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