Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) - Chris Carroll, Eleanor Smith, Lorraine Fontana - interviewed by Charlene Ball / Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project / Duke Digital Repository

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This is Charlene Ball recording an interview

0:02

with Eleanor Smith and Lorraine Fontana

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about the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance

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from the years 1972 to 1994.

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And I'd like to start--

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Today's date.

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And today's date is April the 2nd, (laughs) 2013.

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And you've already started talking

0:28

about your early members about,

0:32

your early memories of ALFA.

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I've got it.

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I'd like to ask you if you would like to tell,

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do you think of yourself as a Southerner,

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and did you grow up in the South?

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No, I don't think of myself as a Southerner,

0:51

in a way, because I did not grow up in the South.

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I grew up in the Midwest.

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I lived at Koinonia Farm down in South Georgia

1:01

in 1973 and 1974,

1:06

then I went away and then I moved back here about a year,

1:09

about a year later.

1:14

Must've been about '75.

1:17

So I've been here ever since.

1:19

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When did you first join?

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What about you, Lorraine?

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Well, I'm a Southerner now

1:26

'cause this is where I live and I've lived

1:28

probably more years here altogether in my life

1:30

than anywhere else.

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But I grew up in New York City

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and I came down here after college.

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So since '68 till now,

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except for five years I was back in New York

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and a few years I was out in L.A.

1:46

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I was really impressed, Lorraine,

1:49

with what you wrote about how people ignored

1:50

Southern lesbian feminist contributions,

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and how you were basically ignored

1:56

when you went to a conference in,

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well, in the North,

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and which only two people came to your workshop.

2:08

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Now or then?

2:12

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It just depends however you wanna answer.

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She's askin' you now.

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Are you a Southerner now and were you then?

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And sit close so it can pick you up.

2:22

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Well, I'm afraid I probably am now.

2:27

(women laughing)

2:29

I mean, really I've never lived

2:31

north of the Mason-Dixon line

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so I probably don't have too much of a way

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to wiggle out of it,

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but I don't really wanna be a Southerner. (laughing)

2:39

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But why?

2:44

I'm gonna ask you that.

2:45

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Why?

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Go ahead.

2:46

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Why not?

I mean, what do you mean, why?

2:48

You know why.

2:49

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Why would you not want to be a Southerner?

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No, I wanna hear.

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'Cause it's the most backward freakin' part

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of the whole goddamn country, that's why.

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Ooh.

2:55

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I'm over it.

I hate 'em all.

2:56

I hate every damn one of 'em.

2:58

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That sounds like those people you,

3:00

that didn't come to your panel.

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Yes, to me it's a non-Southern way

3:04

of looking at the South,

3:07

as everybody here is backwards.

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It's generally a backward part of the country.

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We don't have much to say about anything.

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We're not smart enough

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to have a theoretical idea in our heads.

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I think that's generally how,

3:19

I mean, I know that.

3:20

I come from New York.

3:21

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When you were in ALFA,

3:22

did you run into that with people coming

3:23

from out of town and joining ALFA?

3:25

Did they--

3:28

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Oh, just like me.

I mean, anyone that sounds like me,

3:29

and the Southerners here probably didn't trust a whole lot

3:31

because of how, and also our style was so different.

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People didn't particularly like my style

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because it was such a different kind of way

3:39

of relating to people, being obnoxious, you know.

3:41

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No.

3:46

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Yeah, really.

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(laughing) Okay.

3:47

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But the example that you were referring to,

3:49

this is a good example.

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When Vicki Gabriner, Sally Gabb, and I

3:53

were all three founding mothers,

3:57

as we call ourselves, of ALFA,

4:00

along with a bunch of other women,

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we went to the CLAG's,

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CUNY CLAG's Dykes in the '70s

4:07

America, with a KKK,

4:12

America with Lesbians in the '70s.

4:14

And it was great.

4:18

We thought, oh wow, this is a great conference

4:20

so we wanted to go.

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And we put in a submission for doing a workshop

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and it was gonna be about,

4:26

in fact, Sally was gonna go at one point

4:28

and she couldn't, so she helped

4:30

write the little blurb about the workshop, which is--

4:31

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So when was the conference exactly?

4:34

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It was a few years ago.

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And now I'd have to look up the date.

4:37

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It wasn't in the '70s.

4:39

It was a retrospect--

4:40

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No, it was a few years ago.

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And yeah, it was about looking back.

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Older women and young women looking at,

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what about those lesbian feminists and dykes

4:47

back in the '70s?

4:49

But our workshop was, Sharon named it.

4:52

I think I had a little problem with the name

4:56

'cause it was supposed to be a little sarcastic or somethin'

4:57

but it didn't really seem like it.

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It said, lesbians in the '70s in the city too busy to hate.

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(woman laughing)

5:07

Anyway, but clearly it was about Atlanta

5:10

so it was subtitled talking about Atlanta,

5:11

lesbian feminism.

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And this was a huge conference with,

5:15

you know, many hundreds of women.

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We had two people other than ourselves,

5:19

two people that showed up to our workshop.

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And I think it was a lot because, you know,

5:26

Southern lesbians, ALFA. (blows through lips)

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And not that people knew about us or had any idea,

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but there were much more interesting things to go to.

5:33

There were lots of things happening every hour.

5:36

So yeah, it felt,

5:39

and it hurt, but it didn't surprise me

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as I thought about it.

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I said, ah, typical.

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Who wants to hear about women

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who think Atlanta is a city too busy to hate?

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Racist assholes.

5:53

That's probably the thought pattern that went on.

5:55

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Well, getting back to ALFA,

5:57

Cris, you just joined us.

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What brought you to ALFA, and when?

6:01

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1976, Elizabeth Knowlton.

6:05

(women laughing)

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That would be the answer.

6:12

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Okay.

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Elizabeth brought me to Atlanta.

6:14

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How did Elizabeth bring you to Atlanta?

6:17

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Well, she lived down here

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and she owed me a favor, a big favor. (laughs)

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Anyway, you know Elizabeth and I,

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Elizabeth had brought me out in North Carolina

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and then she had moved down here

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a year, a year and a half later.

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And I must've had her address.

6:40

I guess I did.

6:43

Or I got it.

6:46

But I think I must've had it somehow.

6:47

Anyway, so I was ready to get out of Durham

6:51

for a lotta reasons,

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but mostly because I had been straight

6:57

in Durham mostly and I wanted to be gay.

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And it seemed like Atlanta was gonna be

7:01

a better place to be gay than to be straight. (laughs)

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Or for me, at least.

7:07

And so I wrote Elizabeth

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and I can't remember exactly how I phrased it

7:12

but I'm pretty sure I said,

7:16

"I'm moving to Atlanta, can I stay with you?"

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(women laughing)

7:19

And I did, for a few days.

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And then, of course, Elizabeth immediately

7:25

found me a place.

7:26

(phone ringing)

Actually, the first place I lived was--

7:27

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Go, go grab--

7:29

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No, I'm waiting.

7:30

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Actually, the first place I,

7:32

was that the first place?

7:35

Well anyway, Elizabeth soon,

7:37

with all her many connections,

7:39

the first thing I did was I sublet

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a little apartment from Joanne,

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oh crap, what was her last name?

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The childcare person, you know who I mean.

7:48

Dark hair, frizzy.

7:52

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Oh yeah.

7:54

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Rainey.

From Joanne Rainey.

7:56

And I sublet her apartment.

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I don't know where she was off to.

7:59

And then in September I moved into a basement apartment

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that Saralynn and Cynthia had

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in the house they rented,

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and I lived there for maybe a year or a little less.

8:08

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So the founding mothers of ALFA

8:11

were you, Sally Gabb, and Vicki Gabriner.

8:13

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Oh, you wanna list names now?

8:16

Wow.

8:18

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Well, was it a large group?

8:19

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I'm sorry, this is the kinda stuff

8:21

that doesn't come in my memory very well.

8:23

I have to have--

8:25

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I thought Micky was one of the founding mothers, no?

8:27

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No.

8:29

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She came later?

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No, yes.

8:30

Founding mothers included people that were,

8:31

women that were in gay liberation,

8:36

women that were...

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I don't know if any women were in women's liberation here.

8:42

But they were women who had been

8:45

in other social justice movements.

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There were bunches of women who went on to events,

8:49

the Venceremos Brigade.

8:50

Okay.

8:54

Alice, and I forget her last name.

8:56

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Alice Ellen?

8:58

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No.

Not Alice Teeter, another Alice.

9:00

You know, instead of writing down names

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that I can't remember,

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I will give you a list.

9:06

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That's okay.

9:07

I guess the idea I wanted is,

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it was a group of women larger than two or three.

9:10

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Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

9:13

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Okay, great.

Were you all involved in women's liberation

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or what other kinds of things

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were you involved with that led you to ALFA?

9:19

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I was just gonna say that I came down,

9:23

I didn't mention when I came down, I think it was '74,

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and I was in Durham also,

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but I hadn't met up with lesbians really.

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And I wrote to ALFA, I had heard of it.

9:35

And guess who answered my letter?

9:38

Lorraine Fontana.

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(all chuckling)

9:42

She answered it in a nice, long handwritten letter

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which I wish I still had.

9:46

And was very welcoming.

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And so I came down already knowing about ALFA

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and I joined it.

9:54

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Back then we got letters.

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It wasn't email.

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They didn't know our phone numbers.

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So, yeah, we got letters.

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So were you in disability activist rights then?

10:06

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No, I wasn't yet, by a long shot.

10:10

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But you were,

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you did go immediately to Koinonia

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or was that before?

10:16

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Koinonia was before that.

10:18

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Okay, okay.

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I was involved in a rival immediately with ALFA,

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but I also went down and helped

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Georgia ERA efforts, which several of us did.

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Oh yeah?

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See, I didn't know that.

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I would stuff envelopes and lick envelopes.

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Not a lot, but several times.

10:38

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Yeah, 'cause that was over.

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In '76 by the time I got here, that was over.

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Yeah, I think I came down in '74 or '75.

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I wish I remembered.

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I was at, when was that march

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with Betty Friedan and Kate Millett and all those?

10:49

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That must've been earlier.

10:52

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'Cause I was there.

10:54

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You know a way to find out?

10:56

I mean, seriously, you find out dates just to look.

10:57

Now, unless it's earlier than the first ALFA newsletter,

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but if it's in later '74 on,

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that's how you find the dates for stuff.

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Unless you have another time.

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It was the ALFA timeline too, remember.

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Remember that I made out for the anniversary

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and for the birthdays.

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That might have a lotta stuff in it, too.

11:16

But I can't pull up dates.

11:18

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So did you have a job

11:20

or you got a job after you got down here, Eleanor?

11:21

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After I got down.

11:23

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Uh-huh.

And you were an ESL teacher that time?

11:26

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My first job

11:30

was with food stamps.

11:33

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Oh yeah?

11:39

Like Saralynn, huh?

11:40

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I guess.

11:41

When I came down, I had really exceeded

11:44

my ability to cope.

11:46

Coming down, knowing almost no one.

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And so I was kinda going nuts

11:52

and I found Karuna very early on.

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They were just starting,

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and they were written up, I think, in Creative Loafing.

12:01

And I went to Karuna to get

12:03

some psychological help in coping.

12:06

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How did you find a place to live?

12:10

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I had that just before I moved down.

12:12

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You found that first.

12:16

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Well, Joanne Able helped me find it.

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She was driving around and saw it,

12:19

'cause there were almost no accessible places.

12:21

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Say what Karuna is for people listening to the tape.

12:23

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Karuna is Karuna Counseling for Women & Their Friends.

12:27

They were brand new.

12:31

They had just started,

12:33

and I read about them and I thought, oh, I need this.

12:34

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So you became one of the counselors there, right?

12:39

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Later, much later, yes.

12:42

About seven years later.

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One of the things I remember about Karuna

12:45

was that they did not require you

12:47

to have degrees in counseling,

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and that, for me, was I think a mixed blessing.

12:52

Because I think some of my therapists

12:57

got in over their head.

12:59

But anyhow. (chuckles)

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But how did that affect you?

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What, finding Karuna?

13:06

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Just the general,

13:09

the alternative way it had of its approach.

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Oh, well I was glad, I was glad.

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Our first group, frankly, was not that good.

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They didn't know how to lead groups.

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But I was so glad to have found 'em

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and they learned a lot later.

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It really, you know, it was kind of very, very helpful.

13:26

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So who was there besides Geri and Susan?

13:30

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Well, there was a woman,

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a straight woman who was leading a group with Susan

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and that's what I joined.

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And I can't remember her name.

13:40

She stayed there a good while.

13:42

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Phyllis, was that Phyllis?

13:44

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No, Phyllis came a little later, I think.

13:45

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Was it Doris?

13:47

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Doris.

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Doris, right.

13:49

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Yes, ma'am, very good.

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She was my therapist.

13:52

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Oh, okay.

13:53

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Yeah.

So that was a positive experience for you

13:57

for the most part.

14:00

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Yes.

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Being in Karuna.

14:01

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Yes.

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So I wanted to ask y'all a little bit

14:03

about activism and what you consider to be activism.

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Did you want us all to answer the questions

14:07

you're asking?

14:08

I don't know--

14:09

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Okay.

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Well, I just wanna know

14:11

as you're going on to--

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I wanted to go in a kinda flowing way,

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but if you'd like to go back and answer a question--

14:16

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No, no, no, I'm just asking you

14:17

how you wanna do it.

14:19

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Okay.

14:21

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'Kay.

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Well, I guess I would like to jump,

14:22

because this is really central, I think,

14:23

to what I want to do.

14:25

What do y'all consider to be activism?

14:27

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Anything and everything.

14:31

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Okay.

14:33

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Any action you take.

14:35

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Then I would somewhat disagree.

14:37

My view would be...

14:40

Well, Cris, you answer while I think.

14:50

(women laughing)

14:52

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That's not fair.

14:55

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Well, I'm kinda with Lorraine,

14:59

anything and everything.

15:00

But I think for us,

15:02

the kinds of activism we've had to do our whole lives

15:05

have really been about

15:08

kind of turning people's worldviews upside down.

15:10

And so that's been part of why

15:13

it's been anything and everything,

15:15

because everything we did was a challenge

15:18

to what women were supposed to do.

15:21

And we weren't supposed to be happy

15:24

doing what we were doing. (laughs)

15:26

I mean, we weren't supposed to be happy

15:27

being unmarried and in flannel shirts, you know?

15:30

We were supposed to be doing other things.

15:33

So I think that's a very different view.

15:36

And of necessity it's a different view

15:42

and it's sort of, from just politics,

15:44

like, okay, I wanna change this policy about X

15:47

or I wanna get government funds for Y.

15:50

Our worldview changing led to those things.

15:55

We had to challenge that worldview as women

16:03

and then that very naturally

16:05

led into challenging the worldview

16:07

of what it is to be gay or lesbian or--

16:09

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Yeah, I more or less agree with Cris

16:13

except that, you know, going out to dinner

16:14

and eating tacos, that's not activism.

16:18

So at some point--

16:20

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But you know what?

16:21

It almost was, because when we went out to dinner

16:22

with a bunch of women in flannel shirts--

16:25

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There you go.

16:28

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They knew we were not the right kinda women.

16:29

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I totally agree with you.

16:32

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I didn't mean

anything and everything you did in your life.

16:34

It was like, if the intent of it was

16:35

in relation to whatever issue you were dealing with.

16:38

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Exactly, and that's what I mean, too.

16:41

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Okay.

16:44

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But I mean, there were a lot of people,

16:45

women who were going to bars

16:47

and even that you might think of as activism.

16:50

But I don't think you can,

16:53

maybe even you wanna go this far.

16:54

A woman sitting in her house

16:56

wishing she was a lesbian.

16:58

(women laughing)

17:00

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Oh, come on.

17:02

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No--

17:03

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Wishing about it.

17:04

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It's an important question.

So I would buy what Cris said.

17:06

What was activism in the '70s

17:09

would not be activism now.

17:12

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Possibly, yeah.

17:14

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Interesting, okay.

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Depending on where you live.

17:16

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Because people are more used to seeing lesbians

17:18

or it's not as radical to see a lesbian?

17:20

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Yes, because some of the early work done created...

17:23

There's something about activism

17:28

that would kind of need to be

17:30

a little bit on the edge, I think,

17:33

before I would call it activism.

17:35

But it could be eating out in your flannel shirts.

17:36

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Well here's the thing.

17:39

Maybe what it's about, 'cause this is what comes to my head,

17:40

is whatever action you take

17:42

that is the raising of somebody's consciousness

17:45

or the change in consciousness.

17:49

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Right.

17:51

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And that could be anything from talking

17:53

to your cousin about who you are

17:56

and what it is like to be--

17:59

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Exactly.

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To changing and making legislation happen

18:01

in Congress.

18:04

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Right.

Or it could be going out to eat in your flannel shirts

18:06

if it's 1975 or '76 or '77,

18:08

and acting like dykes.

18:12

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Can I just say this,

18:15

I was just reading a story,

18:16

again, one of the newsletters I looked up.

18:18

And it was during the Great Southeast Lesbian Conference--

18:20

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Oh, I remember that.

18:23

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In '75.

And some women had come from outta town

18:25

and I forget their names.

18:27

There were four women who had gone to eat somewhere,

18:28

and I think it might've been at plaza,

18:30

over near the Plaza Drugstore at,

18:33

what's the diner that's still there?

18:36

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The Majestic.

18:38

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The Majestic.

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Majestic, I think it might've been.

18:39

It doesn't mention that in the article.

18:40

But there was a story about,

18:42

remember they were arrested.

18:44

They had been charged something incorrectly,

18:47

and when they went up and they were,

18:51

you can imagine who they looked like

18:54

and what they were dressed like.

18:56

When they went up and complained about it

18:57

and insisted that they didn't wanna pay for that,

19:00

they had some real angry responses from people

19:03

and then one of the women said something like,

19:06

"We're not gonna fuckin' eat in this place anymore."

19:08

And then a policeman that was sitting nearby

19:09

got up because of the cursing

19:12

and started to be an argument.

19:14

And ended up arresting them

19:17

because they wouldn't stop arguing and settle down

19:19

and he charged 'em with disrupting

19:23

and this, that, and the other.

19:25

And they were dropped, but they all got taken in.

19:27

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Wow.

19:31

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And had bail, you know, and all this stuff.

19:32

Yeah, and they felt it was because of who they were.

19:34

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Of course it was.

19:37

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Right, if a man had said that,

19:38

that wouldn't have occurred.

19:40

Well, speaking of that conference,

19:42

which I guess was '75.

19:44

I remember organizing for that

19:45

and working pretty hard on it,

19:47

and one of the huge controversies

19:48

that almost broke it up early on,

19:51

or at least almost made ALFA pull out

19:55

was whether there would be separatist workshops.

19:58

And there was a huge brouhaha.

20:03

And the ALFA women were by and large

20:06

insisting there would be lesbian-only workshops,

20:08

and the men were pissing and moaning

20:13

along with some of--

20:15

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No, no, no, that was just the lesbian conference.

20:17

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Yeah, totally two different things.

20:19

You're not talking about

20:20

the Great Southeast Lesbian Conference--

20:21

-

Yes, I am, I'm talking about the Great Southeast.

20:21

-

Wasn't there a gay--

20:23

-

Well, there weren't any men

at the Great Southeast Lesbian Conference.

20:25

-

No, I'm talking about an early conference.

20:27

-

Yeah, you're talking about

20:28

the first Southeast Gay Conference.

20:29

-

There you go.

20:31

-

Yeah.

-

That was that.

20:32

-

'Cause I went to that.

20:34

-

That was much later.

-

Oh.

20:35

-

I believe that was--

-

Actually it wasn't,

20:36

because I was working for The Great Speckled Bird

20:37

at that time, so it might've been earlier.

20:39

It might actually have been earlier than '75.

20:40

-

I think it was earlier.

20:43

-

I think it was earlier, pretty sure it was.

20:44

-

Oh, it was earlier.

20:45

That national conference was, wow.

20:46

One of the biggest.

20:48

-

The National Lesbian Conference was much later.

20:50

-

Much later, and the battles were much different.

20:51

-

Yeah, this was a gay conference.

20:55

-

So you were involved in the Southeast Gay Conference?

20:56

-

Yes.

21:00

-

Ahh.

-

And you were too, I think.

21:01

Maybe you weren't.

21:03

-

I was involved with maybe covering it,

21:04

but I don't remember being involved in--

21:06

-

For The Speckled Bird?

21:08

-

I don't remember.

-

Well, we were helping organize it

21:10

and I remember that we were getting

21:11

in these big fights with men.

21:12

We were almost ready to withdraw

21:14

or they were almost ready to withdraw.

21:16

And we met at Susan Barrett's house over there

21:18

and there must've been 25, 30 men

21:21

and women in the room.

21:23

We never hung out with men.

21:24

Boy, were we mad at them for saying that,

21:27

no, that would be divisive

21:29

to have women-only workshops.

21:31

And I think we prevailed

21:34

and I think there were lesbian workshops.

21:36

-

Well I remember, because if it was

21:38

where Elizabeth and I gave a panel thing

21:41

on lesbian history or lesbians--

21:46

-

At that.

21:48

-

In history at that.

And I remember some men, or a man came in

21:50

and Elizabeth said sarcastically,

21:54

"We're so glad that men are so interested

21:55

"in women's issues." (laughs)

21:57

-

Okay, and what year did you get to?

21:58

-

I don't remember the year.

22:00

-

Can't remember the year you got to Atlanta?

22:01

-

Oh, when I got Atlanta?

22:03

-

Yeah.

-

Seven, I only came to live permanently in '77.

22:05

-

Okay, see this was much later, you're talking--

22:11

-

Wait, but I was coming over a lot earlier

22:13

to visit my partner who lived here.

22:17

So I was over here a lot.

22:19

-

'Kay, but that first gay conference

22:20

was real early in the '70s.

22:22

-

Mm-hm.

22:24

-

Okay.

-

Yeah, I think you're thinking of a different one.

22:25

I think there was a gay conference,

22:27

then there was a Southeast Lesbian Conference,

22:28

and then later, later--

22:30

-

That's different.

-

Maybe even in the early '80s.

22:32

-

There were other events.

22:34

There wasn't just one Southeast Gay Conference.

22:35

-

Well, we can look up when--

22:37

-

They were a series.

-

This was before the lesbian, the big lesbian conference.

22:39

-

Uh-uh, there were two big lesbian conferences.

22:42

There were.

22:46

-

You mean, national lesbian conferences?

22:47

There was one national.

22:48

-

There was the Great Southeast one.

22:49

-

But that's just a regional thing.

22:50

-

Okay.

22:52

-

Yeah.

-

And then there was the other--

22:53

-

The national one.

22:54

-

The national one, yeah.

-

Okay, okay.

22:57

So we can look up conferences.

22:58

-

Lots of early conferences.

23:00

-

Lots of things we're actually gonna--

23:02

(women laughing)

23:03

Yeah, so we know what activism is.

23:04

What did ALFA mean to you, okay?

23:08

A big, global question.

23:11

When you came to ALFA, what were you looking for?

23:14

Did you find it?

23:16

-

Well, I didn't come to ALFA, so--

23:18

-

You started it.

23:19

-

Talking more about why

I came here after college,

23:21

and I came here for something totally different,

23:23

which is I was in VISTA.

23:25

-

Were you already a lesbian then?

23:27

When did you come out?

23:29

-

No, no, I wasn't out.

I didn't even consider myself a lesbian.

23:32

And I loved Atlanta,

23:34

so after finishing,

23:36

I had re-upped for a second year

23:39

but then didn't finish that

23:41

because of other personal stuff that was goin' on.

23:42

So I went back to New York

23:44

but I had applied to graduate schools

23:46

and included Emory in case I wanted to come back to Atlanta.

23:48

And I decided I did, 'cause I loved Atlanta.

23:51

So I came back as a graduate student, right,

23:53

and during the period I was in graduate school

23:56

is when I came out.

23:58

I lived with a house of women,

24:00

not that they were coming out.

24:00

But my background was in leftist politics

24:02

and anti-racist stuff so I connected with,

24:07

first of all, when I was in VISTA

24:10

we formed a city-wide food cooperative

24:12

and part of that was still functioning.

24:14

So when I came back, I got involved in

24:16

a little Five Points food co-op buying club.

24:18

This was before Sevananda started.

24:21

And through that and through some anti-imperialist stuff

24:23

and, you know, the women who were in Venceremos Brigade

24:28

who had been in,

24:32

who had been in SDS,

24:34

who had been in the civil rights movement,

24:37

who had done a lot of other political stuff,

24:39

these were the women that came together

24:41

and started talking.

24:43

And some tried to go into the Gay Liberation Front

24:45

and I never really went to meetings

24:48

but I went to some of their events,

24:50

and found the same sexism as they had in SDS and the Left.

24:52

So it was women who wanted to kinda get away

24:56

from the sexism and say we got to organize ourselves.

25:01

We have to get together ourselves.

25:04

And so a lot of those women,

25:05

believe it or not, even though ALFA didn't start

25:06

as a social or anything,

25:09

those of us that were left at the time DAR II started,

25:10

that's why we formed DAR II

25:14

'cause we really had a class

25:16

as well as a race and sex analysis.

25:18

So the people who were leftists

25:21

decided to talk about socialism again.

25:22

-

So that reminds me of,

25:26

can I interrupt with a question?

25:27

-

Mm-hm.

25:28

-

You know, they always say Stonewall

25:30

started the gay liberation movement.

25:32

But to me, that ignores

25:35

that women started coming out as lesbians.

25:38

When I came to ALFA,

25:42

I had never heard of Stonewall

25:44

and I haven't heard of that uprising for years.

25:46

So it's my impression, and I'm asking you guys

25:49

and you three, really,

25:52

is your impression similar to mine

25:54

in that the Stonewall Uprising

25:57

had virtually little if anything

26:00

to do with the lesbian movement in Atlanta?

26:02

-

Oh, in Atlanta.

26:05

Well, this is how I would put it.

26:06

The Stonewall Uprising and what came out of that,

26:10

Gay Liberation Front, the gay activist alliances,

26:13

the New York base and in other parts of the country,

26:16

that was the early gay movement as we knew it, right?

26:19

And women who started coming out,

26:22

that's what they were led to, what was there.

26:24

-

I see.

26:26

-

And in New York and in Atlanta,

26:27

not far behind, it wasn't very long after New York,

26:29

the lesbians and various organizations

26:33

started forming lesbian feminist alliances or groups

26:36

because of the same kind of experiences

26:39

working with men.

26:41

-

So indirectly, Stonewall did influence the--

26:42

-

Yeah, 'cause the gay movement

26:47

existed as men and women at first, but--

26:48

-

That's good to know.

26:50

-

But didn't the Gay Liberation Front in New York

26:52

actually precede Stonewall?

26:53

-

Precede Stonewall?

26:57

-

Precede.

-

No.

26:58

-

Are you sure?

-

No, yeah, I'm pretty sure.

26:59

-

See, my impression was that lesbian feminism

27:02

was going on culturally,

27:06

which was mainly what I was into,

27:08

before Stonewall.

27:11

-

I don't know that,

27:13

when you say culturally, I don't know what you mean.

27:14

Do you mean women got together and did stuff together?

27:15

-

No, Daughters of Bilitis, for example.

27:17

-

Yeah, but that isn't lesbian feminist, to me.

27:20

-

Well it was, in a way, but it was earlier.

27:23

It was another generation.

27:25

-

In other words, something identified

27:26

as lesbian feminist didn't come before Stonewall.

27:28

-

Well for me, lesbian feminism started

27:30

when I went to college, went to graduate school

27:32

and met Julia Penelope, Julia Stanley.

27:35

She was teaching linguistics and she was radical,

27:37

and that was the first time

27:41

I heard the time lesbian feminist, I think.

27:43

And that was early '70s, before Stonewall.

27:44

-

Well Stonewall was in '69, remember.

27:48

-

Oh okay, you're right.

27:51

But maybe it had influenced her,

27:53

but it hadn't really impacted me.

27:55

She is what impacted me, and--

27:57

-

Yeah, and you're saying what Eleanor said

27:58

which is Stonewall, that wasn't relevant.

28:00

What was relevant was what they,

28:03

yeah, the women they found--

28:04

-

What the women were doing, uh-huh.

28:05

-

And other people had different experiences

28:08

who had been through either

28:09

kind of trying to relate to Gay Liberation Front,

28:11

and the Gay Liberation Front

28:14

got the name from national liberation.

28:16

I mean, it was all about leftist politics,

28:18

all that stuff that was happening.

28:20

So the women that I'm talking about,

28:21

and me and other people,

28:23

that's the framework we were operating under.

28:25

Just kinda connecting with there's the food co-op here

28:27

which is about economic stuff,

28:30

and there's racism, anti-racism over here

28:31

which is about civil rights movement

28:33

and going to Black Panthers,

28:34

and all this stuff is going on at the same time.

28:36

-

I see.

28:38

-

And Cuba, people went to Cuba

28:39

because it was the Socialist Revolution,

28:40

so it was one part of that.

28:42

So you might've come from a different angle

28:44

like the education setting,

28:47

learning about stuff through the education setting

28:49

which is not at all where I,

28:52

when I was in college it was nothing like that.

28:53

Got involved in anti-racist stuff

28:56

but not anything about gay or lesbian

28:58

or anything like that, feminism even.

29:00

It was only when I came down here

29:03

that I really connected that stuff

29:04

with the other stuff that I had already.

29:06

So different people, it's different things,

29:08

obviously, different people where they--

29:10

-

But it's still interesting historically

29:12

because you would say here's how it happened,

29:14

even though it's too simplistic.

29:16

Leftist politics, Gay Liberation Front,

29:18

lesbian rebellion.

29:22

-

Yeah.

29:24

-

Exactly.

-

Yeah, that's how I see it.

29:25

-

That seems accurate to me.

29:26

I will say, though, I recently realized,

29:28

I don't mean in the last few years,

29:30

I realized I was actually in New York City

29:31

the summer Stonewall happened.

29:33

Because I had this job as a mother's helper,

29:35

basically as a nanny sort of person,

29:39

and I was living on the Upper West Side that summer

29:41

for like six or seven weeks.

29:44

And I was mostly there because I wanted

29:46

to escape my family, so. (laughs)

29:49

So I had come home from college

29:52

and I had this connection with a college buddy

29:54

of mine that lived in New York,

29:57

or she lives in New Jersey

29:58

but that part of New Jersey, it's close to New York.

30:00

And so I got this job as a mother's helper

30:03

and on my day off I used to go down to the Village.

30:05

And I remembered getting very radical newspapers

30:12

while I was there.

30:16

-

And you were still straight at that time.

30:16

-

Well, yeah, as straight as I ever was.

30:18

-

Village Voice?

30:20

-

You know what,

30:22

I think they were independently published papers.

30:23

I could be wrong.

30:26

-

The Village Voice existed at that time.

30:27

-

Yeah, yeah, I know it did.

30:29

-

But I think they were,

30:29

one of them, wasn't there a Women's News?

30:31

I'm not sure what all the dates are on those things.

30:34

-

There was The Rat.

30:36

-

You know, that might've been what it was.

30:37

But I would get them.

30:39

I swear, I didn't understand half of what I read in them.

30:40

I really didn't know very much about sex. (laughs)

30:43

I mean, you know.

30:46

But there was definitely a lot of,

30:48

there were definitely some intense feminist writings.

30:52

-

You made up for lost time.

30:54

-

I tried.

30:56

(women chuckling)

30:57

And even though I don't even remember,

30:59

I mean, I never read the paper everyday there.

31:01

I might've seen stuff on TV.

31:04

Stonewall was never on TV.

31:05

So I don't remember hearing about Stonewall

31:07

while I was there.

31:09

-

Even if you were there sometimes,

31:10

you might not have--

31:11

-

Right, exactly.

Yeah, it was like a small blurb

31:13

in The New York Times or something, right.

31:14

-

The Village Voice covered it.

31:16

-

Yeah, but I don't remember picking that up

31:17

and I don't think I would've felt connected to it

31:20

even if I had, 'cause it wasn't a place,

31:23

I mean, I never went to a bar while I was there.

31:25

I wasn't old enough.

31:28

Well, I guess I was then.

31:29

I was over 18.

31:31

But anyway.

31:32

But still, stuff was already happening.

31:34

Stonewall kinda crystallized it

31:37

and got a lotta people involved in it

31:39

and made it more visible and probably energized it.

31:42

-

Stuff happened out in California

31:45

similar to Stonewall years before Stonewall.

31:48

-

In Los Angeles.

31:51

-

I mean, really.

About people deciding not to take it anymore

31:53

and fighting back with the cops.

31:55

-

Oh yeah?

31:57

I hadn't read that.

31:58

-

There was a Compton Cafeteria event

31:59

which is this big famous event I barely remember.

32:00

What's his name told us about that.

32:04

-

What's his name? (laughs)

32:07

-

Oh my god.

32:08

-

Duncan?

-

No, not Duncan T.

32:10

-

This is what happens.

-

Dave, no.

32:11

-

He had all the whole series,

32:13

he's now at Princeton.

32:15

-

Oh, oh yes, oh that guy.

32:16

The young guy.

32:19

-

(laughs) He's younger than me.

32:20

You and me together, oh my god.

32:21

-

The kid, the kid, the son of Latvian parents.

32:22

-

Yeah, he's a LGBT historian,

32:25

and of course a lotta stuff happened before.

32:27

But I'm just saying,

32:30

you didn't hear the phrase.

32:31

Now you're saying yes but I've never heard

32:32

the phrase lesbian feminism before--

32:34

-

ALFA?

32:38

-

The stuff happened

in New York and, you know,

32:39

that's when we heard about it

32:41

and we said, yeah, lesbian feminism.

32:43

-

Right.

32:46

-

But maybe there were people

32:47

who said they were lesbian feminists

32:48

who were coming out pretty early.

32:50

-

Well, it was all mixed up

32:51

'cause there was the feminists

32:52

and then there were lesbians that came out in feminism

32:53

and then some of the feminism made.

32:55

But yeah, because lesbian feminism formed

32:57

because the feminists didn't like the lesbians

32:59

and gay men didn't like the lesbians

33:01

and the lesbians were like,

33:02

"Well, we're outta here." (laughs)

33:03

-

Right, right.

33:05

It was all about that same, late '60s, early '70s.

33:06

-

Right, yeah.

33:08

-

Now one of the things I thought

33:09

was so interesting when I got into the women's studies,

33:10

in the women's studies world

33:14

and started reading about it

33:16

is how narrow the early writings in women's studies were.

33:17

How they said that the women's movement

33:21

began a certain way in New York,

33:26

and then there were these categories,

33:30

there were socialist feminists

33:32

and cultural feminists and radical feminists

33:34

and mainstream feminists, and I was--

33:39

-

Like they were very different from each other.

33:41

-

Like they were very different.

33:42

And I remember talking to Eleanor about that

33:43

and she said, "Yeah, but that's not the way it was

33:45

"because you might have one woman

33:48

"who'd be doing all those different things

33:49

"in one day."

33:51

-

Right.

-

And so that was such a,

33:53

and what that did was erase lesbians

33:56

from anything except sex.

33:59

So the straight feminism,

34:03

straight feminists that came in

34:04

and gave us a little class

34:05

on the history of the women's movement

34:06

just had one day about lesbian feminists

34:08

and that was about sexual issues.

34:10

You know, about the right to be lesbians.

34:12

-

Yeah, yeah.

34:14

-

(laughing) So that was just all very interesting to me.

34:16

-

Oh, I remember something that brought me to Atlanta

34:21

prior to writing to Lorraine.

34:23

That was down at Koinonia in, I guess '74,

34:27

so I must've moved here in '75.

34:33

Where we got The Great Speckled Bird down there.

34:36

That's where I first read about ALFA.

34:39

And the first thing that blew me away

34:41

was this picture of the Red Dyke Theater,

34:44

of the women performing in the Red Dyke Theater.

34:47

And I thought, I gotta be one of them.

34:51

-

(laughing) All right, yee-ha!

34:54

-

Where was Red Dyke Theater started, do you know?

34:56

-

No.

34:59

-

Was any of you part of it then?

35:00

-

Years, you're not gonna get any accurate

35:04

unless I look at something.

35:07

-

That was the first thing I--

35:08

-

And it had already started when I got here in '76.

35:09

-

I wish I had known you were gonna ask for dates

35:11

'cause I would've brought the timeline

35:13

and we would've been able to look it up.

35:14

-

It had already started in '75

35:15

'cause that's where I read about it.

35:16

And in fact, that's the first

35:17

large group of lesbians I ever saw,

35:20

was going to a performance.

35:23

-

Yeah, I remember that.

35:24

-

And Womansong was also--

35:26

-

That was later.

35:28

-

That was later.

-

I always thought it was actually earlier.

35:30

Womansong Theatre was before ALFA even existed.

35:31

-

Really?

35:34

-

Well, you're thinkin' of the second version of it.

35:35

-

Oh, okay.

35:36

-

Yeah, a reincarnation of Womansong Theatre.

35:37

But Womansong Theatre,

35:39

and Elaine Cole was one of the members of it.

35:40

She was an ALFA founding mother.

35:43

-

Who also founded the organization

35:45

that led to concrete change.

35:49

She was a woman with a disability.

35:51

-

Well now, she was on disability later,

35:53

not when she formed ALFA.

35:55

She wasn't disabled then.

35:56

She was disabled 'cause of that knife stabbing--

35:57

-

Something happened to her back.

35:59

-

Yeah, that was later.

36:01

But when she formed ALFA, in early ALFA,

36:02

she was one of the women

36:04

that lived in the first ALFA house with me

36:05

and Corinne and Sally--

36:07

-

I didn't know that.

-

And a bunch of other women, yeah.

36:08

That house was on Mansfield Street.

36:09

And she was the one that started

36:12

the first lesbian radio show on WRFG.

36:14

It was her show, Lesbian Woman.

36:16

-

I had no idea.

36:17

-

And she was also a leftist, very much a gay person.

36:18

What was I saying about her to begin with, though?

36:23

There was a reason I was saying--

36:26

-

That she was a founder of Womansong Theatre.

36:27

-

Yeah, not a founder, but she was one of the members

36:30

of the early Womansong Theatre

36:31

which was a feminist theater group.

36:33

But she was the,

36:36

she might've been the only lesbian

36:38

or one of two lesbians in the group.

36:40

The other women were straight women.

36:41

Trying to remember the name.

36:44

I can't remember, I'd have to look it up somewhere.

36:46

But yeah, there were maybe six,

36:48

six women in that group.

36:51

And they performed all over.

36:52

And after it started, they were still around,

36:55

the original group.

36:58

But then it disbanded and then later

36:59

this Womansong Theatre you're thinking of

37:01

was a reiteration of that.

37:02

Gene Allen was in it then,

37:04

and she wasn't in the first one.

37:06

-

Yeah, okay.

37:08

So you were here in '70, '71?

37:11

-

I moved here in '68.

37:13

-

Okay, and then you were in grad school then in '68?

37:15

-

No, in '68 I was in VISTA.

37:18

-

Yeah.

37:20

-

So it was in '60, it was in the beginning of '70

37:21

I moved back to New York

37:23

and then back here a few months later.

37:24

-

I see.

37:26

-

And graduate school in '70.

-

What were you going to grad school with?

37:28

-

Psychology.

37:30

(woman laughing)

37:32

The first year was experimental psychology,

37:33

then I decided that was too away from reality

37:35

so I maybe clinical psychology would be more,

37:38

put me into working with people.

37:40

And then I decided I didn't wanna be

37:42

a damn full-time student.

37:44

I wanted to do the important stuff,

37:46

which turned into ALFA work. (laugh)

37:47

-

I think you were already at Xerox

37:50

by the time I got here.

37:52

-

Ah.

37:53

-

Is that right?

37:54

There was a group of the Xerox girls.

37:55

-

I was the first ALFA, the first dyke in Xerox.

37:57

-

Were you?

38:01

-

Yeah, I was the first one.

38:01

In fact, when I got in there

38:03

there was only one other woman who was working at Xerox.

38:04

And she was on maternity leave at the time.

38:07

-

And were you doing the same kinda,

38:10

'cause you were a repair person.

38:12

-

Yeah.

38:14

-

That was the first thing you did.

38:14

-

Technical representative.

38:16

That also, just to put that in,

38:19

that was a very common thing back then.

38:21

Everyone wanted non-traditional jobs.

38:23

If you weren't gonna be getting a degree

38:26

and be a professional, then you wanted,

38:29

you know, what's a non-traditional job?

38:31

I wanna work somethin' that, you know.

38:33

So a lotta the jobs I had were about that.

38:35

-

That would be Barbara's claim to fame.

38:37

She was one of the first women bike mechanics

38:38

and she came to Atlanta and started Dancers

38:42

with Jean James, and there were virtually

38:45

no womens bike mechanics.

38:48

-

Yeah, yeah.

38:50

-

And she'll probably say this

38:50

in her little writing thing,

38:51

but people would come in and say,

38:53

"May I speak to the owner?"

38:55

(women laughing)

38:57

They would think that they were cashiers or something.

38:58

-

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

39:00

Now I remember, I remember that kinda stuff.

39:02

I mean, in fact,

39:04

give you another example.

39:05

And this was the earliest example for me.

39:06

So it was, god, when I first stopped doing graduate school

39:08

so I guess it was '72, I think.

39:12

But I needed a job,

39:16

so I went to the state to look up

39:17

the kinda jobs they had.

39:19

And I took a test for,

39:20

what do they call, surveying assistant,

39:24

you know, people that go out and they do all this.

39:26

And I got this great grade,

39:29

like, they had to interview me

39:31

'cause I got one of the best grades.

39:32

Whatever kinda test it was, I don't know.

39:34

So I got called in and they had the nerve to tell me,

39:36

and I had no sense then,

39:38

I had no legal kind of analysis at that point

39:39

that what was and wasn't allowed.

39:44

They said, "You did really good on this

39:47

"but we just don't hire women to do this." (laughs)

39:49

So that was it.

39:51

We just didn't hire women, forget it.

39:52

So I had also applied to other stuff

39:54

and it was like this really trippy thing

39:55

where you would go and they'd try to talk you outta stuff.

39:58

Like, I almost got talked out of workin' for Sears

40:00

as a refrigeration technician.

40:03

Again, I did good and they had, you know,

40:05

said, "You know what this involves?

40:08

"So you have to sometimes install ice makers."

40:10

It was one of these,

40:13

installing ice makers was the new thing

40:14

in refrigerators, right.

40:16

"And that means you have to climb around

40:18

"and go in the basement sometimes

40:20

"in the crawlspace under a house,

40:22

"and there's like, sometimes there could be snakes."

40:24

But they really did this kinda thing where,

40:27

you know, you don't want this job.

40:28

And I was like, "Ah, it's okay.

40:31

"I'll be okay." (laughing)

40:33

By that point, they were a little smarter I think

40:35

and they realized maybe we can't just

40:37

tell 'em we don't hire women. (laughs)

40:39

-

Yeah, right.

40:41

-

But I was the only woman

40:42

in that co-training class in Sears.

40:43

Everybody in the morning would be there

40:46

getting their orders and getting their schedule,

40:48

I was the only woman.

40:51

So it was that kind of, everyone loved that,

40:53

you know, trying to do that and doing that,

40:56

getting you kinda.

40:59

Plus, they were good jobs

40:59

'cause jobs for men usually were good paying jobs.

41:00

-

Yeah, I remember a lot of women electricians,

41:05

carpenters and stuff.

41:08

-

All that.

41:09

-

Yeah.

So this document says that ALFA

41:11

had three emphases: social, political, and educational.

41:14

Do you all remember it as any differently from that?

41:20

Or if so, what were you mostly focused on?

41:24

-

Well, you know it's interesting

41:29

because I think the term political at that time,

41:30

that didn't mean like electing people to office.

41:34

It meant maybe advocating for different laws

41:37

at the most.

41:41

-

And marching in the parade, for example.

41:43

-

Yeah, we weren't even close enough

41:45

to consider introducing bills into the state legislature

41:48

or anything like that.

41:51

-

Marching.

41:54

-

The definition of political

41:55

was more about just saying,

41:56

"Hey, we should have rights."

41:58

(women laughing)

42:00

That was being political.

42:01

-

Right, right.

-

And protesting.

42:03

You have to understand, someone put that wrong

42:03

and they put the stuff that was political under social,

42:06

but demonstrating at the General Constitution.

42:10

We got a lotta groups to demonstrate with us

42:14

'cause they wouldn't put our name in any kind of,

42:16

we wanted to run an ad about this is where we meet

42:18

and they wouldn't print it because,

42:21

lesbian, you know.

42:23

So we had demonstrations there, did that kinda stuff.

42:25

-

Very political.

42:29

-

Very.

-

And political being part of the gay pride marches

42:31

and having an open house

42:34

or having some event during that week was pretty up there.

42:35

-

I would say organizing the conferences

42:39

would be considered--

42:40

-

And having a women's only space

42:41

and having an organization was a political act by itself.

42:43

-

Yeah, absolutely.

42:46

-

But in terms of educational,

42:48

working on the newsletter.

42:50

And I happen to have a picture,

42:51

not a very good one 'cause it's a Xerox.

42:52

This is newsletter committee

42:56

meeting on my porch.

42:59

-

Oh, right.

-

You've seen that.

43:01

-

Yeah, I have a copy of that picture, a photo of it.

43:02

-

See, it's Cris,

43:05

and it's Maryellen and Karen.

43:06

-

Karen, okay.

43:09

-

Elizabeth was on it some of the time.

43:10

And I don't know who--

43:13

-

Oh, I think she was always on it.

43:14

-

Yeah.

43:16

-

I was on it sometimes.

Early on I was on the newsletter committee.

43:19

That's great, look at you, my gosh.

43:21

-

Yes, she had hoisted herself

43:24

onto the arm of the wheelchair.

43:26

(women laughing)

43:27

Wow, very cute women, all of you.

43:29

-

We didn't think so at the time, but.

43:32

(women laughing)

43:34

-

Oh, yeah.

43:36

-

So about the,

43:37

well, I covered pretty much the political.

43:41

What about, what did you focus on in particular?

43:45

Everything at once?

43:49

Or did each of you have a different focus?

43:49

Cris I know was involved in the women's music aspect

43:51

and you've interviewed about that already, haven't you?

43:56

Didn't Beth interview you?

43:58

-

Mm-hm.

-

That was Lucina's Music, right?

44:00

-

Mm-hm.

44:02

-

Was that your main focus,

44:03

when you were in ALFA, was the music?

44:06

-

Well you know,

44:10

my main focus was just living.

44:14

(women laughing)

44:16

Becoming a lesbian, finding out what that meant,

44:18

what was involved.

44:23

Finding a job, took me a really long time to find a job.

44:26

Unemployment was pretty bad.

44:29

I think it was five or six,

44:31

of course, doesn't seem that great now.

44:33

It took me a long time to find any kind of permanent job.

44:37

I did temp work for a long time.

44:41

-

And then you were with WRFG, too.

44:47

-

Well, and that was my job,

44:49

but it took me a year or so to find that.

44:50

Then I was also, I guess by that time

44:54

maybe I was already the Olivia Records rep.

44:56

I didn't really think,

45:03

there was some potential for income with that

45:04

but I didn't really of it as an income sort of potential

45:06

as more of just a,

45:09

a work kind of, you know.

45:12

-

And your main focus, Lorraine, was mainly--

45:14

-

It was a main of change depending on

45:16

what year it was, what was happening, what was needed.

45:19

I mean, at first it was working with the library,

45:24

creating a library, then I was on a newsletter committee,

45:27

and then I would be with the speakers,

45:30

Speakers Bureau stuff, or whatever I could do

45:34

in terms of work and wherever was needed.

45:40

-

Well how long did the other founding mothers

45:44

stick with it?

45:48

Because my remembrance is that you were,

45:49

you know, you were there and clearly central,

45:51

and I don't remember the other founding mothers much.

45:53

-

The original, really the other founding people

45:56

and the original people,

45:59

none of them really were,

46:01

a lotta the people moved away, like Vicki.

46:04

I had moved to L.A. in '76 and she,

46:05

by the time I got back

46:09

I think she was needing or ready to leave

46:10

and Sally had already left.

46:13

A lotta the early women that were,

46:15

the early women had formed even before ALFA started

46:18

two women's households, collectives

46:22

called Upstairs Downstairs.

46:24

It was on Clifton.

46:26

(women laughing)

46:27

They were the people, like I said, were involved,

46:30

some of them with Sojourner Truth Press,

46:31

some of them with various socialist

46:33

and anti-imperialist organizations

46:37

and the food buying club.

46:39

We used to meet there sometimes

46:41

to distribute the food in their backyard.

46:42

And some of them were the same women

46:45

who went on, and they were ALFA founders,

46:47

to be in Rubyfruit Jungle and Lavender Coven

46:50

which were houses that were formed when ALFA was formed.

46:55

-

And Peachy and Micky were both in Red Dyke Theater

46:59

'cause I remember them on the stage

47:03

in about '75.

47:06

Vicki was still in ALFA when I came here.

47:08

-

Yeah, she, like I said, when I came in '79

47:11

she was still here or she had just left, I'm not sure.

47:14

-

Oh, it was '79.

47:17

Oh yeah.

47:19

-

I'm just saying, you know.

47:20

-

You were here way before '79.

47:22

-

I wasn't here in '76 to '79.

47:24

I was in California.

47:26

-

You weren't?

47:28

-

Yeah, I was goin' to law school.

47:29

That's when I went to Peoples College of Law.

47:31

-

So you took a leave of absence.

47:32

-

But I remember you, I remember you here, don't I?

47:33

-

No, I mean I might've,

47:37

when I came back and visited, maybe.

47:38

Claudette and I both went to California

47:40

and we would come back, like, I guess to visit.

47:42

A couple times we visited.

47:44

-

Oh okay, okay.

47:46

-

But she was here when she wrote

47:47

the letter to me in '74 or '75.

47:49

-

Yeah, well that was before I was here.

47:51

I'm just trying to figure out--

47:52

-

When she moved back?

47:54

-

Mm-hm.

-

And you came in what year now?

47:57

-

'76.

47:59

-

'76.

48:01

-

May, I think it was May.

48:02

-

I tell ya, a lot of what I did,

48:05

especially later, tended to be

48:08

as an ALFA representative to other things.

48:13

So although I was on the newsletter committee for a while,

48:16

but I don't remember after coming back from school

48:20

and I was trying to,

48:24

I was still in school here

48:25

and I took the bar and all that.

48:26

And I even went and did some legal work in Savannah.

48:28

So there was a lotta time

48:32

when that was where a lotta my time was,

48:33

going to school and learning the law and all that.

48:36

When I did kinda reconnect with ALFA,

48:44

I would do things like be the ALFA rep

48:48

to the National Anti-Klan Network,

48:51

or be the ALFA rep working with--

48:53

-

Excuse me, to the na--

48:54

-

National Anti-Klan Network, NAKN.

48:55

Now, it changed its name to something else.

48:57

It exists as something else now.

48:59

Do you know what I'm talking about?

49:01

I forget.

49:03

I'll have to look that up, too.

49:04

It changed its name.

49:05

C.T. Vivian was the head at that time.

49:09

And things like working with black and white men together

49:11

because they had, in California

49:16

their chapters there had done anti-racist work

49:18

and they brought that work to Atlanta

49:21

and the Anti-Discrimination Project,

49:23

and I was the ALFA rep and worked with them on that.

49:25

So that's the kinda stuff that I would,

49:27

you know, report to ALFA and we'd discuss it

49:30

and try to get other people involved

49:33

in that kinda work.

49:35

Working with the Police Advisory Committee,

49:38

which was very early on.

49:41

What happened now is that there's LGBT folks

49:43

in what's called the Police Advisory Committee.

49:45

They're the go-betweens for the gay community.

49:48

And police, back then the Police Advisory Committee

49:51

were queer folks that met with the police

49:55

and talked about problems that were occurring

49:58

with the police enforcement

50:01

and what they were doing and the harassment.

50:03

-

Such as Liz Hill being arrested in a car.

50:07

Do you remember the year for that?

50:11

She was just holding hands and kissing a woman.

50:14

-

Who was this again?

50:17

I'm sorry.

50:18

-

Liz Hill.

-

Ah, no I don't remember that.

50:19

-

Speaking of police harassment.

50:21

-

And she was arrested?

50:22

-

I don't think she was, though.

50:23

Were they holding hands or kissing?

50:24

-

For just sitting there and doing it.

50:26

-

Yeah, I think they were just driving while lesbian.

50:27

(women laughing)

50:30

Seriously.

50:31

-

Wow.

50:32

-

Or parked while lesbian.

50:33

-

Pretty much, yeah.

-

But anyway, it'd be interesting to ask her

50:35

about that, if you wanted to.

50:37

She was one of the people we still know

50:39

who was arrested.

50:41

Or at least, I think she was arrested.

50:43

She was definitely harassed.

50:45

-

She was arrested.

50:47

She had to get a lawyer and the whole nine yards.

50:49

It took a year to get that freakin' thing resolved.

50:51

-

That would be an important--

50:54

-

I don't remember that,

50:55

so maybe it was during that '76, '79.

50:56

-

I think that was '78, maybe '77.

50:58

-

I missed a lot.

51:00

People say things and I go,

51:01

"I don't remember that at all." (laughing)

51:02

-

Yeah, right.

51:03

-

'Cause I wasn't here.

-

I remember hearing about it now.

51:05

-

Do ya?

51:07

-

Yeah, yeah.

I was shocked.

51:09

-

By the way, the first ALFA house was not accessible.

51:10

And I would go and kinda wait outside

51:15

until somebody came along.

51:18

And I remember I arrived at one meeting

51:20

and there was nobody coming along,

51:23

and I literally went over to the window

51:25

and I picked up, bent over and picked up gravel

51:28

and threw it against the window screen

51:30

till finally somebody noticed.

51:34

-

Damn, I wish they'd hurry up and invent cell phones!

51:34

(women laughing)

51:37

-

Then they did!

51:39

But, I don't know who did this

51:41

but some women at ALFA put on a ramp, big work day.

51:44

I remember I cut the ribbon.

51:49

-

At the McLendon house?

51:50

-

You talking about the first house?

51:51

-

The McLendon house, no, the second one.

51:53

-

No, we know that, yeah, the ramp there.

51:55

But the original house--

51:57

-

But McLendon didn't have a ramp at first.

51:58

That's the one that didn't have a ramp.

52:00

-

So is that the one you threw the gravel against?

52:02

-

Mansfield didn't need it.

52:03

That's why I'm thinkin'

52:04

you were talking about the first ALFA house.

52:05

-

No.

52:06

-

The first ALFA house was at Mansfield, okay.

52:08

-

Okay, the McLendon house

52:09

you threw the gravel against the window, okay.

52:10

-

It was unusual that they put one on

52:15

rather than unusual that there wasn't.

52:17

-

Yeah, it was.

52:19

-

I was very happy with them,

and it was a very nice occasion.

52:21

-

Mm-hm.

52:24

So how many women,

52:26

do you have a sense of how many women

52:27

were actually members?

52:28

-

50, 100?

Quite a few.

52:31

-

While you were involved in ALFA.

52:32

-

It varied, 'cause I was at ALFA--

52:35

-

There wasn't really a membership thing.

52:36

-

For a long time.

52:37

-

I mean, it wasn't a matter

of being a member or being not.

52:40

-

Yeah, there was a membership.

52:42

There was a membership definitely.

52:42

You paid a fee, you paid membership fees

52:44

and you had, yep.

52:46

-

Hm, I don't remember that part.

52:47

-

But it was very cheap,

52:49

like five dollars or year or something.

52:50

-

It was a scale.

52:51

It was supposed to be a sliding scale

52:53

from five, $2.50 or whatever, something like that.

52:54

Whatever you could afford.

52:57

-

Yeah, so that's why I think the membership

52:58

was 50 to 100.

53:00

-

It varied a whole lot.

53:02

I think at one point there probably

53:04

were more than 100 people who were members

53:07

on the membership list, for sure.

53:09

-

But not that active, some.

53:11

-

But I don't remember what years that might've been.

53:13

-

Then there were a lotta people

53:15

who would show up who probably

53:16

weren't on the membership list.

53:17

-

Yeah, well there were some pretty big meetings there

53:19

crammed into that living room.

53:21

-

Actually meetings, people came to meetings a lot less

53:24

than they either joined or came to events.

53:26

-

Yeah, a lotta people came

53:31

to the dances in particular, didn't they?

53:33

-

What were some of the first dances?

53:35

-

Fundraisers.

53:37

-

Azalea?

53:38

Was there something before the Azalea?

53:39

-

I remember the Azalea.

53:40

I don't know.

53:41

-

I remember the first ones.

I don't know, it mighta been having a Halloween dance.

53:43

There were Halloween dances I know back then.

53:46

-

There were Thanksgiving dinners in the ALFA house.

53:48

-

Yeah, that's right, they were also, yeah.

53:51

-

And then of course some of those--

53:53

-

Which we called Dykes-giving.

53:54

-

First events were concerts.

53:56

-

Mm-hm, yeah, and you've been interviewed

53:58

about the concert, about your involvement with the chorus.

53:59

'Cause I've read your piece.

54:04

-

Oh, the chorus came a little later, yeah.

54:04

-

Okay.

54:07

-

The chorus came in,

54:08

I think '81 'cause I had been in a chorus

54:11

out at San Francisco when my field trip out there.

54:15

And I thought, well, when I came back,

54:19

Atlanta needs a chorus.

54:22

And we finally got one going.

54:23

-

So you kind of spearheaded that?

54:25

-

Mm-hm.

54:27

-

Okay.

-

I spearheaded it.

54:29

We sang off of little mini-graft sheets

54:30

in the ALFA house with no director.

54:32

And Judy Haley was one of 'em,

54:36

so she's the other co-founder

54:38

because she's the one that found the director

54:40

later at a party.

54:42

-

Right, and I've talked to them about that.

54:45

-

Yeah, so it's written up.

54:47

That's written up, if you don't have it.

54:49

-

I have it.

54:51

In fact, I was there.

54:52

Well, a couple of different interviews about that.

54:54

-

Okay, so that's all there is to say about that.

54:57

-

Yeah.

54:59

Well, I'm not sure.

55:01

Is there anything you all would like to add

55:02

to this interview that you think hasn't been covered?

55:04

-

Do you have a particular focus

55:09

on what you wanna write?

55:12

-

My focus was mainly the different kinds of activism

55:13

involved with ALFA that you three,

55:16

or should've been four, five, were involved in.

55:18

-

Did you get what you wanted?

55:23

-

Pretty much.

55:25

What I seem to have come up,

55:26

I'd like to find out if you all

55:27

think you've said what you would like to have included

55:29

in another article about, in this chapter.

55:32

-

I think there were very few women of color.

55:35

-

Okay.

55:38

-

There was only one other disabled person

55:40

I remember that ever showed up,

55:42

and that was a deaf woman.

55:44

-

Mm-hm.

55:45

-

Well, since you mention the deaf community,

55:49

there was a whole period of time

55:53

when there was some effort made at ALFA

55:55

to have a lotta women learning sign language, ASL,

55:58

because of Deborah, I think, was the first woman.

56:04

But then there were a whole lotta women

56:08

who ended up coming during that period

56:10

of a year or two when we were really getting into it,

56:13

because they felt then they could communicate

56:16

with people at least basically.

56:18

And I have bunches of pictures, too,

56:20

of events happening at the house.

56:22

-

Who were deaf?

56:24

Women who were deaf?

56:25

-

Yeah, deaf community women.

56:26

There was, you know,

56:27

they have a gay community themselves, deaf gay folks.

56:28

-

So I didn't know that there were that many

56:32

that came to ALFA, that's cool.

56:33

-

But they weren't necessarily ALFA members

56:38

but they did, you know,

56:39

because of that, because of what we were doing

56:40

with the classes--

56:42

-

They went there.

-

And wanted to learn.

56:44

-

That's a great story.

56:45

-

Yeah, that is.

56:48

-

So, I mean, ALFA was ahead of the curve

56:49

in a way with disability rights

56:50

for those two reasons.

56:52

-

Uh-huh.

56:53

-

Even though...

56:56

Oh, nevermind.

56:59

-

Even though there weren't very many ALFA members?

57:00

-

Well, even though the bar was set so low nationally.

57:05

(women laughing)

57:08

-

Yeah.

57:10

-

But still, same way

57:11

with the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

57:12

Way ahead of the curve.

57:14

Cris and I--

57:18

-

In fact, my memory may be wrong.

57:19

Talk to First E folks who were actually members

57:21

of the E-Church or Ex-Church back then.

57:23

But my memory is that the reason,

57:26

one of the main reasons they put a ramp on their church

57:28

is that we told them we wouldn't hold

57:32

any more of our events there if it wasn't accessible.

57:34

That's after we put our ramp in and we were all great.

57:37

We're accessible now,

57:39

so if you can't be accessible

57:40

we're not gonna hold our events there and pay you--

57:42

-

And they needed the money. (laughs)

57:44

-

That was in the '80s

57:46

because when chorus first started meeting there,

57:47

there was no ramp.

57:50

And the women pulled me up and it was always scary

57:51

'cause that's a huge flight of stairs with no rail.

57:54

-

I remember reading a newsletter article.

57:57

I don't still have my old newsletters

57:59

but I remember reading a newsletter article

58:01

in which someone, I think it was Christina Ishtar

58:03

was saying, "We will not hold our dances

58:06

"at First E unless they build a ramp

58:08

"and make it accessible."

58:10

And it was built.

58:12

-

And you know, one of the women

58:13

who took a big hand in that, I think, was Pam,

58:14

that very heavy woman.

58:17

-

It never would've been built without her.

58:19

-

Pam, what was her name?

58:21

-

She's deceased.

58:24

Pam Martin.

58:25

-

Pam Martin, right.

58:26

-

Yeah, that's right.

-

And she founded a fat, uh--

58:29

-

Fat Dykes.

58:31

-

Fat Dykes, right.

-

She was the original founder of Fat Dykes.

58:32

-

Right.

58:35

-

I remember the first time

58:37

that Fat Dykes rode in the parade.

58:38

We rode in a pickup truck,

58:40

and after we rode in the pickup truck,

58:42

I don't know what year it was,

58:45

we went out and drove around in front of Lane Bryant.

58:46

(women laughing)

58:50

I'm proud, fat, and proud!

58:52

(woman clapping)

58:54

We got together at somebody's house

58:58

and looked at the footage on the news,

58:59

and this African American newsreader

59:02

was reading about the parade and all that stuff,

59:05

and apparently had never said the word lesbian before,

59:10

and he hadn't practiced it.

59:13

And so saying the word,

59:15

so it's funny, this piece of footage.

59:17

I wish we had it.

59:19

It's something like this.

59:19

"More than 5,000 gays and lu--"

59:22

(women laughing)

59:25

His mouth almost fell off!

59:29

-

Don't they prepare for these things?

59:33

-

That's funny.

59:36

-

It was all so new.

59:37

-

Yeah, it was all so new.

59:39

Okay, well I guess that will be it,

59:41

if you all are pleased.

59:44

Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) - Chris Carroll, Eleanor Smith, Lorraine Fontana - interviewed by Charlene Ball

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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