Lynn Sunday loved Half Moon Bay deeply. She felt a sense of ownership of its ethical landscape, especially in terms of the well-being of animals. When Lynn saw animals being abused, she wasn’t afraid of speaking out and being loud about it. I mean, she was really outspoken, with neighbors, city officials, reporters, and anyone else who would listen. She was the most outspoken person I have ever met, and the most unabashedly “herself,” with all of her eccentricities.
Lynn passed away this December. If you never met Lynn Sunday, I hope you’ll continue reading my small tribute because it is about ways that animal advocacy can affect others. Those ways are often unpredictable. Sometimes they are profound.
Lynn and I met when she was in her 40s and I was 16 years old, which was over 30 years ago. We met when I was walking to my car in the Thrifty’s parking lot in Half Moon Bay. The back of my car was covered in bumper stickers with animal rights slogans like “End Vivisection!” and “Animal Liberation is Human Liberation.” Being an animal rights advocate was already central to my identity, and I brandished slogans as much as I could, despite the hostile reactions I got in a small town that had a deeply entrenched attachment to animal exploitation. People on the coastside often honked at me and flipped me off. Sometimes they threw stuff at my car. I learned to expect it over time.
When I got to my car in the parking lot, I heard a strong and somewhat shrill voice say, “Is that your car?!” I looked up and saw a short, white lady with shoulder-length, curly brown hair that had an urgent bounce as she walked at me. I had an angsty teenage tone, “Yeah! What’s it to…” and before I got the words out, without skipping a beat, she yelled, “I love it! I’m a vegan! Those are so great!” The immediate kinship with this stranger was a new feeling. I laughed nervously and stammered, “Oh…god… I’m sorry, I…” Lynn finished her march up to me and got uncomfortably close. She bent her head up with a smile and her wide, watery hazel eyes beamed at me. “Poor thing, I bet you get yelled at a lot around here! F*&kers.” Years later, we would reminisce about how she knew I would be defensive and how she knew exactly what that felt like. This feeling of immediate kinship is why we wear our ethics on shirts, on buttons, and on our cars. We are trying to find our hidden community of “animal people.”
Lynn and I chatted for almost an hour in that parking lot. She told me about being a little girl in New York and seeing two boys torturing a bullfrog. (This story was published in PETA Prime.) She said she stood frozen in the distance and was too afraid to do anything about it, and that was why she felt committed to defending animals for the rest of her life. She told me that she started an organization called Voice for the Voiceless and taught high schoolers about factory farming and veganism. She told me she was trying to shut down the cruel horse riding business on Hwy 1 and how much she hated the local rodeo. Lynn eventually gave me her phone number and invited me to lunch at her house so she could show me her collection of animal rights “artifacts.” (She had hundreds, maybe thousands of newspaper clippings, old pamphlets, handouts, and videos she recorded off television!)
With a warm and generous heart, Lynn Sunday invited me– a kid who was deeply anxious and had few friends– to join the work she was doing for animals, and to be her friend. Lynn became my mentor. She was the first mentor I ever had, besides my Mom. She taught me how to use public comments at school board and city council meetings to condemn a really weird and abusive ritual at the high school called Donkey Basketball. (We eventually got a temporary ban, which was my first “win” as an activist.) She taught me how to make phone trees and protest signs, how to write letters to the editor, and pressure larger nonprofit organizations to use their resources for our local causes, like PETA.
We protested the Ringling Bros circus every year when it came to Half Moon Bay. One year Lynn and I waited all day and into the night for the arrival of their caravan of trailers carrying their abused and terrorized animals. She said she wanted to get pictures of the exhausted and sick animals after the long, long drive, and pictures of wounds from bullhooks and ankle chains before the workers had a chance to cover them up. When the caravan finally arrived that night and started unloading, we walked across the field and tried to take pictures with our 90s-era disposable cameras, but the flash caught the workers’ eyes and a couple of them chased us away. But we left with gusto– a tiny middle-aged lady and an awkward teenager screaming insults, throwing rocks, and flipping them off. I used to tease Lynn because I swear I remember her mooning them. After many years of growing resistance, countless board meetings, petitions, and letters to the editor, and after larger nonprofits in the Bay Area got more involved, Half Moon Bay became one of the first cities (maybe the first?) to permanently ban animal circuses.
Only one time did I help Lynn teach a high school class. I swear the kids could see my heart pounding, like it was going to burst out of my throat, and my hands shook so hard I dropped a box of props during her presentation. It was horrifying and I told her I’d never do it again. Lynn and I had no idea that throughout those early years she was planting seeds of who I would become.
30 years later, I have a Ph.D. Sociology and published widely on animal rights movements. I’m an Associate Professor at a community college and incorporate Critical Animal Studies into all of my courses. I was recently elected to the San Diego County Board of Education and am hoping to incorporate humane education programs in our K-12 schools. My students often ask how people “keep going” with all of the injustice and suffering we talk about in class. My response is anchored to what I learned from Lynn during those early years in Half Moon Bay. It is anchored to those first seeds she planted and why they will continue to grow and flourish until my own end.
“Work on the suffering that is in front of you, what is local, because that is what you know you know you can change. For now, if all you can do is alleviate the suffering of one animal or one person who is in front of you, that is good work, and that is enough. Focus on that and take it from there.”
In gratitude, Lynn. Always.
erin evans resides in Santee, California.
