Coyote (Organization)

COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) is a prostitutes' rights organization that was founded by Margo St. James on Mother's Day in 1973.

From the description of [Videotape collection] [videorecording]. 1980-1983. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 122408113

Coyote (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) is an organization founded by Margo St. James, based in California, and concerned with the rights of prostitutes and others. Calling for the decriminalization of prostitution, Coyote sought to provide legal and medical services for prostitutes, offered employment, health, and financial counseling, and worked to educate the public about prostitution through publications, speeches, and seminars.

In 1976 feminist Florynce Kennedy founded the Victoria C. Woodhull Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit corporation with St. James as its executive director and Priscilla Alexander as chair of one of the VWMF's ad hoc committees, the National Task Force on Prostitution. After fire destroyed Coyote headquarters in 1978, many of its functions were absorbed by the NTFP, which evolved into a national network of prostitutes' rights advocacy organizations.

In 1985 St. James and others formed the International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights, based in Amsterdam. St. James moved to Europe in 1986, and the work of the NTFP was carried on in the United States by Alexander and Gloria Lockett. Reflecting a growing concern about AIDS during the 1980s, one of its projects was CAL-PEP (California Prostitutes Education project), organized to provide public education on prostitution, and to provide education and counseling to prostitutes and other sex workers in the San Francisco Bay area.

From the description of Records, 1962-1989 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232006554