote-getter and became the democratic nominee. And then in fall, we had a general election. So we jelled. We tried not to kill each other. We made some decisions and sometimes those decisions weren’t always in the best interest of everyone, they were in the best interest of time. When you’re running out of time, you’ve got to have a plan. We were fortunate to have a plan and we were also fortunate enough to understand media.

There are so many components of a campaign. You’ve got to have someone who just focuses on fundraising. You’ve got to have someone who just opens your mail and keeps your schedule. You’ve got to have someone who coordinates your volunteers. You’ve got to have someone who encourages you to sharpen your issues and keep you abreast of the current events and then you’ve got to have a motivator. You’ve got to have somebody that encourages you when you get tired.

Finchum And who was that?

Pittman And, man, there are various people for me.

Finchum At different times?

Pittman At different times. They were really the ladies of my Sunday school class at church. They were a lot older and they were like, “I’m retired, baby. What do you need?” and they would bring us food. They would come by and put labels and stickers on. I had a community network that was awesome, too. I was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. I had sorority sisters that came by and made phone calls to our constituents. They encouraged me. They wrote letters for me to other sorority members. I had people that would call me at night and pray with me and pray for me, and call me early in the morning and make sure I was awake and pray for me again. So for me it wasn’t one particular person. It was a cluster of motivators, educators, and even some of our leaders, our current leaders, they would call and say, “You know what? I’m proud of you. I like the way you ran your campaign. It was with grace. It was with poise. It was with character. It was with dignity.”

And that’s hard to do when people are tearing down your signs or making assassinations on your character. I really didn’t have that problem until we got to the general election and there was one article— and it was published by the Black Chronicle. It said something like, “Candidates for District 99 have 22 cases with the law,” or “22 run-ins with the law” and 20 of them were all about my opponent and then two of them were regarding to me. And one was about me taking some roommates to court for moving out without paying the rent, and the other one was me filing for child support for my daughter and people would call me and say, “That wasn’t anything bad.” I said, “Well, you know, it’s just a part of the 22 cases I guess.”

They didn’t know that my daughter and her dad, we have such a great network. We co-parent. At the time when we had our daughter, we were young, we had just gotten out of college and we just decided that we weren’t gonna get married at the time. The more we moved around and the more we worked together—when people see us together, they automatically think that we’re married and it feels like it, but we weren’t, and we do everything together. We go on vacations together. We talk. We do whatever we need to do. We make decisions on her future together.

It was just awesome because he was coaching in another state and when I got ready to quit my job I said, “Hey, I need you to come home. I need you to be here to do this.” And he said, “I’m there,” and moved. He said, “How much time do I have?” So he finished out that semester there and moved back to Oklahoma, and I think he was settled in by March. I

quit in May and we made it through. So nine months without a job is a challenge in itself. Like I said, I had family members, a great support system, and the timing was good. I never ran against an incumbent. So we waited our turn, we waited our turn.

Finchum Talk a little bit about election day, the last election day.

Pittman The last election day was a good day, and we worked. We started off— actually we never went to bed the night before. You kind of map out where you’re gonna go. You map out what’s gonna be your priority areas. By then you’ve got a feel of who votes, who doesn’t vote, and how you’re gonna get your voters to the polls—that’s the most important thing. Sometimes on election days, candidates—they really feel like their job is done and they have a hard time on election day. They struggle because everybody’s at work. Everybody’s busy, and you find yourself looking for things to do. Well, not the Pittman campaign—not so. We prepared the night before. We had a group of kids, a group of volunteers, people who took off work and they came to the campaign office and we camped out. And we had a lot of other volunteers because some of the other campaigns were over and they kind of joined our campaign, which was great.

It was great that it was a big election where other people were gonna be on the ballot. That was hopeful to us because people were gonna come out and vote anyway. So in the general election we camped out. We ordered pizza and chicken and we put our little, “Get out to vote,” information pieces together. We let the kids stay up till about midnight and then we started blowing up air mattresses so they could stay in the campaign office—literally not go home. We issued out t-shirts. We issued out locations of where we wanted our people to go to help give rides to our elderly, make phone calls to remind people. Everybody got an assignment the night before.

So on election day, people came from our community at five o’clock in the morning to have coffee and doughnuts. We opened up our campaign office early, and at six o’clock we took to the streets and we made sure that the signs were up and out because we didn’t want to put them out the night before just so somebody could take the signs by the next morning. Because the polls open at seven o’clock and people could vote, we needed people strategically located on the corners with the t-shirts and the signs—kind of like a flood, if you will. So people had their respective areas to go to, and they rotated every two hours. They would come in and we’d send a different group out. So if you went out from 6:00 to 8:00 and held up a sign or put signs out in strategically-located places so that the city wouldn’t pick them up as well, you did your duty and you came back. And some people came back and whatever area they

worked in from 6:00 to 8:00, they may have gone to a different area from 8:00 to 10:00 and then they came back.

Everybody met back at the office at noon. We had lunch together, and we rotated people back out for that afternoon. We just created visibility, and we worked on getting our people to the polls. It was a work day, and I mean we worked up until 7:00 PM whereas some of my colleagues, they were planning their watch-party and they were decorating—well, we had a decorating committee. We had a team who did those things, and Denise Williams led that team. Whenever I had a fundraiser, that was one of the military ladies from church who said, “I’m gonna get these helium tanks, and me and my people—at 4:00 we’re gonna go set up the watch party. We’re gonna make sure you have everything that you need,” balloons and streamers and cameras and a place for my grandmother who was in a wheelchair. And my aunt, a retired educator, moved home from Chicago to help me care for my grandmother while I ran for office. That was her mom, and I said, “Look, I need some help,” and my mom wasn’t able to come and help me through that process, but she was and like I said, it was about timing. It was about our season, and we were trying to walk in purpose and we did.

Finchum You have to do it again this next summer?

Pittman Yes, I do. Yes, I do, and it’ll be so much easier. It’s not an open seat. We are the incumbent. We do great incumbent protection, so we really touch our constituents. We really stay in contact with our community. I have a radio talk show every Friday. It’s a live show, “The Anastasia Pittman Show,” and my constituents are able to call in, ask questions about any topic. We have guests that come in the studio and share with the community to keep them informed. I mail out a newsletter every week, of 500 a week, and I do that whether we’re in the office or out of the office. That’s where my executive assistant is empowered to make decisions on my behalf when I’m not there. And it’s real unique, it’s real unique because I’m a people person. I like to spend time with people, love to hug, love to smile and love to talk. So for me staying on task was a challenge.

My legislative assistant is sequential. She’s time-oriented. She’s conscious of where you need to be, when you need to be there, what information you need to have while you’re on your way. That was very helpful to me, and I never thought I’d meet anybody like that. I never even thought I would need someone like that until we worked together on some various church projects, and it was wonderful. I’d never met her before then, and I met her—able to work with her six years prior to—I knew her six years, but we really worked closely together two years prior to me getting ready to run for office. She was like, “You’re

gonna quit your job,” and it was great. She said, “I’ll be there.”

Finchum All the pieces of the puzzle came together.

Pittman At the right time. I never had anything before I needed it. The only thing that I laid before them when people met me was the groundwork. The foundation was laid, the community connection was there, the primary relationships with people in the legislature, people who wrote policy, people who—that was their arena, they came. And fortunately I was able to say, “Good morning,” to all of them for seven years, and so it wasn’t hard. And I had great opponents. I had great candidates, highly qualified candidates—some older, some younger, and then some with a little less experience, but they had name recognition which is generally all you need. The candidates with name recognition were the ones who maybe were less experienced in legislative stuff, but their family had a nucleus in the community as well and you’re talking about struggling, dividing our community. People knew both of us and people knew both of our parents and grandparents and it was hard for them to make a decision.

Based on the information provided, which Ms. Trina, my legislative assistant, was my graphics designer, she was able to do the PowerPoint presentations that I need. She designed my literature and my walk cards. We didn’t have the money to do that because when you’re in a very competitive primary, most democrats pull their hands and then it’s whoever comes out of the primary victorious that then we all jump on board to assist. But during that time when you don’t have the endorsement of the incumbent—I didn’t have the endorsement of the incumbent—he was my friend and I worked on his campaign, but when it came down to it, one of the guys running against me was his Little League baseball player. He had to make a decision and so he chose to support him, and he called me and he let know and I said, “No problem.” And we ran a great campaign. We just outworked them. We didn’t always have the money to do certain things, but when we made the design of what we had, it was very professional. There were no mistakes and it was very colorful. So we strategically utilized our money and a lot of sweat equity. We walked a lot, so it was great.

Finchum In the hot sun, I’m sure.

Pittman It was great.

Finchum Once you were elected, let’s move forward a little bit. The swearing-in day, was your grandmother there?

Pittman Yes. Yes. Man, just proud as ever. A dream come true for her. She had never graduated high school. She worked. She was a nurse, and she was

our Sunday school teacher and she just kind of loved on the community. Everybody loved Granny, and that’s what she was called. Even when she wasn’t your granny, that’s what you called her and she was there front-row, front and center. My family was there. My brother and his family were there. Everybody—my church family—even the leaders in the community that I had worked for—my NAACP president was there. The black caucus members were there. My pastors in the community that supported me were there. Senator Angela Monson was there and on the program. I just love her so much because she’s genuine. She’s highly respected in the area, and for her to be the first African-American female president of the National Conference of State Legislators, and the first Oklahoman. It was great to have been under her leadership and for her to watch me grow and for her to watch me develop. It was great.

The only person that was absent was the Honorable Vicki Miles- LaGrange, and she sent a letter. She couldn’t be present, but she made her presence known, and the letter was read and it was great—and we just—it was a great day. I had a private swearing-in prior to all of the other elected officials. I wanted to do a private ceremony because so many people had worked so hard to get me there. When I found out that we were going to be limited to two guests—how do you tell your significant other, “Well, it’s either you or my mom”? We flew my mom down here from California. My dad’s present. My brothers and sisters are present. My daughter, my son’s present. My grandmother’s there. So there was no way I was gonna be able to choose from my sorority sisters, my Sunday school class ladies who helped make phone calls and encouraged me, my community friends and family, people that my family have touched and they watched me grow up so they were proud, too. Former educators, different people that I have worked with, a school that I used to teach at—I had all my schools there. Learner’s Academy was a school I used to teach Spanish at. Kip Reach College Preparatory, I invited those kids because I was the PTA president for four years there. Marcus Garvey Leadership Academy played the African drums for me. We had a very moving ceremony at 10:00 that morning and…

Finchum Here? Or at the…

Pittman At the Capitol, in the House chambers—no one else was there, it was just my private ceremony. My best friend—very close friend, who’s also a judge—Judge Tammy Bass-Lesure was my swearing-in magistrate and her daughter was my god-daughter and her daughter was able to hold the Bible for me. She was four so she was just small enough to hold the Bible. It was just very moving, very intimate for me. Great day. Great day in history, great day in history.

Finchum Which two did you pick to go for the official—the big one?

Pittman The big one?

Finchum Was there anyone else?

Pittman I’m trying to think of who was there. I took my daughter, because I brought her on the floor, and I think her dad was in the gallery because my grandparents were tired. They were still there but they needed to go and eat because I think we had to be out of the chamber at noon and back at 1:30 to be sworn in. I think those are the only two that were with me at the time. So it was great, it was great, it was great.

Finchum Okay, we’ll move further ahead then and talk about the first bill you presented on the floor.

Pittman One of my first bills was in education and it was about teacher certifications and being nationally-certified versus just the regular certification giving them some type of incentive to become nationally- certified. We had so many at-risk schools, and to give them a certain percentage because it costs so much money to go and be nationally- certified, but to give them a break on that. I love education. I love health. Some of the committees that I served on I was able to introduce some bills in those areas.

Some of my more controversial bills were trying to develop a minority task force for HIV and AIDS. At the time, after celebrating 25 years of the epidemic—25, 26 years, the national rate for African American females was increasing. Fifty % of all the new cases were African Americans and three-to-one, it was females to males. I couldn’t figure out what the new epidemic was, what the new phenomenon was, because it was perceived in the African-American community as an off- type of disease. It was not in the African-American community. It was related to homophobia. It was related to gay male disease. Twenty-five years later, children were being infected, and not just African-Americans but all of the minorities—Native Americans, Hispanics—they were increasing, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I had wanted to do research on it to find out if it was accessibility to health care or—which some of the things I did find out, they had partners who were in prison and the ex-offenders when they were released had more than one partner. So if you’ve got three females to each male, that would explain some of the behavior because it was unheard of for African-American female women to have such an increasing and alarming rate nationwide. It wasn’t just in Oklahoma, it was nationwide. And promiscuity is just not that prominent in the African-American community. These women thought that they were in heterosexual, monogamous relationships and they were not. They were

all being infected. So it was unfortunate, and I wanted to bring that to the forefront, bring some light to it.

We weren’t able to get the urgency there because after 25 years with prevention and treatment and all those things available, it just wasn’t a priority. Then when you have to find things that accommodate both rural and urban legislators, that’s your primary challenge. You have to find things that are non-partisan in legislative agenda items, and that’s sometimes difficult to do because you are the voice of your constituents. You have to represent the people that elected you. Now fortunately for me, I have a very diverse constituency base. I have some in poverty. I have some that are affluent. I have a good diverse population that vote, so it’s easy for me to attack some of our senior issues, educational issues.

One of the things we’re most proud of is funding the OHLAP [Oklahoma Higher Leaning Access Program] program for education and that’s Oklahoma’s promise to our greatest resource and that’s our children, that’s our future, and I love it. And even one of my greatest challenges in the legislature during my first session was voting for an education bill. It was authored by one of my colleagues, Representative Jabar Shumate. We often tell people we are a match made in the House. We both attended the University of Oklahoma and so we have a network, a very good base. He’s from Tulsa and I’m from Oklahoma City, but he introduced a bill that would allow charter schools to be developed in Tulsa County and Oklahoma County. You can do four different schools per year and almost any agency could open up a school. It was too broad for me. It was too open.

Public education was a priority for me, even though both of my children were in charter schools. They were in my district, and Kipp Reach was a national program that we were all proud of. Tracy McDaniel was the principal and my daughter was there. I was the PTA president, and it was an enterprise school at the time she entered which later progressed into a charter school. I wasn’t going to remove her because they were still governed by the Oklahoma Board of Education. So it wasn’t a full- fledged charter school at the time and it was still being governed and regulated by the public school system. But this particular bill would allow other higher institutions—like other universities, maybe a hospital, another company—to open up four new schools per year every year, which means that the funding that we’re so limited on in the state was going to be disenfranchised by the money following the child.

Now granted, he had a very serious problem in Tulsa and the Tulsa local officials could not handle that problem. It became a state issue for him. And I wanted to vote for the bill. I even debated the bill and said, “I’m

for charter schools, love them all the way. I’ve got 13 in my district, don’t have a problem.” But at the time, it was not just affecting him, the bill was affecting Oklahoma County, which we did not have the problem. So my struggle in that decision-making process was voting for something that I believed in, voting for a colleague that I supported, but standing firmly for the voices of those who are unheard, and those are the parents and grandparents of the children who don’t have a choice. They must go to public schools. And even for public schools who cannot choose their children. They get the best and they get the worst, and they have to educate them both with what little we appropriate because we don’t always keep our promises in the legislature.

So that was my greatest struggle, to have children in a charter school and not vote for a charter school bill—to stand for children in public schools for Oklahoma County. If it had just been a Tulsa bill only, then I would have voted for it hands-down, but it was just too broad. It was going to take the money that was designed to educate a public educational system and it was going to allow any agency to develop a new school. That money was gonna go to that school if the children left that school district—and it didn’t cap it. I mean, if you could create something four times in a year, 20 years from now what would you have? You’d have a variety and—which, I think choice is great, I don’t think public schools are the answer for everybody.

I certainly am a product of public schools, loved it, did well in it, and that’s because I believed in my teachers and they believed in relevant teaching. They believed in applying curriculum. They believed in scaffolding. They took children where they were, whether you were poor or rich or whether you had all the basic skills or not, and they made you learn and you wanted to learn. Well, now we struggle with the challenges of diversity, language barriers. We have so many socio- economic backgrounds. We have different levels of certifications. We have so many teachers who still teach, but they’re uncertified.

We have teachers who get stuck with at-risk schools, and they’re two years away from retirement. So it’s not as vibrant, and then you get new teachers who really don’t have basic people skills or classroom managerial skills. They don’t have their objectives and their goals developed yet. They’re just on-fire to teach, but then when you put them in an at-risk school, they have disciplinary problems and the children are not learning. It is not because they won’t but because they feel the teacher’s not prepared or she’s been intimidated by someone’s parents. Well back then, parents were partners and if you got in trouble at school, by golly you got in trouble at home.

Finchum You did.

Pittman And counselors were able to call. They knew you and they knew your siblings. After my brother went through before me and even had adopted families—you know, my step-sisters went before me—by the time I got to school, they knew exactly who I was. I had to be able to hold my own and say, “No. Don’t pigeon-hole me. I am a good student. I’m a leader in my own right.” I did what I was told to do and they made provisions for me. But it wasn’t because of me. It was because I had educators in my family. When you can look back on Oklahoma’s history and say, “Well, I remember your uncle, Delbert Burnett, was the principal at Moon Middle School.” So if you’re at another middle school and your uncle is the principal over here, people know who you are. If your grandfather’s the musician who’s teaching at all the fifth-year centers and you just came out of fifth grade, people know. “I can call your grandpa,” you know, you’re gonna obey. My aunt was the shorthand teacher at Douglas. My father’s mother, my grandmother, was home economics teacher, so we couldn’t stray too far from the straight and narrow. We had to make our own way. We had to say, “Hey, you don’t have to call anybody for me. I’m ready. I’m here and I’m ready to learn.”

Finchum You brought that same mentality into the House, too, I’d say and you were here to learn a little bit, too, even though you knew a lot coming in?

Pittman Yes, but I was here to learn.

Finchum Once you were here, did you have a mentor?

Pittman Yes. Yes. When I got here, I’m still able to call Representative Toure and ask questions and meet with him, still able to call Senator Angela Monson, ask questions on direction and leadership. But sometimes my colleagues, we collaborate because we have a new way of thinking in the legislature. So I’ve had mentors. Danny Morgan who was my democratic leader—he’s always been available to me, but I still have people who have lobbied and their parents were lobbyists, so we kind of grew. People like Gary Huddleston—just sweet, sweet man—but his dad was a lobbyist and he was a staffer with the Senate before he became a lobbyist. Those were relationships that we developed, and we can call various lobbyists. I can still call my past legislators who were my representatives. I still call on Representative Kevin Cox for leadership goals and ideas.

But the mindset is different now. There’s a paradigm shift, and for me being term-limited gives us a unique way of leading. We’ve got to hit the ground running. You’d better elect officials who are already in-tune with the issue, the process. Don’t send anybody new who doesn’t have

any of that background because they’ll get hammered on the floor. Even when you have the background knowledge, you can get shut down, shut out, hammered on the floor. You’ve got to make primary relationships, and you’ve got to work across the aisle. You have to know how to communicate, articulate and have some integrity, honesty, keep your word.

People often ask me, “You’re a Christian. Why are you in politics? All they do is this or all they do is that.” And I let them know that, well then, it’s time for Christians to possess the land. If God says you are chosen, then why won’t you take the leadership rein? Why won’t you keep your promise, be honest? Don’t say, “Well, a deal is a deal until a better deal comes along.” That’s usually how people function because they’re trying to move their agenda and sometimes it’s with timing, and I believe in timing. I believe in seasons, and sometimes if it’s not your turn, it’s not your turn but communicate that effectively to your constituents because they may send you to be the voice for a particular issue and you can be that voice all day long. It doesn’t mean your bills are gonna get heard. They may not make it through committee, but you made their presence known. You made your other colleagues aware, and you have to be able to do that within 12 years, if you stay the entire 12 years. You may have two election cycles and then have an opponent that’s phenomenal.

Some of our candidates have opponents every two years and I don’t know if that says they’re looking for somebody to do a better job or if that just simply says the person that they elected at the time doesn’t represent their voice. So we’ve got 12 years—that’s it. It’s unfortunate because the people who laid the groundwork for me, the legislators prior to me—the Hannah Atkins’, the Freddye Williams’, the Don Ross’ and Maxine Horners’, the Vicki Miles La-Grange, the Angela Monsons’— all of those people had time, if you will. You know, Kevin Cox was in the legislature for 23 years and then term limits kicked in which capped him out at 23 years. Opio Toure had 13 years before term limits put a lid on it. But what would have happened if Angela [Monson] could have been in office for 30 or 40 years? We no longer have that ability, so we’ve got to really be connected. We really have to be in touch with the things we want to accomplish and know it ahead of time, know who you need to talk to get those things done.

Finchum What were some of the things that you wanted to…

Pittman To accomplish? I had a very successful first session.

Finchum You did?

Pittman Yes, I enjoyed it—a lot of things I was able to accomplish. Some of them are not always legislative accomplishments. There are things that you can accomplish just through budget, just through networking, just through bringing agencies together to talk because they’ve been in rivalry for so long fighting over the same amount of appropriations. “Well, this particular state agency hasn’t had a budget increase in 11 or 12 years. This one gets an increase every year. Well, what’s the significance of their work and how are they articulating their needs?” So sometimes we progress.

I like to support children’s issues. Childhood obesity is just everywhere. I think kids and the new wave technology—we’re building muscles in our thumbs, but when I was a kid, kids were made to go outside. Recess was a part of our daily process, and now recess is optional, P.E. is optional, and so we’re suffering for it. Our lifestyles, our livelihood, is telling you that our children watch too much TV or they’re not in tune with national happenings and things that are going on. I like educational issues. For me, being a champion in education and being a champion for children—I often ask myself when I look in the mirror—because of the people who have paved the way for me, I stand on the shoulders of giants. And the eyes of the children, the eyes of the future look at us as if we can see beyond our time.

One of the things I frequently ask myself is, “Who’s for kids and who’s just kidding?” because I cannot afford to not make the decisions that affect other people not count. It’s kind of like playing chess. You don’t make a move if it’s not going to count, and so my first session, I think we did very well. I was able to raise awareness for the things that I felt were important. I was able to keep my promise on the issues that I was going to support—quality education, public safety for seniors, health care, accessible and affordable health care. I was able to co-author the “All Kids Act,” Senate Bill 424, and was very excited about the governor signing that bill. That was one of my first bills that he signed, and to receive the pen from the governor and be standing next to Jari Askins, a phenomenal woman, the lieutenant governor—just, you know, it was a beautiful thing. Even to have the lieutenant governor come to church with me. We were both in our run-off election and I asked her to come to church with me and she did. People were able to put a face with who they voted for and they were ready to vote again, and they did and we were successful.

Finchum What has been one of your biggest struggles or have you had one?

Pittman Well, I have had a struggle and that was the HIV bill that did not, unfortunately, get an interim study.

Finchum This year.

Pittman This year. So we may raise the awareness again because we’re always going to be at the Capitol testing the availability of testing nationwide. We deal with AIDS in Africa, but to have people with health care— affordable health care—being accessible to health care. Fifty % of all the new cases should not be people who are already educated, having access to information, but getting our spiritual leaders to move past endorsing best practices or endorsing education and information. Abstinence is a great thing. I think abstinence worked for us. It worked for me. We made it through college. We didn’t have a lot of high school teenage pregnancies.

We have to say that the core and the nucleus of education begins at home—it begins at home. And if no one’s talking about it—I want to see my daughter and my son grow and flourish. I want to see my grandchildren not have to worry about, “Oh, my god.” You know, “I want to marry this person. I’m in love with this person, but they won’t get tested. I need to know.” I don’t want that to be at the forefront of a conversation 25 years later. Fifty years after this epidemic has been introduced to our society and our world, we should have a better way of addressing health disparities. That is a challenge for me—health disparities.

Finchum On the other side of that—of the cultural social aspects of the House— have you noticed any differences or was it what you expected it to be?

Pittman Well, yes and more. It was what I expected and more. It’s been a breath of fresh air because not everyone sets a goal and reaches it and lives to breathe it and embrace it. It’s been wonderful for me. I now serve on the Native American caucus. I am the secretary of the Native American caucus, which is a fairly newly-formed caucus. I think it was introduced two years prior to me being elected. I think 2004 is when they began to start formulating a non-partisan body that could work together on common goals and issues. I serve as the freshman caucus and one of the things that startled me in 2007 is I’m the only African-American female in the House of Representatives, and I never thought about it before until someone else brought it to my attention. There are four elected African- Americans in the legislature, and I’m the only female, so people listen to you. People wait to see what you’re gonna vote on.

People come and they say, “Well, she is not really the new kid on the block. She’s just a fresh face on the floor. She really has a grasp on her community, a historical background with educators and entrepreneurs and medical people. She’s got a legislative resume. She’s got a political resume. What is her take on it?” And so I’ve been fortunate enough to

have people come and ask me what my opinion is, and even ask me to run for a different office, ask me what my goals are in the legislature— “What do you want to do?” “Well, let me think about it,” because I haven’t really sat down and penned it out, you know. After that last ten years and being here, I need to sit down and do it again.

Finchum Run for the Senate?

Pittman Run for the Senate. And if term limits will allow me to do that, I’m certainly gonna look forward to looking at that as an option. If it’s not gonna benefit me, then why not stay where you are? Because it will allow you to finish out your term, but if you in mid-term have an off- season election—sure, go for it. Why not? Because then you don’t have to resign your current seat to run. But if you’ve got to cut off your current position that you’re effective in and you’re at the end of your tenure—well don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Hold your position and stay there and be effective.

If it is in store for me to be the Senator, I certainly would embrace that. I would certainly embrace being a candidate for Congress or the U.S. House of Representatives, a U.S. Senate candidate or as an elected official on a higher level. I would love to be an ambassador to another country. There’s just so many things we can do, and that’s why being a legislator to me is so important because it’s more than just supporting or opposing policy. You have the voice of the community. You can mobilize voters, and you can actually be that bridge that makes the connection between people and politics. If you put people before politics, you most often will promote public progress every time. And that’s what’s beneficial to me, to walk in that purpose, in that light, make a difference for the short time that God has allowed you to be there—change some lives. You really have the power to do that.

I don’t know what happens to people who lose focus. I don’t know what discourages them or what roadblocks they’ve had, but to me barriers are not boundaries. You can overcome every obstacle. There are so many different venues. There’s room for everybody to lead, but with that comes responsibility, accountability, accessibility, and sometimes you have to take action. One of my challenges was to stand when the Cherokee nation decided they were going to dis-enroll Cherokee Freedman. I didn’t have that problem in my tribe, but we certainly endured that prior to the Cherokee Nation doing that. Making the decision to vote out Cherokee Freedman was historical. How could you not adhere to a treaty in 1866—if that’s the date—to say, “These people are not Native American”? Well, when the treaty says, “By marriage, by adoption or by blood,” then why do you focus on blood quantity only if it can be by marriage or adoption? And then when you can trace your

ancestry back to the Dawes Rolls, which there were two categories of Dawes Rolls, where you had people who, from the government, decided who was Native American and who weren’t based on the way they looked.

And then you had a Freedman Roll only specifically for African- Americans, and if you ever go back to any African-American ancestry, they most often always cross the bloodline of Native Americans. It’s very rare that you don’t, because my family had a unique position. When I was at the University of Oklahoma, one of the interviews that was done was, “Why does Anastasia Pittman have on a black arm band?” And they didn’t know that my family didn’t celebrate the Land Run of ’89 because my grandmother is Cherokee and Seminole and my grandfather is Seminole and African-American. And so they didn’t realize that when you are slaves of a tribe that are freed within the tribe because you have found sanctuary in that tribe from another form of slavery, you begin to integrate and marry and bear children. When you can trace your ancestry back to a Native American chief and then later on somebody comes along and they look at you and they say, “Well, I just don’t see Native American.” And then you’re compared to someone who’s sitting next to you who has blond hair and blue eyes and they’re able to benefit from the Native American reservations, the health care, the educational scholarships, the housing, and you’re thinking, “They look more as though they have pure European blood.” But if I brought you my grandmother you would say, “Wow. Look at the features. Her hair, the braids.” When she was a little girl, she could wrap braids around her head and still have the length of her hair, and her facial features. I’ll bring you a picture. I’ve got a four-generation picture…

Finchum That would be great.

Pittman …of my grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughter. It’s the most unique picture in our family because the Seminole women are the teachers in the family. My mother looks so much like my grandmother and then if you look at me and my mother, we have similarities. Then my daughter and I have similarities, and for me to embrace that culture and embrace that heritage, that’s my bloodline. I can’t change that, but to have someone reject you again and again whether it’s in race or culture or society or politics or religion or education—it’s a constant struggle, it’s a constant battle. I think my family has done a great job of developing a platform that says, “Challenges will always be there. Have the character and the courage to obtain your goal, and when you do that, you never know what you may accomplish.”

My great-grandfather on my dad’s side is Irish, and he was African- American and Irish and my grandmother, my dad’s mother, has fiery red

hair and green eyes with freckles. So I have a red grandma and I have a white grandma, but she married my grandfather, who is African- American, and so my dad has fair skin and freckles. My mother, being a little darker and being Native American and African American—and then I have African American and Irish, and we merge. People often play with my daughter’s hair and they wonder, “Wow, how’d you do this? How’d you make this work?” But it’s unique. It’s a unique history, and I’m looking forward to an extraordinary future.

My great-grandfather on my dad’s side was an entrepreneur. He was in the Tulsa Race Riots, and he wasn’t recorded because he had fair skin. He had different color eyes. So he received a phone call and was able to leave Tulsa with his family. My grandmother, Juanita Burnett at the time—and his name was Abner Burnett—he owned a Tulsa grocery store in Greenwood—and he was told, “You better get out. Get your family.” And they moved to California when my grandmother was two and they moved back to Oklahoma City. He opened up grocery stores all over Oklahoma. He even had a grocery store down in Deep Deuce, what we now call Bricktown. He owned a grocery store there—Burnett’s Grocery Store down on First and Central, or Second and Central. There’s nothing there to this day because he had a 100 year lease, and so that 100 years will be up soon and someone will own that property.

He had a grocery store in Taft. He had a grocery store in Tulsa. He had a grocery store in Boley. He had a grocery store in another city besides Oklahoma City and my uncle, Delbert Burnett, ran the store. My uncle, Fay Burnett, ran the store—which was his son, his two sons, my grandmother’s brothers—and even my dad worked as a grocer and a sacker at a family grocery store. And people were able to come across town. The handmaids that worked for people who lived in Nichols Hills came because they could get groceries on their signature and pay later and keep their houses stocked. So I’ve just had such a phenomenal background.

Finchum That would be of great use on the floor, I would think.

Pittman Man, and it has been, and it has been. And it’s also empowered me. It has given me courage. It has given me flexibility, understanding. They don’t know what I’m going to decide, so they really have to pay attention to my votes and to my voice. I don’t speak very often, but when I do it’s a very strong and passionate type of presentation. All my bills on the floor, I haven’t had any voted down, so I’m thankful for that. Now let’s hope that we will continue that success during my tenure but we’ve be challenged.

Finchum To change gears just a little bit—have you noticed any gender

differences?

Pittman Not toward me, and that’s probably because I choose not to see certain things. They’re there. We certainly have a long way to go. We’ve come a long way, but there are still some of my colleagues on the republican side of the aisle—and I watch them talk to their female colleagues and their officials—same—and they were elected the same way the male colleagues were, but they’re not treated the same. And I haven’t had the misfortune of being mistreated, so I haven’t had that. Maybe it’s because my approach is a little different too. Some women are kind of brash and harsh and sometimes they’ve been there for quite some time and they’re just at the point where they say whatever they think. That may be the way to go when I get older but right now, I’m a team player.

I listen. I look, listen and learn, and those are the things that I want to do because once you’ve established that rapport and they understand who you are, what you stand for, your values, your mission, your objectives—all those things come into play as to what people will approach you with. It’s kind of like having blood on the doorpost. Some people just pass me by. They know I’m not for it, don’t talk to me about it, it’s a moot point. And you may want to spend the rest of your time in a significant way by asking people who are really interested or haven’t really made a firm decision on their beliefs.

Finchum Well, describe a typical day for you. During session, how early do you get here and how late do you stay?

Pittman Wow. Now, I do stay a long time. Now when I get there, we have to be at work at 8:30—typical day—so sometimes we have a 7:30 breakfast meeting at the Capitol hosted by a state agency or a local lobbyist. Something like that will get us there on time. Anytime you feed us, we can make it, but we’re there probably at 7:30 for a breakfast. At 8:30, we’re in our offices. We’ve already got a stack of phone calls to return. You come in, you grab your mail and you look at that stack and you put it in your computer bag so that you can check it when you have a break on the floor. Most often times, you won’t get a break because you have bills. Thank God we’ve gone to an electronic version of looking at bills, so we use less paper, but most of the times when technology, as it will do, won’t allow you to make the corrections or receive the last drafted version of a bill or proposed legislation. You have to have that hard copy on your desk.

So coming in at 8:30—at 9:00 when you hear that bell ring, that’s your roll call and to see those pages go up and down the floor saying, “House roll call,” that’s to let you know to get all your bills, get all your mail, get all your phone messages, get downstairs to your desk so you can

check in. Once you’re at your desk and you check in, then session begins. They close the doors, the Sergeant at Arms are behind the doors where you can’t enter in and out, unless you’re a legislator. They shut sometimes the pages out if they’re not already in—and we pray to open up and we introduce our doctor of the day. We introduce our chaplain of the day. We have our announcements. We introduce people who are sitting in the gallery. We may have visitors that come to the Capitol that day, and we introduce them. Now after all of the introductions of your family and friends or agencies that are visiting you for whatever their legislative day is at the Capitol, then you begin the floor agenda.

Now the floor calendar has various bills on it. You may get through all those bills that day, you may not, and depending on the debate on that bill—whether it’s a rural or urban issue or whether it’s a power struggle of whose bills. If it’s the Speaker’s bills, you’re gonna hear most of them. If it’s someone else’s bills, a different colleague’s bills, it depends. We are in a historical state, a state that we’ve never been in before in the legislature, where the republicans have control and because of that, the order of the bills can be any way they decide. As with the democrats being in control, what passes through committee, it’s gonna be the majority of their bills. So even you may have great ideas and you may have a great stance on it. You may even have all the votes to pass it— but if it’s not heard or not called up on the floor calendar, you won’t get it through that day. And it depends, because we draft about twice or three times as many legislative pieces than we actually hear and pass, so…

Finchum A lot of reading.

Pittman A lot of reading. A lot of reading—and you stay up late, because even after session is over you may have a dinner engagement right after session so you leave everything there because it’s a legislative dinner engagement. It’s not with your family or your friends, it’s an organization that’s trying to inform you or empower you regarding their issues, their budget, their request—certain things. They keep you abreast, they keep you educated. And in addition to that, you come back to work because you still have phone calls that you made in between and those people called you back and it’s a constant—it’s not exhausting, but there’s no downtime. If you feel like you have downtime, there’s something that you could be doing, whether it’s reading bills for the next day, preparing for your committee meetings that you sit on, preparing letters to your constituents that need to go out to keep them informed, just simply writing thank-you notes to the people that support you, the people that keep you abreast, the people that bring you little gifts that brighten your day.

You never know what people are going through during the day, and to get a gift basket that says, “Hey,” and it’s this big yellow happy face that says, “You’re doing a great job.” It kind of breaks the ice because tensions flair when you see other members of your caucus upset or either angry with each other because both of them have the same bill—who’s gonna close out a bill? Or they should co-author on each bill, but one legislator didn’t ask the other one, or you’ve got different caucuses within your caucus, and those people may not agree with the leader. So a typical day, you may have two meetings that are your committee meetings. You’ll be in session. After session, you will have a couple of additional engagements to go to, so even though we have to be there at 8:30, my day really starts at 9:00 and it doesn’t end sometimes even after 9:00 at night. You’re a public servant.

Finchum Who takes care of your children when you’re…

Pittman Well, they’re big. Now my children are self-sufficient.

Finchum That helps.

Pittman My children are self-sufficient. My son’s 19 and he’s in the Navy, and my daughter’s 14—and that’s what I have a lifestyle manager for. My legislative assistant after hours becomes my lifestyle manager. She will take my grandmother to the grocery store. She will pick my daughter up from school or make sure my dog gets a haircut—just some personal things that I need done. I have some ladies who really support that. Even my daughter’s dad will do whatever you ask him to do, he’ll do it, but you’ve got to catch him because his schedule’s just as busy as mine and that’s how we are able to get things on the go. He’ll say, “Well, I’ll pick her up. I’ll drop her off to do this and you pick her up from there, and we’ll get it done.”

A support system as a legislator is the most important thing, and I can’t imagine when people lose their spouse or a child during session—a loved one is most often always difficult, but a parent— I’ve been so blessed. I’ve been so fortunate to have both parents living, both grandmothers living. My grandfathers have passed on, but they left such history that when people see me they say, “You’re Earl Pittman’s granddaughter. You’re the musician’s granddaughter.” “Yes, I am.” They’re like, “Man, he taught me so much,” and it’s just refreshing to hear those stories. It’s just refreshing.

Finchum Any advice you would give other women thinking about running?

Pittman Absolutely, absolutely. Send them to me. Maybe I’ll write a book or something that will help them. But balance is the most important thing.

Balance your brain, balance your body, balance your beauty—but you’ve got to balance the challenges of the legislature. And most often times, it’s a natural ability. Women are innately equipped to deal with problems, issues. They’ve been doing it all their lives. But you’ve got to know when to let go. You’ve got to know when to say, “This battle is not mine. It’s personal for whoever’s bringing it to the table. If I can help them, I will, but if I can’t, don’t allow it to consume you. Don’t take it home. You’ve got to separate it,” because I promise you—my children could care less about me being a legislator. I’ve always been busy and at home, they expect dinner. They expect you to help them with their homework, and they still get in the bed with you. You know, my son’s very large—he’s tall, and he hangs off the edge of the bed and my daughter’s in the middle. It’s like, “God, don’t I get any privacy?” No, because they haven’t seen you. But take a moment for you, take a moment to refresh, revive yourself, rejuvenate, have a moment of silence, meditate. If you need to get up 30 minutes earlier so that you’re up before everyone else. Exercise—that always keeps your stamina, your endurance—people ask me often, “How do you run so much and never get tired?” You get…

Finchum And your answer is?

Pittman …you get tired, but you get a second wind when you’re doing the right thing. How can you sleep when you know you’re the deciding vote? When you’ve got to make the last decision or they’re waiting on your letter of approval, they’re waiting on your letter of support, they’re waiting on you to document what occurred. They may have everyone else’s version, but, “I wonder what Representative Pittman thinks?” That’s humbling to me, and I don’t take the mandate that God has on my life lightly, so I don’t go to sleep, and we will work all night. But you’ve got to have someone who’s with you who’s understanding who will allow you to do that. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t—he says, “I’m going to bed,” and will go to bed. (Laughs) To balance that physically, emotionally and spiritually, you’ve got to do it, because politically it can consume you.

And you will have that drive. You’ve got to have that fire in the belly. You’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile, and you’ve got to be willing to work when your opponents won’t work. You know, people ask me, “God, you’re the only lady in this race—what are you gonna do?” And I say, “They’ve got to out-work me.” If they want it, they’ve got to come and get it because the title I’m reaching for, and I’m not gonna look back—I’m gonna move forward—and to run a campaign, you really need all the components filled because you can’t run a great campaign without money.

It’s unfortunate that the stakes are so high now that we have to raise so much money and there’s no cap and all that. Some states have caps, some states don’t. They have caps as you go higher, but to run a $50,000 dollar campaign—and we had to inch by inch raise that money. That’s nothing compared to people who have to raise a million dollars before they can even get into the race. It shouldn’t be about the money that you raise. It should be about the issues that you’re going to champion because the people’s voice most often times gets lost in the shuffle when you become a stickler for—“I’m gonna run a perfect campaign.” Then you forget about the people you serve.

Then when you get in the legislature and you say, “I’m gonna do great bills,” but the ideas come from the people. I teach classes on representative democracy. I go to local high schools. I go to middle schools and share with children that there is a significance to your vote and your voice, but how do you display your ideas? How do you compromise? Because they may often view political officials as sell- outs—they didn’t do what they said they were gonna do, they didn’t keep their promise or they didn’t do it to the full extent. But sometimes in a strong position—and you feel very strongly and passionately about a position—someone else may have the same idea across the aisle, but they’ve got a different spin to it that you never thought about that may be a good spin and it’s a compromise. If you said no to the idea—or the “friendly amendment” is what we call it—you may very well blow the whole idea because theirs is gonna prevail. Or that friendly amendment may sound great to everybody else. It even sounds great to you but because you were a stickler by saying, “No, my constituents only want this,” they don’t get anything because you didn’t balance the issue. You didn’t use discretion. You were only hard-core. You were a bulldog, and now they have nothing. How do you explain that to them? How do you go back to your constituents and say, “We lost, but I represented your voice. I’m gonna continue to represent your voice,” but what are we accomplishing? Are we moving Oklahoma forward?

We stand here on the shoulders of our forefathers. People in my family remember when they could not vote at all, so voting became a priority. In my family, voting became like driving cars—at 16, you wanted a driver’s license, but at 18 my family, we’re going to the election board with you and you’re gonna fill out this card that says you’re gonna vote because we still have people living who couldn’t. To have four or five generations in your family, it’s awesome to sit at your elder’s feet. It’s not often always pleasant because sometimes they’re eating food while they’re talking to you or they may pause and go somewhere and come back and you’ve got to be still to get the whole story. They’re oral, they don’t write anything down and that’s difficult because some of the things you don’t have to repeat when you learn lessons in life and

lessons in history, and they were great historians.

So for me, voting and empowering other people to vote and helping them understand the political process, embracing them by teaching representative democracy is so important to me. I don’t want people to think they can’t do what we do. And Senator Monson is the one that brought that home for me. I had my little life mapped out and said, “I’m gonna go to law school. I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do that,” and she just said, “Anastasia, you know me. You don’t have to be an attorney to do what I do,” and that was my wake-up call. That was—you know, get off of the honing in on, “I must do well in this, I must do well in this.” You can be an elected official, and it’s not always gonna be easy, but we’re paving the way for it to get better. What I hope to bring to the table is fresh ideas to continue to walk in purpose and to fight for Oklahoma people, to work for Oklahoma progress, and make Oklahoma proud. That’s what I hope to do in the legislature during my tenure.

I have a very unique position. Being elected in 2006 gives me the opportunity to look at our past elected officials and even serve in the first century of the history of this state, and then take that leadership into the second century. I don’t know how many people will embrace that. They’ve had one foot in the first 100 years and their second foot is in the second 100 years. We’ve got a unique ability to change the face of Oklahoma, change the face of politics. Females are now included, and it took a female to do it when it wasn’t so popular and so that’s why I take my daughter to legislative luncheons and breakfasts. She says that she doesn’t like politics, but she’s certainly good at it. And they use your ability to network at home—decisions are already made before you got there. They use their ability to lobby for what they want. They use their ability to debate, and I listen to her and I listen to him and then we make a decision together on how we’re gonna deal with it. So it certainly worked out for my family, certainly worked out.

Finchum Is there anything that I need to ask that I haven’t?

Pittman I don’t know.

Finchum We’ve covered a lot.

Pittman Some of the things that I most often share with people is my love for people. I’ve been a public servant even when I wasn’t in public office. I made my skills, my ability, my energy, my time, my talent, my resources available. At church, I was the ministry leader for an ‘anaideia’ ministry and it’s a Greek word for importunity. It means to avoid shame on the body of Christ, and when you make sure that your guests at your church are made to be significant, their stay is appropriate, things that they like

are at their fingertips—it’s hospitality, and you’ll find that in Oklahoma. Oklahoma people are unique because you go to any other state—Florida, California, Chicago, New York—people don’t always talk to you, but in Oklahoma, you can touch a person that you don’t know and tell them they look good or stand next to them in line and they’ll tell you their life story, and I have those stories.

The Clara Luper’s of Oklahoma, the Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher’s of Oklahoma, the Nancy Randolph Davis’ of Oklahoma—just being in the presence of the Honorable Vicki Miles-LaGrange is significant to me. One of the slogans that I used in my political quest was, “Service is my signature,” and when you got me, you’ve got my signature because I’m not gonna sign my name on the dotted line if I don’t mean it. But if you got me in person, you’ve got my service, and so as a person, things that I like personally—poetry, languages, a lover of music, all kinds of music.

Finchum Do you play?

Pittman Yes.

Finchum Your grandfather taught you to play?

Pittman Yes, and actually, I had an encounter in the fifth grade. They lined us up where they wanted us, and I was in the violin and viola section and we had to have posture and stand up straight and the teacher was new. My grandfather had just retired or he would have been my fifth grade teacher. He was my teacher at home, and he played the piano for me and we sat and spent time together. So I played a little bit of that and my dad bought me a little piano and I practiced and all that stuff. But in the fifth grade one of—I never knew who I was as a person until this lady began to act as though I was really, really royal. Never knew what a feeling of royalty was like until she started going down the line asking kids who they were, and I was in the viola section and she said, “Is everybody happy? Is everybody where they want to be?” I raised my little hand and I said, “No, I don’t want to play this.” And she said, “Really? Why not?” I said, “Because I really would prefer to play the cello.” She said, “Okay, why would you want to play the cello?” I said, “Well, it looks like a small bass, and my granddaddy plays the bass at home.” She said, “Well, really? You have a grandfather that plays the bass at home?” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” And she said, “Who is your grandfather?” I said “Cornelius Earl Pittman,” and you would have thought I said Alexander the Great (Laughs) and she said, “What is your name?” I said, “Anastasia Pittman,” and she said, “You’re kidding!”

She then began to maneuver kids and she asked if there was someone who would like to play the viola or switch with me, and there was

another little girl and she said, “Yes, this is too big and it’s uncomfortable,” and it really worked out. And she just—every day just kind of catered to me and all I knew is that I said he was my grandfather. But he wasn’t my only inspiration in music. He helped me play the piano and helped me play the cello and, yes, we went to concerts and stuff together, but one of my greatest inspirations came from Evelyn LaRue Pittman who was a singer, and she was my hero.

I started finding all these old books in my home and I started reading and then I had the privilege of sitting down and talking to Uncle Isaac Kimbro. Evelyn LaRue was an international choir director, she sang and she put choruses together, and I found myself doing that in high school and in college, putting together special projects. And when people say, “Man, we’ve got an award that Black Incorporated, Inc., they present an award in honor of Evelyn LaRue Pittman and they said, “Man, this is where you came from. This is what they do for you and the whole family is musically inclined.” Now we still have members of our family playing music. My brother’s a disc jockey on the weekends and then I have some distant cousins who still have a live band and it’s phenomenal to watch them play. It all started with these musicians, and my grandfather played with Duke Ellington. They wrote the “A-Train” together. They played in the Charlie Christian International Jazz Festival. My grandfather started the Y Circus where he allowed people to come in and play different things. He played 12 different musical instruments. And to have the prominent leaders of our community today be some of his students—my music teachers in high school were my grandfather’s students, or they had the ability to sing in Evelyn’s choir.

It just warms my heart to see people that were touched by people before me and yet still we act the same. My whole family, they’re still loving, they’re gonna hug and kiss on you. If you come, you’re gonna have to sit down and eat dinner with us. The hospitality is still there and that’s what’s fortunate. That’s what’s blessed me and carried me through all the times that I didn’t think I could make it. I look back and say, “They’ve accomplished so much, even when it wasn’t popular, even when racism was prevalent or prejudices kept you from doing certain things. They loved everybody and they were successful. So I enjoy it. I enjoy it.

Finchum Oklahoma’s lucky that you decided to move back.

Pittman I’m here. Didn’t really have a choice—came as a kid.

Finchum Brought the sunshine with you.

Pittman Yes, and my daddy says that, and I just find myself apologizing

sometimes for my smile. People ask me going and coming out of the Capitol—a lady named Terri, she’s was a local broadcaster here, she now works at the Capitol, she worked for Channel Five, a local news station—and she says, “Anastasia, do you always smile? Do you always—I see you and your daughter, and you guys are always engaged and always smiling.” And I said, “Yes, ma’am, and I’ve had to apologize for it.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Well, a gentleman asked me, he said, ‘Are you smiling at me?’ and I said, ‘Let me just tell you I’m sorry now. My teeth are just big. They just hang out and I’m gonna smile at you tomorrow, so if you’re offended I want to say I’m sorry.’” And she said, “I love it because I know when I see you I’m gonna feel better,” and that makes it all worth it.

And then when I have best friends like the judges that I’ve had because my ultimate goal was to be a judge. After becoming an attorney, I wanted to be a judge, and politics was just something to do along the way, and then I found that politics was on purpose. (Laughs) If I have the opportunity to go to law school, I will, and if I become a judge then I will certainly walk in the shoes of Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins. I love her. She’s a great woman, and she’s had the opportunity to serve in all branches of government. She was an elected official, she was a judge in Duncan, and now she’s our lieutenant governor. If I had a role model today it would be all of the ladies who paved the way before me.

Finchum There will be some that come after you that will thank you for keeping it going.

Pittman I hope so. We want to pass the baton of leadership on, and hopefully we’ll have some ambassadors of Oklahoma that will stay in Oklahoma and make a difference. I ask people all the time, “Be a part of the change that you want to see.” Ghandi said it a long time ago. Martin Luther King had a dream, but are you a keeper of that dream? And Lecia Swain most often did a banquet and it was titled, “Keepers of the Dream,” and I miss her. She was a motivator, an encourager. Without the A. Philip Randolph president Theresa Hill, I wouldn’t be successful in the grassroots campaign efforts. I’ve had a great story, a great story.

Finchum I appreciate you sharing it with us today.

Pittman Thank you so very much.

--- End of interview---