McMichael, Pam - interviewed by Rose Norman
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Transcript
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- | And turn the tape recorder on | 0:00 |
and tell it that today is | 0:02 | |
April 23rd and this is Rose Norman | 0:05 | |
and I'm interviewing Pam McMichael by phone | 0:09 | |
for the Southern Living Feminist Activist herstory. | 0:12 | |
Okay have you, I'm just gonna start with a little brief bio | 0:20 | |
that I put together from online. | 0:25 | |
Do you have that in front of you where you can look at it? | 0:27 | |
- | I saw it. | 0:30 |
- | I can just read it to you and you can, | 0:32 |
what is your year- | 0:34 | |
- | Yeah here it is, I've got it. | 0:35 |
- | It's just very brief. | 0:42 |
I have a little thing like this for each of the people | 0:43 | |
I've interviewed | 0:45 | |
and basically- | 0:48 | |
- | Yes well this is good. | 0:49 |
- | What is your year of birth? | 0:51 |
I want to fill that in. | 0:53 | |
- | 1953 | 0:55 |
- | '53 okay. | 0:57 |
And I have you born and raised in rural Kentucky. | 0:59 | |
Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky. | 1:02 | |
- | That's right. | 1:05 |
- | That's a small liberal arts college, I assume? | 1:06 |
- | Yes it is a Baptist college | 1:11 |
so I don't know if liberal goes with it. | 1:13 | |
(laughs) | 1:15 | |
- | Right | 1:17 |
- | But no this is fine. | 1:20 |
- | And then I have you having lived in Louisville. | 1:24 |
- | Well I would actually just one word | 1:29 |
her mission of building | 1:32 | |
I would use the word alliances instead of coalitions. | 1:33 | |
- | Okay. | 1:36 |
- | It's a little stronger in the knitting together. | 1:38 |
- | Okay. | 1:41 |
Now you were, you lived in Louisville | 1:45 | |
until you took the job at the Highlander Center | 1:49 | |
is that right? | 1:51 | |
- | That's right. | 1:52 |
- | And was that in 2005? | 1:53 |
- | That's right. | 1:56 |
- | Okay. | 1:57 |
- | And you were director of SONG from | 1:58 |
is it '94 to 2002? | 2:01 | |
- | Through 2001. | 2:05 |
- | 2001, okay I was trying to get eight years | 2:07 |
but you can count that both ways. | 2:09 | |
- | Wait let's see (counting) yeah that's eight years. | 2:11 |
- | Okay 2001 okay. | 2:15 |
- | Yeah and that's still eight years. | 2:17 |
It looks like seven but it was a full '94 | 2:19 | |
and like a full 2001. | 2:21 | |
- | Right okay. | 2:24 |
- | So that is eight years. | 2:26 |
- | Okay. | 2:28 |
Okay the first question I asked the other SONG co-founders | 2:30 | |
had to do with what made you, what turned you | 2:35 | |
into a social justice activist? | 2:37 | |
Was there an "ah ha" moment? | 2:41 | |
You know you went to this Baptist college | 2:44 | |
did something happen there? | 2:46 | |
Did it happen before that? | 2:47 | |
Where did you find that road? | 2:50 | |
- | Well I think I would have to go pretty early in life | 2:54 |
to experiences of race, class, and gender. | 3:01 | |
Class being like I feel like I grew up | 3:06 | |
never hungry but always aware of the haves | 3:11 | |
and you know we were a working class, farming family | 3:15 | |
and so grew up with a strong awareness | 3:19 | |
of the haves and the have nots. | 3:21 | |
And my parents, | 3:22 | |
I was also a strong girl child | 3:25 | |
who just wanted to do things | 3:27 | |
and had a lot of permission to do things. | 3:28 | |
So in particular like strong, strong girl child, | 3:31 | |
you know a lot of permission to be a strong girl. | 3:35 | |
And also the push backs you know against that, | 3:39 | |
and you know more broadly in society. | 3:42 | |
And then my parents really raised | 3:46 | |
they really talked and lived the same | 3:49 | |
about the Golden rule, that you treat people | 3:53 | |
like you wanna be treated. | 3:55 | |
And I think that was the impetus | 3:57 | |
that created the situation | 4:00 | |
where both of them crossed the color line through their job. | 4:02 | |
My mom at the work in the factory | 4:06 | |
and my dad where he drove like this small hotel | 4:08 | |
you know a hotel grocery truck that did like deliveries, | 4:11 | |
day deliveries to small stores you know | 4:15 | |
in Kentucky rural areas. | 4:19 | |
And both of them still crossed the color line. | 4:23 | |
In the early 1960's I had as a white kid | 4:25 | |
in you know central Kentucky | 4:31 | |
I had a race experience you know in my family | 4:32 | |
that's a little different | 4:36 | |
than a lot of the white people around me. | 4:37 | |
In terms of you know my parents then being | 4:41 | |
having interracial friendships. | 4:45 | |
- | So your mother formed friendships at work | 4:48 |
and so did your father with? | 4:51 | |
- | Yeah both of them did. | 4:53 |
- | Okay. | 5:00 |
- | So that you know so that all just I think that combination | 5:01 |
of experiences just put me on a path | 5:05 | |
and then when I got older and knew that also | 5:08 | |
you know was attracted to other girls and that was just | 5:12 | |
another way of coming to understand | 5:14 | |
the pushing against society. | 5:17 | |
So I think I was on this path for a very long time. | 5:21 | |
- | What turned it into activism? | 5:28 |
Into you know taking action? | 5:31 | |
- | I'm sorry? | 5:34 |
- | What turned it into activism as opposed to... | 5:35 |
I mean what got you to do, | 5:40 | |
on the road to do things about it? | 5:43 | |
- | Well I mean I don't know that this is an "ah ha" moment | 5:47 |
there's just these series of life experiences. | 5:52 | |
I mean I was always active | 5:54 | |
beyond the minimum requirements of life. | 5:56 | |
You know like I did, | 5:59 | |
I did things, | 6:03 | |
I was active when I was in church, I was active in my church | 6:04 | |
I was active as a high school student, | 6:07 | |
I was a leader of you know groups | 6:09 | |
for middle school and then later elementary school. | 6:15 | |
So I was just always kind of interested in doing things. | 6:20 | |
And so you know I as my consciousness got more aware | 6:24 | |
I just | 6:29 | |
I know that I was working. | 6:32 | |
This was a pivotal kind of, | 6:34 | |
I was working at a social service agency in Louisville | 6:38 | |
that served economical, | 6:43 | |
women within an economic, | 6:47 | |
you know below the certain economic guidelines. | 6:49 | |
So there were black and white women | 6:52 | |
who were coming in for our services | 6:55 | |
and I noticed that most of our clients didn't have a car | 6:57 | |
but if somebody was gonna be in a situation | 7:01 | |
where they had a car it was almost always the white women | 7:04 | |
not the black women that had a car. | 7:08 | |
So I was like you know I started exploring that | 7:10 | |
because it was like well this can't | 7:14 | |
what's going on here this can't be just because | 7:16 | |
you know one group's better than the other. | 7:19 | |
There's something special at work here | 7:22 | |
and it put me on a on a kind of | 7:23 | |
more of on a questioning path | 7:26 | |
and meeting people and you know really intentionally | 7:29 | |
started going to meetings at the | 7:34 | |
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression. | 7:35 | |
- | That's in Louisville? | 7:42 |
- | I really credit that black and white civil rights leaders | 7:44 |
with you know with kind of schooling me and bringing me up | 7:47 | |
in terms of an outlet for my activism | 7:53 | |
and feeling like I was growing by leaps and bounds. | 7:55 | |
And also I met people who were involved | 7:58 | |
in international solidarity around Central and South America | 8:01 | |
in particularly El Salvador and Nicaragua | 8:05 | |
and other places as well. | 8:07 | |
So it was just a real period of expansion | 8:09 | |
in terms of learning. | 8:12 | |
And you know when I first came to Womonwrites | 8:14 | |
race was a real active conversation there as well. | 8:16 | |
You know through certain... | 8:20 | |
I met Mab at Womonwrites. | 8:23 | |
I met Minnie Bruce Pratt at Womonwrites. | 8:25 | |
That was around the same time that I started going to | 8:29 | |
trying to remember | 8:34 | |
I think I started going to the Kentucky Alliance | 8:35 | |
before I went to Womonwrites. | 8:37 | |
I was interested in putting and reaching out | 8:41 | |
and growing and seeing where I could put my activism. | 8:45 | |
Just was fortunate enough to meet people, | 8:50 | |
sought out people to meet and also met people | 8:53 | |
that really helped me, | 8:55 | |
helped me grow and develop | 8:57 | |
and connect the dots. | 8:59 | |
- | And what would be those dates do you think? | 9:02 |
How old were you when you started going to Womonwrites? | 9:05 | |
Or when you started attending the Kentucky Alliance? | 9:08 | |
- | So I think I was like 31, 32. | 9:12 |
So I had already been active, I had already been. | 9:19 | |
So it wasn't the first time I did anything | 9:23 | |
but my stuff before that had been | 9:26 | |
more women and lesbian focused. | 9:29 | |
I had help start this group called A Woman's Place | 9:31 | |
which had operated for several years. | 9:34 | |
Predominately white women. | 9:40 | |
It was looking to do kind of women oriented activities | 9:42 | |
that were a mix of educational, celebratory, | 9:46 | |
cultural, and even athletic events. | 9:49 | |
And opportunities for women to like get together | 9:54 | |
and play volleyball together, | 9:56 | |
or have an educational program together, | 9:58 | |
or have a potluck and a dance together. | 10:00 | |
So our goal was to actually get a building. | 10:02 | |
We had ended up not doing that but being an organization | 10:07 | |
that did a newsletter and sponsored | 10:11 | |
a wide range of activities. | 10:12 | |
I had been doing that for a number of years | 10:14 | |
before, before going to my first Alliance meeting. | 10:16 | |
- | So you were already doing, | 10:22 |
your first activism was with feminism then? | 10:25 | |
- | Yes more so. | 10:29 |
- | Yeah well let's go back to that second topic then, | 10:30 |
about lesbian feminism activism. | 10:34 | |
Does that term, is that a term that resonates for you? | 10:35 | |
Is that what you would- | 10:39 | |
- | Well it's a term that has resonated you know | 10:40 |
at different points of my life I don't, it's not | 10:44 | |
it's not what I'd lead a bio, | 10:48 | |
you know it's not, I don't, | 10:51 | |
I am lesbian and I am feminist | 10:54 | |
and I am also other identifiers. | 10:56 | |
So it resonates with me but | 11:03 | |
and it might not be, it wouldn't be the only things | 11:05 | |
I would say about myself. | 11:09 | |
- | Okay, but that was really where your activism started, | 11:14 |
with women's movement? | 11:17 | |
Or is it and I write about that in terms of doing things | 11:22 | |
like starting all the women's- | 11:25 | |
- | Yes and with the consciousness about race | 11:29 |
and some places where... | 11:35 | |
Yeah I mean yes it started, it started | 11:42 | |
more around the gender piece, | 11:48 | |
women and women and lesbian oriented activities and actions. | 11:50 | |
Then you know through a convergence, | 11:57 | |
through my own kind of thinking into a convergence of things | 12:00 | |
really also expanded to more broadly. | 12:05 | |
- | Okay. | 12:10 |
So let me try to put- | 12:11 | |
- | In fact the fact that some of the women's circles | 12:13 |
that I was in was leaving out | 12:15 | |
other kinds of women. | 12:19 | |
- | Say that again. | 12:25 |
- | I'm sorry? | 12:30 |
- | I didn't quite hear what you said | 12:30 |
about some of the circles that you were in. | 12:32 | |
- | Coming to realize that some of the circles that I was in | 12:34 |
was leaving out you know other kinds of women. | 12:37 | |
- | Okay. | 12:42 |
So what kind of circles were you in? | 12:44 | |
- | Well I just mean in some of those feminist circles, | 12:47 |
some of those feminist circles weren't so strong | 12:51 | |
on race and class. | 12:54 | |
- | Is this the art consciousness raising groups or? | 12:57 |
- | No, no I'm just, I don't mean circle literally. | 13:01 |
- | Okay. | 13:10 |
So let's just go back to how you got involved | 13:12 | |
in the movement then. | 13:14 | |
Was this in college? | 13:15 | |
How did you become a feminist? | 13:17 | |
- | Well see I mean I'm not sure what the movement you mean. | 13:25 |
I'm not trying to be difficult. | 13:30 | |
It's just like for instance I was never active with NOW. | 13:33 | |
You know but I was active with a women's group | 13:36 | |
in the mid-eighties in Louisville, Kentucky | 13:41 | |
that was mixed race was... | 13:42 | |
I think that group started in '86 | 13:49 | |
it was mixed race | 13:51 | |
and lesbian and straight women | 13:56 | |
working together on a wide range of women's issues. | 13:57 | |
It was called the Alliance Against Women's Oppression | 14:02 | |
and we really intentionally, you know | 14:04 | |
we were doing things like connecting. | 14:07 | |
Like the money that went to support war in Nicaragua | 14:12 | |
and El Salvador and hurt women and children there | 14:16 | |
was money taken from women and children's programs | 14:19 | |
here in the US. | 14:21 | |
So you know after kind of some of my earlier days | 14:23 | |
and like in working with A Woman's Place | 14:29 | |
which you know was a great experience | 14:32 | |
and learned a lot there | 14:34 | |
and also looking for a broader definition | 14:38 | |
of what it meant to serve women and girls | 14:47 | |
and to fight for them. | 14:54 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 14:55 |
What about the seventies? | 14:57 | |
I mean you're in college in the seventies, right? | 14:59 | |
I mean I'm hearing you. | 15:03 | |
I'm finding you in the eighties and I'm wondering | 15:05 | |
where you were in the seventies in terms of all this. | 15:08 | |
- | Yeah in the seventies I was in college | 15:11 |
and then I taught in | 15:15 | |
a Southeastern Kentucky at a Baptist boarding high school. | 15:17 | |
Then I went to grad school. | 15:20 | |
So I you know I think | 15:22 | |
the seventies was more | 15:24 | |
you know coming to terms with who I was. | 15:32 | |
Getting my education and trying to figure out | 15:35 | |
what I was gonna do | 15:38 | |
and within all that who I was. | 15:39 | |
- | Okay, okay so really- | 15:44 |
- | Also I remember now I was also playing a lot of softball. | 15:45 |
(laughs) | 15:49 | |
- | Right! | 15:50 |
- | I would you know I played on a big championship team | 15:51 |
and we won the state | 15:55 | |
a couple of times | 15:59 | |
and you know I played on this | 16:00 | |
you know I played softball from like April to October. | 16:02 | |
- | And this is in Louisville where you've got lots of- | 16:10 |
- | No I didn't get to Louisville till | 16:14 |
well this was the seventies, it was the late seventies | 16:17 | |
when I got to Louisville. | 16:20 | |
I played softball when I lived in other places | 16:21 | |
in central Kentucky and also there in college | 16:23 | |
and my first years of teaching. | 16:26 | |
- | Okay. | 16:28 |
Okay and where was that before Louisville | 16:29 | |
between you were at college in Georgetown. | 16:32 | |
What was it called, Georgetown? | 16:36 | |
- | Can you turn off recording this? | 16:52 |
- | Sure. | 16:54 |
Okay we're back on. | 16:56 | |
- | Okay. | 16:59 |
- | And we're looking at the path | 17:00 |
that led you to SONG. | 17:01 | |
So maybe you could just start with | 17:06 | |
how you knew those other women. | 17:07 | |
You knew Mab from- | 17:10 | |
- | Actually I need to, | 17:13 |
the path that leads to SONG I need to back up. | 17:15 | |
- | Okay. | 17:18 |
- | So I was working with this group called | 17:20 |
the Alliance Against Women's Oppression. | 17:23 | |
also a group connected that helped us, | 17:25 | |
I had gone to Nicaragua as part of | 17:29 | |
a national women's delegation, was doing | 17:30 | |
you know work around | 17:36 | |
work around women's and children's issues | 17:39 | |
at home and abroad. | 17:41 | |
I was working with a group, a racially mixed group of women, | 17:44 | |
lesbian and straight women, | 17:47 | |
who were doing these annual, | 17:48 | |
international women's day events in Louisville | 17:49 | |
that were all | 17:51 | |
celebratory, educational, | 17:54 | |
and also fundraisers for women and children's programs | 17:56 | |
at home and abroad. | 17:59 | |
Out of that we also then started this thing | 18:01 | |
in Louisville called the Fairness Campaign, | 18:05 | |
not out of that but during somewhere in that time. | 18:06 | |
We started this thing in Louisville | 18:10 | |
called the Fairness Campaign. | 18:12 | |
The Fairness Campaign was to add sexual | 18:20 | |
to try to get sexual orientation and gender identity | 18:23 | |
added to the Louisville civil rights law. | 18:26 | |
And so it was a big effort that really was part | 18:29 | |
of transforming that Louisville community | 18:32 | |
because we were situating lesbigaytrans concerns | 18:35 | |
within broader race, class, gender and sexuality issues. | 18:38 | |
For instance it was never just | 18:44 | |
single issue identity focused. | 18:46 | |
That work was launched in a way where | 18:48 | |
people were really making connections across issues | 18:51 | |
and if there was a white police officer | 18:54 | |
shot and killed a young black man in Louisville | 18:57 | |
the local lesbigaytrans organization | 19:00 | |
that called you and motivated you | 19:02 | |
you know you'd get a call from your queer group | 19:05 | |
to get out and be part of the community response to that. | 19:06 | |
Or if Fischer's meatpacking company goes on strike | 19:10 | |
and you want to support the strikers | 19:12 | |
you get a call from your queer organization | 19:14 | |
to go out and be part of that. | 19:16 | |
So I was doin' all that work | 19:18 | |
and I was in | 19:20 | |
Cincinnati temporarily, | 19:24 | |
I had gotten laid off from my social services job, | 19:26 | |
in Cincinnati was in '93 Cincinnati was facing | 19:29 | |
an anti-gay initiative and I went up for three months | 19:42 | |
and was working as an interim director | 19:44 | |
of Stonewall Cincinnati during that anti-gay initiative. | 19:47 | |
We were at the '93 Creating Change in Durham | 19:51 | |
and I would back up before Mab's plenary. | 19:54 | |
I would say some things in terms of the context. | 19:59 | |
So the right wing had released this video | 20:05 | |
called Gay Rights Special Rights | 20:07 | |
which situated lesbigaytrans people | 20:09 | |
as the enemies of people of color. | 20:12 | |
So it was a racist video | 20:15 | |
that also kind of appealed to people of color | 20:17 | |
and they mailed it to black churches all over the country. | 20:19 | |
And the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force | 20:23 | |
was doing a series of Fight the Right kind of summits | 20:25 | |
so there were four people on the | 20:29 | |
Suzanne Phar and Barbra Smith were two of them. | 20:33 | |
Suzanne Goldberg I think and Scott Nokagawa. | 20:36 | |
So they were doing these kind of summits | 20:39 | |
tryin' to you know across the country. | 20:40 | |
And so that right when | 20:42 | |
that Gay Rights Special Rights video | 20:44 | |
was an important part of the context | 20:46 | |
and the second part of the context | 20:47 | |
was that NAFTA was being debated in Congress | 20:50 | |
at the time of the '93 Creating Change conference. | 20:53 | |
So there was this pre-conference institute | 20:55 | |
on the Thursday before where there was this | 20:57 | |
day long session on race, class, and gender. | 21:01 | |
Some of the single issue identity folks | 21:09 | |
were literally saying in the hall "Why are we talking | 21:12 | |
"about NAFTA at a gay conference?" | 21:15 | |
So out of that context of Gay Rights Special Rights | 21:17 | |
you know that video | 21:20 | |
that situated lesbigaytrans people | 21:24 | |
as the enemies of people of color | 21:25 | |
and out of that | 21:28 | |
you know and the NAFTA stuff | 21:34 | |
we started to you know some of us got together | 21:36 | |
at that Creating Change and said these are trying times | 21:40 | |
we need to you know we we need to | 21:44 | |
so there was | 21:49 | |
I think all of the founders were there | 21:53 | |
except Joan Garner and another person in that conversation | 21:55 | |
who didn't become a founder but was really instrumental | 21:59 | |
in the start of SONG was Carla Wallace out of Louisville. | 22:03 | |
So there were these conversations. | 22:06 | |
It's like you know we were all having done | 22:09 | |
mulit-issue work in our communities | 22:13 | |
and done that multi-issue work as out lesbians | 22:15 | |
and done and had strong ties | 22:18 | |
to wide movements. | 22:23 | |
Strong ties to women's movements, | 22:26 | |
strong ties to anti-racist movements. | 22:27 | |
You know I would say all of us so we had this early meeting | 22:30 | |
and Joan was identified as somebody that we needed. | 22:33 | |
I'm pretty sure Joan was not at that Creating Change. | 22:38 | |
- | No she wasn't. | 22:40 |
- | I remember the first meeting being at her house in Georgia | 22:41 |
kind of after that. | 22:44 | |
So I knew in terms of going through | 22:47 | |
I had met Mandy | 22:50 | |
at Rhythmfest | 22:54 | |
so I knew Mandy well through Rhythmfest. | 22:55 | |
I had met Mab I guess the first of those | 22:57 | |
no I met Suzanne through the, | 23:02 | |
the first time I ever met Suzanne | 23:05 | |
was through the domestic violence work | 23:06 | |
and I had | 23:11 | |
whenever her first book came out, | 23:17 | |
I knew who she was. | 23:20 | |
Homophobia a Weapon of Sexism. | 23:22 | |
- | Yeah. | 23:24 |
- | I had met Suzanne then and that was eighties, right? | 23:25 |
- | Yes. | 23:28 |
- | Then Mab at Womonwrites. | 23:28 |
And I had actually brought Mab to Louisville | 23:31 | |
in the mid-eighties when she was working with | 23:34 | |
North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence. | 23:39 | |
I had brought her for both activities | 23:41 | |
in the women's community and also activities with the | 23:43 | |
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression. | 23:45 | |
And Pat I also met at Rhythmfest. | 23:50 | |
And Joan- | 23:56 | |
- | Tell me about- | 23:57 |
- | Then I met through you know other folks. | 23:58 |
And so we used to tease, Rose, and say that | 24:03 | |
we were you know that we were six women | 24:05 | |
and that the three black with three white | 24:11 | |
and that some of the black women were not African American | 24:14 | |
but the African Americans were not black | 24:18 | |
and the lesbians were dykes but the dykes weren't lesbians. | 24:21 | |
So somehow we had some number where we used to break that up | 24:24 | |
you know where we were made of six women | 24:27 | |
four lesbians, two dykes or that kind of | 24:29 | |
or how you know we'd laugh about that. | 24:30 | |
But we, that's how I came into those relationships. | 24:34 | |
You know it was a matter of saying you know | 24:45 | |
some of us go into these conferences and saying | 24:48 | |
and having you know it's like you've got this institute | 24:51 | |
on race, class, and gender and there's this burning question | 24:55 | |
because you can see it like what do you do with this? | 24:58 | |
Now when I wake up and go home how do I apply this | 25:00 | |
in my local community or what do I do with this. | 25:03 | |
So that Creating Change, | 25:08 | |
being in the South for the first time, | 25:10 | |
having the first race, class, and gender institute, | 25:12 | |
just the things in the air | 25:15 | |
around the right wing's activities | 25:17 | |
on the use of that video, and NAFTA. | 25:19 | |
NAFTA being discussed at the time | 25:21 | |
you know that Creating Change was happening. | 25:24 | |
So there was an opportunity to push the envelope | 25:26 | |
about why we should be talking about something like | 25:29 | |
NAFTA at a gay conference. | 25:31 | |
And then Mab's plenary | 25:33 | |
I think Mab's plenary was on Sunday morning | 25:36 | |
and you know it really rocked. | 25:38 | |
We had begun the conversations already in that weekend. | 25:40 | |
- | So when you, well the way Mandy put it was that | 25:46 |
she started getting the vibe for planning | 25:50 | |
the Durham conference. | 25:53 | |
- | Well this is all at the Durham conference, | 25:55 |
I just I mean yeah, | 25:58 | |
two days before Mab's speech | 26:02 | |
there was a race, class, and gender institute | 26:04 | |
and my memory is that coming out of that institute | 26:06 | |
is when the conversation started. | 26:09 | |
- | Okay. | 26:11 |
Race, class, and gender institute. | 26:18 | |
Is this like a pre-conference thing | 26:21 | |
for Creating Change or? | 26:23 | |
- | Yeah. | 26:25 |
Creating Change used to do these day-long institutes | 26:26 | |
and some of them were skills building | 26:29 | |
and some of them were talking about issues | 26:31 | |
and as soon as SONG formed we actually started | 26:33 | |
you know becoming the organizing body | 26:37 | |
for those institutes. | 26:39 | |
But the first one, they had never done one | 26:42 | |
on race, class, and gender you know as it pertains | 26:44 | |
you know as a discussion and this was their first one. | 26:46 | |
So there was a group of you know progressive lesbians | 26:52 | |
and gay men who had worked on that and formed that. | 26:54 | |
- | Now so- | 27:04 |
- | So I had talked with Suzanne earlier. | 27:06 |
I had not gone to Rhythmfest that year | 27:10 | |
because I didn't have the money for the ticket. | 27:12 | |
I had been laid off from work and so I went | 27:14 | |
to this Fight the Right summit instead | 27:17 | |
and Suzanne Phar was there and Barbra Smith, | 27:20 | |
Suzanne Goldberg and Scott Nokogawa | 27:24 | |
were these four panelists who were talking about | 27:27 | |
you know a more progressive, you know a broader agenda | 27:32 | |
for the lesbian and gay movement | 27:35 | |
than a single-issue identity focus around queerness. | 27:36 | |
And also talking about the attacks on queer people | 27:42 | |
and the work we needed to do you know to stop that. | 27:44 | |
And I say queer for shorthand | 27:48 | |
I'm one of the last ones to come to it. | 27:50 | |
- | So that goes back then to | 27:58 |
so you and Suzanne were already talking about this? | 28:00 | |
- | No we weren't talking about forming a regional group. | 28:05 |
Well we were talking about the issues, you know | 28:09 | |
facing our community, definitely, yeah. | 28:13 | |
You know as far back as that Labor Day. | 28:16 | |
But the conversations that really sparked | 28:19 | |
let's get together and start this, you know. | 28:21 | |
But like Suzanne and I had a particular conversation | 28:27 | |
at Creating Change and that particular conversation | 28:29 | |
you know things we were saying to each other | 28:34 | |
and that particular conversation was also | 28:36 | |
it was you know we realized as we were reaching out | 28:39 | |
to people that other people were thinking | 28:41 | |
some similar things about | 28:42 | |
we need to do something regionally with this. | 28:44 | |
Or what can we do regionally as black and white women | 28:47 | |
who are you know connected to different movements. | 28:50 | |
Does that make sense? | 28:56 | |
- | Yes. | 28:57 |
- | And it's- | 29:03 |
- | Go ahead. | 29:05 |
- | It sounded a little bit like you had the impression | 29:07 |
that they formed SONG and then asked me to join it. | 29:09 | |
- | At one point I thought that, yes. | 29:12 |
I didn't have it clear that you were there | 29:14 | |
and were already part of all that. | 29:16 | |
- | Well no I was one of the very earliest conversations. | 29:18 |
In fact, yeah. | 29:22 | |
I mean, yeah. | 29:23 | |
- | I'm really glad to get that straightened on my end. | 29:26 |
I don't know that... | 29:28 | |
Here's what I'm trying to figure out and do | 29:30 | |
with this special issue. | 29:34 | |
You know we start in the sixties in Gainesville, | 29:38 | |
the feminist movement, the art groups, | 29:43 | |
and a ton of stuff about that, and we're ending, | 29:45 | |
SONG isn't the end of our study period, | 29:49 | |
'68 to '94 is our study period. | 29:51 | |
'94 is the year that | 29:54 | |
the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance closed. | 29:55 | |
So what I'm seeing, I was gonna have ALFA | 29:59 | |
be the last chapter but after interviewing the SONG people | 30:02 | |
I thought well SONG is really the last chapter | 30:05 | |
because it's a new beginning. | 30:07 | |
- | Yeah I really like the way you were thinking that | 30:10 |
that like here's this piece and it's still going, | 30:12 | |
but no I think | 30:16 | |
I wasn't at some of, I was at the earliest | 30:20 | |
I was part of and at the earliest conversations | 30:24 | |
that launched SONG. | 30:27 | |
- | So you would say that you and Mandy and Suzanne | 30:30 |
are, were the? | 30:33 | |
- | Well- | 30:35 |
- | And Mab? | 30:39 |
I don't know. | 30:40 | |
We don't need to say who was first you know. | 30:41 | |
- | Yeah no we don't we just like we you know | 30:43 |
we came up and how we have always told it is | 30:45 | |
that you know it came out of conversations | 30:49 | |
at that Creating Change. | 30:53 | |
- | Yeah that's clear. | 30:56 |
And you're right it wasn't clear to me that you were there. | 30:57 | |
I guess because of where the conversation was goin', | 31:00 | |
the interview was goin', but I don't think | 31:03 | |
the interviews make it sound like that. | 31:05 | |
- | Yes. | 31:12 |
- | Okay you were the first director, | 31:13 |
co-director with Pat you're saying. | 31:16 | |
- | That's right, Pat. | 31:18 |
- | And Joan- | 31:21 |
- | And I, oh go ahead I'm sorry. | 31:22 |
- | I was asking Joan to talk about how it went | 31:24 |
from just talking about | 31:27 | |
these needs to forming an organization | 31:31 | |
that actually did things. | 31:34 | |
And she- | 31:36 | |
- | Well that moved very quickly actually. | 31:37 |
Because Creating Change was in | 31:39 | |
November of '93 | 31:43 | |
and Pat and I were on part-time payroll in January of '94. | 31:48 | |
- | Wow. | 31:52 |
- | So we had a very small budget in '94 | 31:54 |
and we went I think full time in '95. | 31:57 | |
So in '94 | 32:02 | |
we focused on you know we had a meeting | 32:05 | |
in early January at Joan's house | 32:07 | |
and we set out some activities. | 32:18 | |
Part of the activities were to | 32:20 | |
kind of map, you know find out who was out there | 32:23 | |
in the South | 32:26 | |
that was interested in hearing what we were doing | 32:27 | |
and doing a lot of listening. | 32:30 | |
We were going to different conferences | 32:32 | |
where lesbians and lesbians and gay men would gather to | 32:34 | |
and progressive people and gays and lesbians were present | 32:38 | |
to just you know to explore with people | 32:43 | |
what we were trying to do. | 32:44 | |
And we used these, and so we were finding that | 32:46 | |
there were you know there were many people | 32:52 | |
really interested in talking with us | 32:56 | |
and hearing what we were trying to do | 32:58 | |
from a kind of vision-based organizing | 32:59 | |
that was really trying to cross these lines of difference | 33:02 | |
and build a movement where people | 33:05 | |
didn't have to leave their identities at the door. | 33:07 | |
- | Yeah. | 33:10 |
- | And you know saw coalition or alliance building | 33:12 |
as a way to liberation for all of us. | 33:16 | |
That no group was strong enough | 33:18 | |
to get there on their own and that also, Rose, | 33:20 | |
we're not just you know we're not just | 33:23 | |
one thing in our identities | 33:26 | |
as lesbians you know we're also women, | 33:29 | |
we're also working class, we're also people of color, | 33:32 | |
we're also differently abled, | 33:34 | |
we're you know we're many things. | 33:35 | |
So like Pat used to have a saying. | 33:40 | |
She'd say you know I'm no longer willing to choose, | 33:42 | |
she might have said this in her interview, | 33:45 | |
but she'd say and we put it on our fundraising envelope: | 33:47 | |
I'm no longer willing to choose between my skin, | 33:50 | |
my ovaries, my wallet, and my partner Cherry. | 33:53 | |
I'm all one person. | 33:56 | |
And that was really you know the tag-line | 33:58 | |
on our letter heads was building alliances, | 34:01 | |
connecting race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. | 34:03 | |
- | Yeah. | 34:08 |
- | Not saying that those were all the same, | 34:09 |
but saying that we needed to build you know | 34:12 | |
the kind of movement that really | 34:15 | |
really recognized the connections | 34:20 | |
and within that how important it was | 34:23 | |
to have a strong anti-race movement | 34:24 | |
you know seeing that as some really core and key | 34:27 | |
underpinnings of all of this. | 34:30 | |
We had a beautiful set of what we call | 34:33 | |
assumptions you know, we believe it, we believe it, | 34:36 | |
we communicate it through a bookmark, | 34:38 | |
and I would have to look to find that, | 34:41 | |
but it was you know we set about to communicate | 34:43 | |
what we were about and what we were trying | 34:48 | |
to establish so that we were clear in communicating | 34:50 | |
out to people. | 34:54 | |
So we used and we did a lot of trainings, we did. | 34:55 | |
We did this retreat model early in the years | 35:01 | |
where either by geography or identity | 35:03 | |
we would bring people together, | 35:06 | |
lesbigaytrans organizers to talk about... | 35:08 | |
We did a men's retreat because we had found | 35:11 | |
that as women we actually did a men's retreat | 35:13 | |
we did some based on geography | 35:17 | |
like we did one in the North Carolina | 35:19 | |
that pooled North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. | 35:23 | |
Or we did one you know in the Florida area | 35:26 | |
or we might do one around people | 35:29 | |
like we did one with cultural organizers | 35:31 | |
here at the Highlander Center actually | 35:34 | |
and brought lesbigaytrans cultural workers and organizers | 35:36 | |
together and to help people develop these tools. | 35:39 | |
It was skills building in the sense of organizing | 35:45 | |
but it was also skills building | 35:49 | |
in the sense of relationship building | 35:50 | |
so it's about relationship building and skills building. | 35:53 | |
So people very much in the model you know | 35:57 | |
before I'd ever worked at Highlander about you know | 35:59 | |
people coming together to learn from each other. | 36:02 | |
So it was facilitating the conversations | 36:06 | |
that created the space for people to get to know each other | 36:08 | |
and through that to see what they had in common | 36:11 | |
about building a strong liberation movement | 36:14 | |
that had room for all of us | 36:16 | |
and how we might go about doing that. | 36:18 | |
- | So that's what you did, you and Pat were doin'. | 36:23 |
Were you working together like going to these things | 36:26 | |
together or were you? | 36:28 | |
- | Yes, mostly we were. | 36:29 |
And then we did this one series, | 36:31 | |
well we did the retreats | 36:33 | |
and we always facilitated those together. | 36:34 | |
We came on this one thing, Rose, | 36:38 | |
where we said okay we've got building alliances | 36:40 | |
connecting race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, | 36:43 | |
it might've said sexuality, I'd have to look, | 36:46 | |
and we felt like as far as we had to go | 36:49 | |
on all of the conversations that class | 36:52 | |
was one that we had | 36:55 | |
that we needed to list up and bring | 36:58 | |
into the conversation more. | 37:00 | |
So one of the things that we did | 37:03 | |
was hired an economist, | 37:05 | |
an economist, Teresa Amott, | 37:09 | |
from Bucknell University at the time, | 37:12 | |
who was actually an adviser | 37:22 | |
in one of Jesse Jackson's campaigns | 37:23 | |
against the '88 campaigns | 37:24 | |
since we started SONG in '91. | 37:26 | |
I mean '94. | 37:30 | |
Maybe it was the '92 campaign, anyway I'm sorry. | 37:33 | |
So we hired, we developed a participatory | 37:37 | |
and popular education workshop on the economy. | 37:40 | |
We did it a lot in North Carolina | 37:49 | |
because of the, there was a race where | 37:52 | |
an African American man had been was takin' on Jesse Helms | 37:55 | |
and the way, | 37:59 | |
you know the way that the race was being run | 38:02 | |
Jesse Helms was doing these racist things. | 38:04 | |
We wanted to, we couldn't work on the election | 38:08 | |
as a 501C3 but we could work on education | 38:10 | |
around the issues. | 38:13 | |
So more broadly we developed this economy workshop | 38:15 | |
to show the connection | 38:19 | |
between the conservative social agenda | 38:20 | |
and a conservative | 38:22 | |
economic agenda. | 38:27 | |
Because sometimes people like say okay | 38:28 | |
I'm a liberal economically and a conservative, | 38:30 | |
I'm a liberal socially and a conservative economically. | 38:32 | |
Our premise was that really you know, | 38:35 | |
one conservative agenda drives the other. | 38:37 | |
And there's a lot of scapegoating going on, | 38:43 | |
there was deregulation you know in the environment | 38:45 | |
and also in business practices. | 38:47 | |
We were seeing the gutting of the social safety net. | 38:49 | |
We wanted to develop a workshop that really | 38:52 | |
got people talking about issues | 38:54 | |
and talked about what we could do. | 38:56 | |
This is a long answer, I got off here on this road | 38:57 | |
because Pat that's the time | 39:01 | |
when Pat and I worked separately | 39:02 | |
because we could cover more ground that way. | 39:03 | |
So we did this workshop numerous times in North Carolina, | 39:06 | |
South Carolina, we did it in Kentucky, | 39:09 | |
we did it in Tennessee. | 39:10 | |
And we would be hosted by a local organization. | 39:13 | |
Like in Asheville it was hosted by Malaprop's bookstore | 39:19 | |
and some other place it might be hosted | 39:23 | |
by a community group. | 39:24 | |
It was hosted by the Fairness Campaign | 39:25 | |
in Louisville, Kentucky. | 39:27 | |
So that you know so depending on what it was | 39:33 | |
sometimes Pat would represent SONG, | 39:36 | |
sometimes I would represent SONG. | 39:38 | |
On those retreats though at a lot of the trainings | 39:40 | |
you know we would always, | 39:43 | |
the co-directors would always do that together. | 39:46 | |
Sometimes with other people as well. | 39:52 | |
- | Can you spell Teresa Amott's name? | 39:57 |
That's that Bucknell person. | 39:59 | |
- | I'm sorry? | 40:01 |
- | Teresa's name? | 40:02 |
The woman from Bucknell? | 40:03 | |
- | Teresa Amott? | 40:06 |
- | A? A-M-M? | 40:07 |
- | It's either A-M-M-O-T or A-M-O-T-T. | 40:10 |
I'd have to look it up. | 40:14 | |
- | Oh I can look it up. | 40:16 |
- | She's no longer at Bucknell | 40:17 |
but she was at the time she worked with us. | 40:17 | |
- | Okay. | 40:20 |
- | We just hired her to come in and teach us | 40:21 |
basic economics and then help us develop a workshop | 40:23 | |
that made that accessible to people. | 40:26 | |
So we did like a four hour version | 40:30 | |
and then a two and a half hour version | 40:32 | |
that you could also, | 40:34 | |
the four hour version you could do on the weekend | 40:35 | |
and the two and a half hour version | 40:37 | |
you could do on the weeknight or at a conference. | 40:38 | |
- | Okay. | 40:46 |
- | I've got a big ole scrapbook from the first big year. | 40:49 |
- | Oh wow I would love to get my hands on that. | 40:53 |
(Pam laughs) | 40:56 | |
How far is New Market from Huntsville? | 40:57 | |
Do you know where is it in relation? | 40:59 | |
- | You know I think from Burmingham it's five. | 41:01 |
How far are you from Knoxville? | 41:05 | |
We're just a half hour on the other side. | 41:07 | |
- | A half hour on the Western | 41:10 |
or the Eastern side of Knoxville? | 41:12 | |
- | We're Northeast of Knoxville. | 41:15 |
- | Northeast of Knoxville. | 41:16 |
- | Northeast about a half hour. | 41:18 |
- | Yeah we're three and a half hours from Knoxville. | 41:20 |
I would love to come up there and visit sometime. | 41:22 | |
- | Well I would love for you to. | 41:25 |
- | And I could take my camera | 41:28 |
and take pictures of your scrapbook. | 41:30 | |
You can get pretty good pictures off of a camera | 41:33 | |
you know when it might be hard to scan. | 41:37 | |
- | I've just walked in here to my library. | 41:41 |
So we did, we did this thing called | 41:43 | |
The Journal of SONG in the Spring of 1996 | 41:45 | |
we did one called Class the Missing Link | 41:50 | |
and then in '98 we did one on welfare | 41:53 | |
and then in 2000 we did one on race | 41:57 | |
and those are also, | 42:00 | |
those would be interesting to see | 42:05 | |
if you come. | 42:10 | |
I was looking for one of those little bookmarks | 42:12 | |
that had our assumptions, I don't know. | 42:14 | |
They might be printed in one of these journals. | 42:16 | |
And then we also did | 42:20 | |
like I'm looking here in this one | 42:21 | |
like we used to work with Highlander | 42:22 | |
we did these things called Mountaintop Festival | 42:25 | |
three times at Highlander | 42:28 | |
cause we were trying to get people you know | 42:29 | |
make connections and also provide organizing opportunities | 42:31 | |
for people in an isolated region. | 42:36 | |
Like one of the retreats we had done had been | 42:37 | |
working with either lesbigaytrans people living | 42:41 | |
in Appalachia or working in Appalachia | 42:44 | |
and out of that came you know people | 42:46 | |
talking about some of the isolation they were facing | 42:49 | |
and also Highlander was interested | 42:54 | |
in integrating work against homophobia | 42:56 | |
more into what they were doing. | 42:59 | |
So we came up with this idea | 43:00 | |
of doing the Mountaintop Festival | 43:01 | |
and we did three of those. | 43:03 | |
The first year, I mean yeah I've got a lot. | 43:05 | |
I could go on about | 43:08 | |
I worked there for eight years so. | 43:09 | |
But are you serious about wanting to come? | 43:15 | |
- | I am. | 43:18 |
I think it would be summertime before I could do it. | 43:19 | |
- | Okay. | 43:22 |
- | It would be after this. | 43:23 |
- | Okay, all right. | 43:24 |
- | In fact so much of what I'm doing right now | 43:26 |
is sort of blossoming out way beyond our boundaries. | 43:30 | |
- | In the scrapbook I've got a copy of the letter | 43:38 |
that I wrote to Judy Hatcher, | 43:42 | |
the director of grant making and education, | 43:44 | |
it's a funny exchange in December of 1993 | 43:46 | |
and that was before we even had | 43:49 | |
the name SONG yet. | 43:53 | |
- | Wow. | 43:55 |
- | That was like a month after the Creating Change thing. | 43:57 |
- | Wow. | 44:02 |
- | We were calling it | 44:03 |
the Southeast Alliance Building Project. | 44:04 | |
- | I wish I could figure out- | 44:12 |
- | And you know we'd have different flyers | 44:15 |
from different things and different pictures. | 44:17 | |
- | I wonder if I could- | 44:21 |
- | I'm sorry? | 44:23 |
- | The deadline that we're working on right now | 44:24 |
is Womonwrites. | 44:27 | |
- | Yeah that summer is too late for this, right? | 44:28 |
To be helpful for your article? | 44:32 | |
- | Well, yes and no. | 44:34 |
The article- | 44:38 | |
- | Hey Rose? | 44:40 |
- | I'm here. | 44:41 |
- | I don't know what's going on | 44:42 |
but the phone's cutting in and out a little bit. | 44:45 | |
Am I cutting in and out? | 44:47 | |
You know what, I'm gonna go plug up, | 44:48 | |
let me plug my phone in I think my battery's getting low | 44:50 | |
and I think that's causing me to | 44:53 | |
cut in and out a little bit. | 44:54 | |
Can you hang on just a second? | 44:56 | |
- | Oh sure, yeah. | 44:57 |
Yeah yeah it hasn't been cuttin' out on my end. | 45:01 | |
- | Okay sorry I think this will be better off | 45:04 |
plugged in here. | 45:06 | |
- | Oh good. | 45:07 |
I was gonna talk about the deadlines. | 45:09 | |
This May deadline is really for what we're gonna send them | 45:12 | |
this summer so that they can tell us how much | 45:16 | |
they can use. | 45:18 | |
Our real deadline is November. | 45:19 | |
- | Oh wow! | 45:22 |
- | Yeah but we have to, | 45:23 |
in May we have to find out | 45:26 | |
we have about more than twice as much as a single issue | 45:27 | |
of Sinister Wisdom | 45:31 | |
so they have to tell us whether we can have a double issue, | 45:33 | |
and we will still have to cut, | 45:37 | |
or if they want us to just select certain things, | 45:39 | |
or if they want us to... | 45:43 | |
I don't know what they're gonna tell us. | 45:45 | |
But we're trying to, | 45:47 | |
they encouraged us to pull together everything we could | 45:48 | |
and send it to them after Womonwrites. | 45:52 | |
So I'm seeing the summer as the time | 45:55 | |
when we start winnowing | 45:57 | |
but also we would be doing things like | 46:02 | |
filling in gaps. | 46:04 | |
Such as if I were to come up there in June | 46:06 | |
and look at that scrapbook and take pictures. | 46:09 | |
I might be able to fill some holes in what we, | 46:13 | |
in the SONG chapter. | 46:16 | |
- | Well I yeah I would love for you to come. | 46:19 |
I'm gonna be out of pocket like June 18th, | 46:23 | |
before the 18th, | 46:29 | |
before the early part of the month is better | 46:31 | |
I'm gonna be doing a multiple day | 46:33 | |
women's white water trip out in Utah in later June | 46:36 | |
to celebrate my 60th birthday. | 46:39 | |
- | Oh wow! Oh that's right 1953 that's 60 years there you go. | 46:42 |
(laughs) | 46:47 | |
Well I'm gonna- | 46:49 | |
- | I did this same trip when I turned, | 46:50 |
I did this same trip when I turned 50, | 46:52 | |
so I'm excited to go back and do it again. | 46:55 | |
- | Well I'm gonna make a note that early June | 46:59 |
might be a good time to visit | 47:01 | |
because I've always wanted to visit up there anyway. | 47:02 | |
But this would be a wonderful excuse or reason. | 47:06 | |
- | That'd be great and we're also doing, | 47:10 |
we're doing I don't know I can send you pictures, | 47:12 | |
you know give me your mailing address. | 47:14 | |
We're doin', the founder of Highlander is | 47:18 | |
that was, the key founder was a man named Myles Horton | 47:23 | |
and his great nephew is actually | 47:26 | |
a successful screenwriter in Hollywood. | 47:28 | |
So Robert Ben Garant is a fundraiser | 47:31 | |
for Highlander and we've never done this thing | 47:33 | |
but this idea is to do a writing, a screenwriting workshop | 47:39 | |
here at Highlander that people | 47:43 | |
you know people pay for these kinds of things- | 47:45 | |
- | Wow. | 47:46 |
- | He's already come. | 47:48 |
So the money for it is gonna support our program | 47:50 | |
for you know our organizing and movement building groups. | 47:52 | |
So that's another thing that we're working on writing. | 47:56 | |
Do you mind if I just send you a brochure? | 48:05 | |
- | Sure! | 48:08 |
In email is that? | 48:10 | |
- | That'd be great. | 48:12 |
- | In Knoxville? | 48:15 |
- | Yeah I'd love to. | 48:16 |
Just email it to me, or if you want to mail it to me | 48:17 | |
it's 1003 Wells Avenue. | 48:21 | |
- | 1002 Wells Avenue? | 48:26 |
- | Three! 1003 Wells Avenue. | 48:28 |
- | 1003 Wells Avenue, all right. | 48:31 |
- | Zip is 35801. | 48:35 |
- | Is Barb Parkinson in Huntsville? | 48:40 |
- | She is and I ran across a picture of you and Barb, | 48:42 |
and Susan Gorell at Womonwrites. | 48:45 | |
(laughs) | 48:47 | |
- | That's awesome, that's awesome. | 48:49 |
- | I can email it to you, if you want. | 48:53 |
I'm making as slide show for the 35th, | 48:55 | |
this is the 35th Womonwrites, this year. | 48:58 | |
- | When is that? | 49:01 |
- | May 15th through 19th. | 49:03 |
- | May 15th through 19th? | 49:06 |
- | Yes. | 49:08 |
- | Is the 35th Womonwrites? | 49:09 |
- | It's the 35th Womonwrites, yes. | 49:11 |
- | Wow I didn't even know it. | 49:13 |
Where? | 49:14 | |
- | It's the same place it's always been | 49:15 |
there in Indian Springs. | 49:17 | |
- | Oh heck well it's the 15th to the 19th? | 49:19 |
- | I'll send you the stuff and you can put it on your- | 49:22 |
- | Oh please do! | 49:24 |
I would like to put down for that. | 49:25 | |
- | Well it would be great to have you. | 49:27 |
- | I might not be able to come the whole time, | 49:29 |
but I'd like to come for part of it. | 49:30 | |
- | And it really starts the 12th | 49:32 |
because we have the camp for the whole week, | 49:33 | |
so we have pre-conference, and then you know | 49:35 | |
it starts on Wednesday, | 49:38 | |
everybody, people start getting there Sunday. | 49:39 | |
So we'll be working on this herstory project | 49:42 | |
during pre-conference and then the conference itself. | 49:45 | |
It's great. | 49:48 | |
- | I probably couldn't come till Wednesday night | 49:50 |
or Thursday but I would love to do that, oh my gosh. | 49:52 | |
You know there is a really pivotal experience | 49:56 | |
with the SONG stuff for me and Womonwrites | 49:59 | |
it's, I don't know if you want this story. | 50:01 | |
- | Yeah I do definitely. | 50:04 |
- | I know we've been talking a while. | 50:06 |
- | Go ahead and tell the pivotal experience | 50:08 |
with Womonwrites, we want anything to do with Womonwrites. | 50:09 | |
- | Well the first, | 50:13 |
that first year | 50:16 | |
we you know we were trying to talk to people, | 50:20 | |
we came to Womonwrites, Pat came to Womonwrites, | 50:22 | |
and we did a series of workshops, | 50:24 | |
you know writing workshops like we always do. | 50:28 | |
You know at Womonwrites, | 50:30 | |
you just can't really, you know you're running around | 50:31 | |
in your shorts and your tshirts and your tanktops, | 50:33 | |
and clothes is an indicator of different classes | 50:39 | |
it's not an operative in that environment, right? | 50:42 | |
You know we're all just kind of like | 50:46 | |
dykes and lesbians running around. | 50:47 | |
- | Yeah. | 50:48 |
- | And then in the writing workshops | 50:52 |
one of the sentences | 50:53 | |
we asked people to write about was to complete | 50:54 | |
"The first time I realized people | 50:57 | |
"were a different color was.." | 50:59 | |
- | Yeah. | 51:01 |
- | And we were really, | 51:02 |
there were a number of women | 51:05 | |
in that circle whose experience with women of a, | 51:06 | |
whose first experience with women of a different color | 51:10 | |
was the hired help in their home. | 51:14 | |
And that was actually pretty, | 51:17 | |
I just hadn't stopped and thought about that before. | 51:22 | |
Yeah. | 51:33 | |
So there was something about, | 51:34 | |
there was something about | 51:36 | |
class within that. | 51:40 | |
Am I making any sense? | 51:44 | |
- | Yeah I can see what you're saying is that | 51:45 |
you're looking at something from a different point of view. | 51:48 | |
That you feel, you have the sense that it's, | 51:53 | |
you've always had a sense | 51:56 | |
that it was a shared experience, | 51:57 | |
and then you realize that it's not. | 51:58 | |
- | Yeah. Yeah. | 52:01 |
I think that you know, you know you're kind of like | 52:03 | |
you see yourself as all kind of the same thing | 52:06 | |
and then there are in fact, there are differences | 52:08 | |
and so yeah and then we did some other. | 52:15 | |
I probably have it, I'll have to look. | 52:17 | |
In fact let me see if I can find it. | 52:19 | |
Hold on a minute. | 52:21 | |
I've got this big thing out now. | 52:22 | |
If I come, I'll bring this. | 52:24 | |
- | Oh great! | 52:26 |
- | I'm pretty sure I'm free that weekend. | 52:28 |
- | Well that would be so wonderful to have you there | 52:30 |
especially if you could bring the scrapbook! | 52:32 | |
- | Oh I'm so happy to! | 52:33 |
- | Well we have a lot a whole lot of sort of | 52:35 |
anniversary kind of things. | 52:38 | |
You know there'll be a tshirt. | 52:39 | |
- | Uh huh. | 52:42 |
- | I've got over 400 pictures that I've collected | 52:45 |
from over the years. | 52:48 | |
- | Wow. | 52:50 |
- | Yeah and you're in a lot of them too! | 52:51 |
There's the 1983 one, a big group picture, you're in it. | 52:53 | |
- | The Womonwrites Workshop 1995. | 53:01 |
- | Whoa! | 53:04 |
- | So we did three workshops: | 53:07 |
Southern Cooking: Stirring Up Change in the South, | 53:09 | |
one called Making Change Within the Sound of My Own Voice, | 53:12 | |
and Transformation Stories, | 53:16 | |
and they were all writing workshops. | 53:17 | |
One was through writing and discussion | 53:20 | |
this workshop will grapple with difficult questions | 53:22 | |
about racism in our communities | 53:25 | |
and organizing work, | 53:26 | |
how white women combat racism, | 53:27 | |
build alliances with people of color, | 53:30 | |
how we nurture one another, | 53:31 | |
and turn barriers into strategies. | 53:33 | |
I could take a picture of this and email, | 53:34 | |
I could actually copy this and pdf it and email it to you. | 53:36 | |
- | Oh that would be great. | 53:39 |
- | Yeah. | 53:41 |
Do I, I have your email? | 53:50 | |
Yeah of course. | 53:52 | |
- | Yeah rose.norman- | 53:53 |
- | Yeah when I'll go to the office tomorrow | 53:53 |
I'll just make this into a pdf and send it to you. | 53:55 | |
- | Oh yay! | 53:57 |
That's exciting. | 53:58 | |
That's great! | 53:59 | |
You know we're calling this a Womonwrites project | 54:01 | |
because we've been working on this at Womonwrites | 54:03 | |
this herstory stuff. | 54:05 | |
Of course Womonwrites doesn't technically | 54:08 | |
do projects like this but women at Womonwrites do. | 54:11 | |
Anyway we have a whole section, | 54:17 | |
the story of Womonwrites, | 54:20 | |
and whenever we have a Womonwrites connection | 54:23 | |
we like to emphasize it in the memoirs. | 54:24 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 54:27 |
Yeah you know I really | 54:29 | |
I'm gonna move heaven and earth | 54:35 | |
to come in May, and if you will email me the stuff on it. | 54:37 | |
I haven't been in so long that I've gotten you know- | 54:40 | |
- | You fell off the list! | 54:44 |
I'll put you back on. | 54:46 | |
- | Yeah I would love to like I say I probably | 54:48 |
couldn't get there though. | 54:52 | |
But I came, the first time I missed, | 54:54 | |
I came for maybe nine or 10 years in a row | 54:57 | |
and then my mom died and then I came a couple years after. | 55:02 | |
So it's been a while, it's been a long while | 55:06 | |
since I came. | 55:08 | |
- | I think you were there, my first year was '96 or '97. | 55:09 |
I think you were there that year. | 55:13 | |
I think I met you that year with Barb and Suzanne. | 55:15 | |
- | Yeah, yes, I was there both those years I think. | 55:18 |
Yeah oh this is fun! | 55:25 | |
I'm gonna work that. | 55:27 | |
- | I'll put your email address, | 55:30 |
we mostly correspond via email nowadays, | 55:32 | |
we have a snail mail list, it has about six people on it. | 55:34 | |
But you know we don't mail out the flyer anymore, | 55:39 | |
we email it. | 55:42 | |
- | Uh huh. | 55:43 |
- | So I will put you on that email list | 55:44 |
and you'll get- | 55:47 | |
- | Great! | 55:48 |
- | And every now and then you'll get a little reminder of it | 55:49 |
it's coming. | 55:51 | |
- | All right! | 55:52 |
Well yeah I'm sitting here I'm really clear that I'm, | 55:53 | |
I'm sitting here looking at my calendar. | 56:00 | |
I go to New York on that Sunday or Monday. | 56:05 | |
I go to New York that Sunday night. | 56:07 | |
- | Uh huh. | 56:09 |
- | So. | 56:10 |
- | The 19th? | 56:13 |
- | Uh huh. | 56:14 |
So I can actually maybe come back up | 56:15 | |
and fly out of Atlanta. | 56:16 | |
- | Oh, well that's true it's probably cheaper | 56:18 |
to fly out of Atlanta. | 56:20 | |
- | I could come on down and then fly out of Atlanta. | 56:21 |
(Pam laughs) | 56:25 | |
- | Wouldn't that be fun? | 56:26 |
- | Yeah that's really good. | 56:28 |
That's good, that's good. | 56:30 | |
- | Great, well. | 56:34 |
I feel like I've got enough now | 56:37 | |
that I can send you something to work on. | 56:39 | |
- | Okay. | 56:41 |
- | I don't know how fast I'll get it. | 56:42 |
I've been typing my notes but I have lots of big holes. | 56:44 | |
I'll have to listen to the tape | 56:46 | |
and pull it back together. | 56:49 | |
I will maybe we'll stay in touch over email | 56:53 | |
about your correcting anything I get wrong in this. | 56:56 | |
- | Okay. | 57:02 |
- | But we've still got Pat Hussain to do. | 57:03 |
Lorraine Fontana is supposed to interview her in Atlanta. | 57:06 | |
She lives in Atlanta. | 57:10 | |
- | Okay. | 57:11 |
- | And they're in touch. | 57:13 |
Pat's partner is having a knee replacement or something. | 57:15 | |
So there's, it might've been faster for me | 57:17 | |
to do it by phone. | 57:20 | |
But anyway that's the last SONG person | 57:22 | |
we haven't talked to. | 57:24 | |
- | Okay. | 57:26 |
Yeah that'll wow, cool. | 57:27 | |
- | I haven't actually talked to Mab | 57:30 |
but I emailed her and she says | 57:33 | |
she would answer the questions. | 57:34 | |
I'm gonna have to remind her though. | 57:36 | |
- | Okay. | 57:37 |
All right. | 57:38 | |
Yeah it's interesting I was down at the 20th anniversary. | 57:39 | |
I think all the founders were there but Mab. | 57:43 | |
20th anniversary in Atlanta. | 57:46 | |
Yeah, cool cool. | 57:49 | |
Well Rose, what a gift! | 57:52 | |
Thank you for this. | 57:54 | |
I think you can count on seeing me | 57:56 | |
you know if something unforeseen comes up, | 58:01 | |
you can count on seeing me. | 58:03 | |
- | Well I sure hope so, that would be just great. | 58:05 |
- | Yeah that'd be great. | 58:07 |
- | Okay well. | 58:10 |
- | Okay you take good care and call me if I can do anything. | 58:12 |
- | I will. | 58:14 |
Thank you so much. | 58:15 | |
- | All right. | 58:16 |
- | You have a good night. | 58:17 |
- | Good night. | 58:18 |
Buh-bye. | 58:19 |
Item Info
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