Garner, Joan - interviewed by Rose Norman
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Transcript
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- | Turning on the tape recorder now. | 0:00 |
This is Rose Norman | 0:01 | |
and I'm interviewing Joan Garner | 0:02 | |
by phone on April 13th 2013. | 0:04 | |
And now I'm gonna turn this phone on speaker | 0:09 | |
so that the tape recorder can hear you as well as me | 0:13 | |
- | Okay | 0:16 |
- | Okay | |
- | I'll try to remember to project | 0:18 |
- | Okay, well, I've got the phone | 0:21 |
right next to the tape recorder | 0:22 | |
Okay, I have a little brief bio | 0:24 | |
that I've put in front of these interviews | 0:26 | |
and I wrote it based on | 0:28 | |
what I found in your resume and so on. | 0:30 | |
- | Okay | 0:33 |
- | I said you were born and raised in Washington DC, | 0:34 |
is that correct? | 0:37 | |
- | That is correct. | 0:38 |
- | Okay. | |
And you've lived in Atlanta since 78 | 0:40 | |
You majored in English | 0:42 | |
at the University of the District of Columbia | 0:44 | |
- | Uh huh | 0:46 |
- | And then earned a Master's Degree | 0:47 |
in Organizational Communication from Howard University. | 0:49 | |
- | That's correct. | 0:52 |
- | Currently County Commissioner | 0:54 |
for Georgia's District 6. | 0:55 | |
- | Yeah Fulton County. | 0:58 |
- | Fulton County. | 0:59 |
- | District 6 | 1:01 |
- | District 6 | 1:02 |
and at the time | 1:05 | |
when you were one of the co-founders of SONG, | 1:06 | |
you were a director of the Fund for Southern Communities. | 1:09 | |
- | That's correct. | 1:12 |
- | Okay. All right. | 1:13 |
Well, I'd like to start out by asking | 1:14 | |
what made you a social justice activist? | 1:17 | |
If there was an aha moment? | 1:19 | |
Mandy talks about the | 1:21 | |
American Friends Service Committee person who | 1:23 | |
- | Sure I grew up in the 50s and 60s in Washington. | 1:25 |
And it was actually during | 1:32 | |
the height of the civil rights movement. | 1:33 | |
And it was actually | 1:37 | |
the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. | 1:39 | |
I was in the 11th grade. | 1:43 | |
That really was the aha for me. | 1:45 | |
I was attending, | 1:51 | |
I was part of a high school sorority, | 1:53 | |
and I was attending an annual conference | 1:56 | |
of our girls from New York to Virginia, | 1:58 | |
we were meeting in Washington DC that weekend, April 4th | 2:02 | |
at the Washington Hilton Hotel. | 2:07 | |
we got word that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. | 2:09 | |
There was a curfew put on the city, | 2:13 | |
so we couldn't leave the hotel. | 2:15 | |
And we were about 150 African American girls | 2:18 | |
and the rest of the hotel was completely white, | 2:24 | |
except for the, you know, the maids and the service staff. | 2:28 | |
And we were just petrified about the assassination. | 2:32 | |
And the curfew. | 2:38 | |
It was just, you know, we didn't know what was going on. | 2:40 | |
So our sponsors that weekend said, | 2:42 | |
we're going to, | 2:45 | |
since we can't leave, | 2:46 | |
we're going to go ahead with our conference | 2:47 | |
that we're gonna dedicate it to Martin Luther King Jr. | 2:50 | |
And we're gonna make sure that you understand | 2:54 | |
the history, your history as black people, | 2:57 | |
and you understand the social justice movement of Dr. King. | 3:02 | |
And so that's what we did that weekend. | 3:06 | |
And when I left there, | 3:08 | |
I else, the other thing that was traumatic was that | 3:12 | |
we could go to our hotel rooms | 3:16 | |
and look out the window | 3:18 | |
and start to see New Street in Washington DC | 3:19 | |
starting to burn | 3:22 | |
as a result, and that was very impactful. | 3:25 | |
And so when I left that weekend, | 3:28 | |
I knew that my purpose was about social justice. | 3:31 | |
I didn't quite know how I would fulfill that purpose. | 3:34 | |
But I knew that what motivated me | 3:38 | |
was working for my people | 3:43 | |
and working for justice. | 3:46 | |
And so, you know, fast forward ahead, | 3:49 | |
years later, it wasn't until I came out actually, | 3:51 | |
as a lesbian in the early 80s | 3:54 | |
and then got involved with the lesbian gay movement | 3:58 | |
in the late 80s, | 4:01 | |
that was, oh my goodness, | 4:03 | |
here's my opportunity to work for social justice. | 4:06 | |
As an African American, lesbian woman, | 4:10 | |
there were very few of us at the time | 4:14 | |
who were willing to work publicly, | 4:16 | |
or to acknowledge ourselves publicly, as being gay | 4:19 | |
and to work for the cause. | 4:23 | |
And so that's how I actually got involved as an activist. | 4:25 | |
But I was always, | 4:31 | |
you know, justice was always a motivating factor for me | 4:33 | |
and everything that I did. | 4:37 | |
- | Well, that's a good story. | 4:41 |
Sounds like an amazing weekend. | 4:44 | |
- | Thank you. | 4:45 |
- | God, whoa. | 4:46 |
So that's interesting | 4:49 | |
that it was a lesbian and gay activism. | 4:50 | |
Were you Atlanta by then? | 4:53 | |
I guess you were | 4:55 | |
- | I was in Atlanta, | 4:56 |
and when I came to Atlanta I was married, | 4:57 | |
and had been married for a few years, | 5:01 | |
so I really didn't, you know, understand. | 5:05 | |
I didn't know anything about the gay movement. | 5:10 | |
I didn't realize there was a gay movement. | 5:12 | |
There was an AIDS epidemic happening. | 5:15 | |
And it was really, | 5:18 | |
I got involved in it. | 5:20 | |
So, when I came out, I got involved in | 5:23 | |
and this was after I had divorced my husband. | 5:28 | |
A few years later, | 5:32 | |
I got involved with the first | 5:35 | |
HR, Human Rights Campaign Fund | 5:38 | |
dinner committee here in Atlanta. | 5:41 | |
And it was at that point | 5:43 | |
that I said that I would get involved. | 5:45 | |
But I didn't realize that there was a whole, | 5:48 | |
I got involved and it was a focus on AIDS | 5:52 | |
I didn't realize there was a whole lesbian and gay movement | 5:55 | |
that I didn't know about. | 5:58 | |
And so when I learned about the lesbian gay movement | 6:01 | |
through working with the HRC dinner committee | 6:05 | |
And trying to piece all this together, | 6:10 | |
you know, cause it's like, | 6:12 | |
okay, I'm doing this, why am I doing this then? | 6:12 | |
If I'm doing this | 6:15 | |
I'm publicly stating that I am a lesbian, | 6:16 | |
which means that, you know, | 6:20 | |
there's no hiding it | 6:22 | |
I've gotta be out, | 6:24 | |
but I've gotta understand what I'm doing | 6:25 | |
and why I'm doing it. | 6:27 | |
And it was about, you know, | 6:29 | |
it was about here we are | 6:31 | |
another group of people | 6:34 | |
that are being discriminated. | 6:35 | |
Because for me growing up, | 6:36 | |
if you were gay, that meant you had a mental illness. | 6:38 | |
Even though there were several gay people in my family. | 6:43 | |
- | Really? Did you know them? | 6:46 |
- | There was something wrong, | 6:47 |
it was not spoken. | 6:48 | |
You know, everybody knew it, | 6:50 | |
but you know, you just didn't discuss it. | 6:51 | |
I have a cousin and an uncle. | 6:52 | |
And when I came out, | 6:58 | |
and told my mother | 6:59 | |
and she said, Joey, that's no problem. | 7:00 | |
She said, you know, | 7:02 | |
growing up, my best friend was a gay man. | 7:04 | |
We go to his house for parties | 7:05 | |
one side of the house would be for gay people | 7:07 | |
the other side would be for straight people | 7:09 | |
and by the end of the night, | 7:11 | |
we were all going back and forth. | 7:12 | |
- | All right. That's amazing. | 7:16 |
That was in Washington or where was that? | 7:17 | |
Where'd your mother grow up? | 7:19 | |
- | Washington. | 7:20 |
- | Wow. | |
- | When did feminism come in? 50 what | 7:24 |
- | Well, the feminism piece, | 7:28 |
again, I wasn't active in it because, | 7:31 | |
but I knew about the women's movement | 7:35 | |
because after the civil rights movement | 7:37 | |
and the height of it in Washington, | 7:39 | |
I was a young adult when there was the women's movement | 7:41 | |
the feminist movement was burgeoning, | 7:46 | |
and the anti war movement. | 7:48 | |
So I saw all of those things happening in Washington, | 7:50 | |
and while I wasn't, | 7:54 | |
I didn't actively engage in them, | 7:55 | |
they made a mark on me. | 7:58 | |
You know, they had an influence on how I began to think. | 8:00 | |
And so it wasn't until I actually started working | 8:05 | |
with the Fund for Southern Communities | 8:10 | |
and realized that there is a whole, | 8:13 | |
there is so much unfinished business, | 8:21 | |
from civil rights | 8:23 | |
and other movements that came out of civil rights, | 8:25 | |
the modern Civil Rights Day | 8:27 | |
left to address | 8:30 | |
and it was through funding social justice, | 8:32 | |
that I decided to continue to be active | 8:35 | |
in my community on a number of fronts. | 8:38 | |
One was, you know, looking at the women's movement | 8:42 | |
and coming in contact with lesbian feminists | 8:45 | |
- | Who were they? | 8:50 |
Who were the lesbian? | 8:51 | |
- | That's when I met Suzanne Pharr, Jill Gomez, | 8:52 |
Mandy Carter, Mab Segrest people, my cohort, | 8:57 | |
they were the ones that I really learned a lot about, | 9:02 | |
that I learned from | 9:06 | |
as it relates to feminist theory and feminist | 9:08 | |
Barbara Smith, you know, Audre Lorde | 9:10 | |
just reading about, | 9:15 | |
I never met Audre Lorde, but reading about her | 9:17 | |
and hearing about her from these women. | 9:20 | |
I realized that, you know, | 9:25 | |
what I am working to help mitigate, | 9:29 | |
you know, these are my beliefs as well. | 9:34 | |
This is what I bring as part of my experience growing up | 9:37 | |
as a black person in Washington, DC. | 9:41 | |
- | So, did you run into Suzanne and Mandy and Mab | 9:44 |
through the Fund for Southern Communities or? | 9:47 | |
- | I did, I did, I did, I actually did. | 9:50 |
I was the Director, | 9:55 | |
actually, I started off as the Development Director. | 9:56 | |
That was actually my entree to social justice | 9:59 | |
actual social justice work. | 10:02 | |
Because I started meeting community activists | 10:04 | |
from around the country, | 10:07 | |
as part of the Funding Exchange network, | 10:08 | |
and particularly here in the South, | 10:11 | |
you know, living | 10:13 | |
I live in the community where Martin Luther King grew up. | 10:13 | |
- | Wow. | 10:16 |
- | And so, I started learning about this work | 10:18 |
through social justice funding, | 10:22 | |
and started meeting the activists. | 10:25 | |
And here in Atlanta, I was working on another front. | 10:28 | |
I got involved politically by working on political campaign. | 10:31 | |
And so I worked on former mayor Jackson's political campaign | 10:37 | |
and he then appointed me as a liaison | 10:43 | |
to the lesbian and gay community | 10:46 | |
in his second administration, | 10:48 | |
And that's how I became politically involved in Atlanta | 10:51 | |
as an African American lesbian. | 10:56 | |
He appointed me to a number of boards and commissions. | 10:59 | |
And I also got involved in my neighborhood work. | 11:03 | |
So I was doing that at the same time | 11:07 | |
that I was funding social justice | 11:09 | |
and learning, you know about it. | 11:11 | |
And I met Mandy Carter and Mab | 11:13 | |
and Suzanne and Pam McMichael | 11:17 | |
You know, I met them all. | 11:20 | |
They had all attended the Creating Change conference | 11:21 | |
in North Carolina. | 11:24 | |
I didn't attend that conference, | 11:25 | |
but that's when you know, | 11:27 | |
they sought of birthed the idea of a group. | 11:28 | |
That would be you know, bi-racial group, | 11:32 | |
looking at, | 11:36 | |
really focusing on the interconnection of | 11:39 | |
race, class, gender, sexual orientation. | 11:42 | |
They brought the idea to me | 11:46 | |
because I was you know, funder | 11:49 | |
and I said, hey, I wanna be part of this. | 11:53 | |
Like I wanna be part of it | 11:57 | |
You know, and I think what I brought was, | 12:00 | |
you know, the whole piece of, | 12:02 | |
you know, the funding piece to it. | 12:04 | |
- | Well, that is a huge piece. | 12:07 |
I think that means oh my goodness. | 12:11 | |
Can you hear me? | 12:15 | |
Cause I think a call is trying to come through | 12:15 | |
I don't even know how you get rid of | 12:18 | |
this call waiting thing. | 12:21 | |
- | We'll just wait, We'll just wait | 12:23 |
- | Yeah, eventually. | 12:24 |
It's my mother. I think I'm gonna have to | 12:27 | |
- | You wanna call me back? | 12:31 |
- | Yeah. I'll call you right back. | 12:31 |
- | Okay. Sure, sure. | 12:34 |
- | It was no problem, okay. | 12:37 |
Alright. We were talking about, | 12:41 | |
oh, they can be used for funding. | 12:43 | |
Because you had that expertise | 12:45 | |
- | Well yeah, they came to me to talk about the idea. | 12:48 |
And I think the initial conversation | 12:54 | |
may have been about funding but not necessarily | 12:56 | |
- | Well, they came to you because you were with the | 13:01 |
Fund for Southern Communities | 13:05 | |
and knew how to find money for social justice issues. | 13:06 | |
In fact, when I was reading about | 13:10 | |
the Fund for Southern communities, | 13:12 | |
it sounds a lot like what SONG does | 13:14 | |
I was trying to, | 13:17 | |
It's not specifically for lesbian and gay, | 13:19 | |
but it's for social justice issues. | 13:21 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 13:26 |
The Fund for Southern communities actually is part of | 13:27 | |
what used to be called the Funding Exchange Network. | 13:30 | |
And that was a network of, | 13:34 | |
the Funding Exchange was the headquarters in New York. | 13:35 | |
They just recently closed their doors, unfortunately. | 13:38 | |
But there were 15 sons across the United States | 13:42 | |
that had a mission of funding social justice work. | 13:46 | |
Advocacy as opposed to service. | 13:49 | |
And so the Funding Exchange | 13:53 | |
was one of the southern members of the Funding Exchange. | 13:55 | |
And so the focus was to basically fund social justice work | 14:00 | |
in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. | 14:05 | |
So essentially it was a public foundation, | 14:10 | |
we raised our money to give our money away. | 14:14 | |
And what was unique about the foundation is that | 14:16 | |
it really was the concept of funding social justice | 14:19 | |
was to really challenge the status quo of power dynamics. | 14:23 | |
So grantees, as well as donors served on the governing body | 14:30 | |
to make decisions about where its money would go. | 14:36 | |
- | I don't really know anything about that. | 14:42 |
This still exists, right? | 14:44 | |
The Fund for Southern Communities. | 14:45 | |
Or did it go away with the Funding Exchange | 14:47 | |
- | No, it still exists. | 14:48 |
Alice Jenkins is the executive director. | 14:51 | |
But yes, yeah, it should | 14:57 | |
Yeah, I guess that noticed you know, | 15:00 | |
within the last six months that | 15:03 | |
the Funding Exchange was closing its doors | 15:04 | |
I was sorry to hear that. | 15:08 | |
- | Yeah, well, it sounds like the things that | 15:10 |
- | So it was also one the first funds | 15:13 |
in the southeast to fund lesbian and gay issues. | 15:15 | |
- | Oh, so the Fund for Southern Communities | 15:21 |
was already funding lesbian and gay? | 15:25 | |
- | Yes, oh yes. | 15:28 |
- | Okay. so that really is a very good match | 15:29 |
for what SONG was wanting to do. | 15:34 | |
SONG. How is SONG different, | 15:36 | |
of course it's not just about raising money | 15:39 | |
and I guess that's what you were mainly doing | 15:41 | |
is raising money. | 15:43 | |
- | Right. | 15:44 |
- | And then giving it away. | 15:45 |
- | Right. | 15:46 |
- | And what does SONG do that's different from that. | 15:47 |
- | Well, I think SONG is more program, | 15:51 |
SONG actually provide programs. | 15:54 | |
The Fund for Southern communities was not | 15:57 | |
an operating foundation were it actually, | 16:00 | |
you know, administered programs per se | 16:04 | |
but SONG does. | 16:06 | |
SONG is a programmatic organization. | 16:12 | |
So you know it raises money to, | 16:19 | |
unless their mission has changed and I don't know, | 16:23 | |
but it actually goes in and provides the services | 16:25 | |
or provides the program management that's needed | 16:30 | |
to administer the program better | 16:34 | |
so that's part of its mission. | 16:39 | |
- | So did the Fund for Southern Communities | 16:40 |
fund any SONG project? | 16:42 | |
- | It did fund SONG initially. | 16:44 |
I think we did give SONG a grant | 16:51 | |
- | Let's see there's a question about | 17:02 |
lesbian feminist activism. | 17:07 | |
We already talked about it before. | 17:09 | |
You were working for the Fund for Southern Communities. | 17:14 | |
You met all these women | 17:16 | |
who were lesbian feminists and activists | 17:19 | |
and your feminism | 17:25 | |
it's hard to be a social justice activists | 17:27 | |
and not a feminist, I guess at this point. | 17:30 | |
- | For me, you know, my thinking and actions, | 17:34 |
you know are progressive. | 17:39 | |
You know, and that's always challenged | 17:41 | |
you know, but I have always considered myself a feminist. | 17:45 | |
I mean, I read about feminist when I was in college. | 17:51 | |
- | Right. | 17:55 |
- | And so you know, | 17:56 |
women who are independent thinkers, | 17:58 | |
women and men who are independent thinkers, | 18:02 | |
men who support women in their initiatives | 18:05 | |
I consider you know, and call themselves feminists. | 18:11 | |
I don't have an issue with that. | 18:14 | |
But I have always | 18:17 | |
seen myself as an independent woman. | 18:23 | |
An independent thinking woman. | 18:27 | |
And of course, I'm speaking out for justice. | 18:30 | |
That's how I look at it. | 18:39 | |
I never identify myself with the white feminist movement. | 18:41 | |
- | But you did identify with Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith | 18:47 |
- | Yes. | 18:51 |
- | Yeah. There's a new book out by | 18:55 |
Carol Giardina about the early feminist movement. | 18:59 | |
It starts in, I think 1952. | 19:04 | |
It starts with Simone de Beauvoir, and it ends | 19:07 | |
- | Oh yes, and I've read a lot of her | 19:10 |
- | Good. Well, this talks about, | 19:13 |
it makes a big argument for the black feminist movement | 19:15 | |
there was a lot more than people acknowledge | 19:22 | |
because we're kind of aware now | 19:24 | |
that it was perceived as a white movement. | 19:27 | |
- | Right. Well, see you know, I grew up, | 19:29 |
my mother, you know, was primarily a single mother | 19:32 | |
and she raised us | 19:39 | |
and I saw her work | 19:40 | |
I saw her refuse to take welfare. | 19:41 | |
And she raised us you know, with the help, | 19:45 | |
with support from my dad, | 19:47 | |
but my dad wasn't in the house with us. | 19:49 | |
And, so I saw her all her life, | 19:53 | |
take care of us. | 19:58 | |
And advocate for us and advocated for herself. | 19:59 | |
And so that's my role model you know, of a feminist. | 20:03 | |
Someone who, you know, had her own mind | 20:08 | |
and did what she needed to do, | 20:12 | |
and, you know, did the best that she could. | 20:15 | |
And instilled in us to always be able | 20:18 | |
to have a place to live, | 20:22 | |
have a job, career | 20:26 | |
and be able to take care of yourself | 20:29 | |
and not depend on anyone else. | 20:31 | |
So that's where I got my feminist values. | 20:35 | |
- | Yeah, in the home. | 20:38 |
And so many white women were getting it from, | 20:40 | |
you know, the movement | 20:44 | |
because they weren't seeing that in their homes. | 20:46 | |
So SONG is really, | 20:53 | |
is unique in the way it brings together | 20:56 | |
what they call an intersectionality | 21:00 | |
particularly feminism and racism and gay rights | 21:03 | |
and focuses on not just single identity issues that's what | 21:09 | |
- | Right, right, right | 21:16 |
the thinking there was that | 21:19 | |
we did not want to marginalized that work | 21:20 | |
because there was so many intersections of it, you know, | 21:23 | |
and that's why we have white women, | 21:27 | |
black women, oh, you know we were all chasing that | 21:28 | |
but we brought in younger people | 21:33 | |
we brought in men at one time | 21:35 | |
and I think men are participating now. | 21:38 | |
But you know, we did not want to marginalize our work | 21:43 | |
because, you know, there was no hierarchy of oppression | 21:46 | |
and we wanted to make sure that | 21:51 | |
you know, if I were to go to a table that I know | 21:54 | |
that I have a lot of issues to represent | 21:58 | |
that I'm gonna bring all of those issues with me | 22:03 | |
and not forget. | 22:06 | |
And I would want that to happen | 22:08 | |
if somebody else were invited to the table | 22:10 | |
and I wasn't at that table, | 22:12 | |
but I can rest assured that I know that whatever it is, | 22:14 | |
that was the main concern to me was gonna be represented. | 22:18 | |
And building allies. | 22:23 | |
You know, it's like, again, | 22:25 | |
there was no hierarchy of oppression, | 22:27 | |
or there is no hierarchy of oppression, | 22:29 | |
and we really need to build allies across movements. | 22:32 | |
That makes our case a lot stronger. | 22:37 | |
And we catch more people that way. | 22:41 | |
So we were deliberate in making sure that | 22:46 | |
because we didn't often wanna be pitted against each other | 22:49 | |
because I think at the time | 22:53 | |
that we were forming SONG, | 22:54 | |
there was a lot of controversy going on around | 22:56 | |
the gay rights movement | 23:03 | |
being compared to the civil rights movement. | 23:04 | |
And black people did not wanna be compared | 23:07 | |
to white gay people, | 23:12 | |
because the gay movement was white gay men, primarily. | 23:14 | |
And that was not the civil rights movement. | 23:20 | |
So we wanted to break down some of that, | 23:24 | |
break down those barriers | 23:27 | |
and get to the root causes | 23:30 | |
of why there is so much hatred and discrimination. | 23:33 | |
- | Had you already gotten to that place in your thinking | 23:39 |
when Mandy and those others | 23:42 | |
who had been at Creating Change came to you about SONG? | 23:44 | |
- | I had because I realized it was the aha moment | 23:48 |
of realizing that oh my goodness, | 23:52 | |
we have a gay movement going on here. | 23:54 | |
It's sorta clicked for me, | 23:59 | |
that even while I was working with gay rights at the time, | 24:01 | |
going from one meeting to another, | 24:09 | |
thinking about how you know as a black woman you think about | 24:12 | |
how do you present yourself in the world? | 24:15 | |
A lot of people take that for granted. | 24:18 | |
We were taught that when you're in public, | 24:20 | |
you have to present a certain way. | 24:23 | |
When you are with, you know, whoever you're with, | 24:25 | |
you need to be conscious of who you are, | 24:29 | |
and where you are | 24:31 | |
because you know, you're taught place in this culture. | 24:33 | |
And so I realized, hey, I'm a woman. | 24:38 | |
I'm African American, I'm now lesbian. | 24:42 | |
I'm still having to face some of the same challenges | 24:45 | |
that I faced being one or the other. | 24:49 | |
So all of it I am a political, | 24:52 | |
my being is political. | 24:54 | |
My total being is political. | 24:57 | |
And now I'm a senior. | 25:00 | |
And I had foot surgery that went wrong. | 25:03 | |
So that could possibly be a disability. | 25:06 | |
You know, so it's like all of these things that happened to, | 25:09 | |
that encompass who I am, I realized that early on, | 25:12 | |
I'm one person with all of those issues, | 25:19 | |
I could either segment them out, | 25:21 | |
or I could bring them all to the party with me. | 25:24 | |
And that was the connection for me | 25:28 | |
on a personal level, | 25:31 | |
that was my life. | 25:33 | |
My personal life is political, | 25:35 | |
because of who I am in this society. | 25:38 | |
And so I came to that before I met, | 25:43 | |
before I got involved with SONG. | 25:47 | |
So it's on a practical level. | 25:50 | |
And I tell you this thing I can remember, | 25:51 | |
sitting on my bed one morning, | 25:53 | |
having to go to a meeting and trying to figure out | 25:57 | |
what I was gonna wear that day. | 25:59 | |
My hair was in, | 26:03 | |
I was starting to grow locks, | 26:04 | |
And I thought, my goodness, | 26:08 | |
the mayor has appointed me | 26:11 | |
to serve on this committee. | 26:14 | |
And now I have to go, I must sit with people | 26:16 | |
that are you know, movers and shakers of this city. | 26:19 | |
And how do I present myself | 26:25 | |
and I thought, my God, you know, | 26:27 | |
why do I have to deal with people telling me how to be? | 26:29 | |
And it sorta clicked. | 26:33 | |
It's like the same thing | 26:34 | |
that I went through as a black woman | 26:36 | |
I'm now having to deal with it as a lesbian. | 26:39 | |
And so it's like, okay, so there is, you know, | 26:42 | |
so for me, that's what it was about. | 26:45 | |
And when I met the SONG girls, | 26:50 | |
that kind of put it all in, | 26:53 | |
you know, an intellectual context. | 26:55 | |
- | That's interesting, the SONG girls. | 27:00 |
- | Yes, yes. | 27:02 |
- | They put it in a intellectual context. | 27:04 |
- | Yes. In a you know, intellectual activists context. | 27:07 |
Yeah. But for me it was a practical thing. | 27:12 | |
It was like why am I carrying these burdens? | 27:16 | |
Why are people telling me how to exist? | 27:23 | |
I didn't like that. | 27:29 | |
- | Why are people telling me how to exist? | 27:33 |
A very good line. | 27:34 | |
So your story of the founding of SONG | 27:38 | |
is gonna be different from theirs | 27:40 | |
because of not being and Creating Change when they were | 27:41 | |
So they come to you. | 27:46 | |
Did they come in person? | 27:47 | |
Did they call you on the phone? | 27:49 | |
What's going on? | 27:50 | |
- | Oh they did, no, no, | 27:51 |
I actually had a phone call that, you know. | 27:52 | |
Several folks wanted to sit and talk with me. | 27:55 | |
In fact, it was Pam McMichael, | 27:58 | |
it might have been Mab Segret. | 28:02 | |
I'm not quite sure if Suzanne was at that first meeting, | 28:04 | |
she may have been because they decided to meet in a glance | 28:07 | |
I think, they were all just passing saying | 28:10 | |
they all wanted to sit and meet with me | 28:13 | |
and they wanted to tell me about this idea. | 28:15 | |
That they has thought about | 28:19 | |
while they were at Creating Change, | 28:20 | |
and started describing what it is that they wanted to do. | 28:23 | |
I said, well count me in. | 28:26 | |
I am like, really, and you know, | 28:29 | |
I wanna be a part of this and I used that | 28:32 | |
and I was in awe of them | 28:34 | |
because they had been out there | 28:35 | |
working in the trenches on this for years. | 28:36 | |
And I wanted to be a part of it, | 28:41 | |
because I could see that this was | 28:44 | |
something that the movement needed at the time. | 28:47 | |
And that it was, you know, | 28:50 | |
we could really have an impact | 28:52 | |
on the social justice work | 28:54 | |
and really working to forward the movement | 28:56 | |
by making sure that there was an interconnection | 29:05 | |
with other social justice movements and issues. | 29:08 | |
- | So this was an idea that really clicked | 29:16 |
for the six of you at one time | 29:19 | |
and how did it get from being an idea | 29:25 | |
that you were enthusiastic about to an entity? | 29:28 | |
Do you? | 29:31 | |
- | As we continued to meet with you know, | 29:35 |
we had a number of meetings moving forward. | 29:38 | |
And we thought well, you know, | 29:42 | |
if we really want this to | 29:44 | |
last, you know to sustain itself | 29:49 | |
then we need to create an organization. | 29:52 | |
Which means that we have to incorporate | 29:56 | |
we have to have bylaws. | 29:57 | |
We have to, you know, hire staff | 30:00 | |
to make sure that the work is moving, | 30:03 | |
we have to raise money. | 30:06 | |
And so we would have retreats periodically. | 30:09 | |
And you may already have this information | 30:14 | |
but the way that we came up with the name SONG | 30:18 | |
- | I don't have this | 30:21 |
- | we were at a retreat | 30:23 |
and we were thinking, | 30:26 | |
okay, if we're an entity then we have to have a name. | 30:27 | |
And I felt well you know, we're in the South. | 30:31 | |
And when you think about the South, | 30:35 | |
you know, culture, music, food | 30:37 | |
you know, it's gotta have a cultural ring to it. | 30:46 | |
And so, we came up with SONG | 30:52 | |
and it's like, okay, so what does SONG mean? | 30:58 | |
- | You thought of the word first | 31:01 |
and then you made up the acronym? | 31:02 | |
- | Yeah. And it's like how about a song? | 31:03 |
And it's like okay, | 31:06 | |
and so what could SONG mean? | 31:08 | |
And it was like okay, Southern, | 31:11 | |
Southerners On New Ground | 31:13 | |
- | Yeah. I love that. | 31:17 |
- | I mean it wasn't that easy | 31:20 |
but you know after fooling around with it | 31:21 | |
it was like, okay we like that. | 31:22 | |
- | That's great. I love that too. | 31:25 |
Were you always in Atlanta? | 31:29 | |
Where would you have these retreats? | 31:31 | |
- | No. We would go. | 31:33 |
We would either go to | 31:34 | |
you know, like up towards the mountains | 31:38 | |
outside of Atlanta, | 31:42 | |
we went to Kentucky a number of times. | 31:44 | |
You know, we try to move around, | 31:48 | |
we go to North Carolina. | 31:49 | |
So we go wherever the women were. | 31:51 | |
So Pam McMichael was in Kentucky. | 31:53 | |
Suzanne was in Arkansas. | 31:56 | |
So we you know, I think we went to Delaware | 31:57 | |
Mab and Mandy, we're in North Carolina | 32:02 | |
and Pat and I were here in Atlanta. | 32:04 | |
So we wanted to make sure that we, you know, | 32:07 | |
because this was gonna not just be an Atlanta thing. | 32:10 | |
We moved around, | 32:14 | |
we would go to the beach, | 32:16 | |
we would go to a retreat center, | 32:18 | |
you know, we would find places to go off. | 32:20 | |
And be. | 32:24 | |
- | And you were just doing this on your own | 32:26 |
out of pocket, | 32:28 | |
it was your personal money you were spending on this? | 32:29 | |
- | Yes. | 32:32 |
- | And who was the ringleader? | 32:36 |
I mean, somebody has to | 32:39 | |
- | I mean that's interesting | 32:39 |
I'm gonna say that if grant either came | 32:47 | |
from the Funding Exchange | 32:49 | |
or it came from Funds for Southern Communities. | 32:50 | |
When we got our first grant, | 32:54 | |
we brought on Pam McMichael and Pat Hussain as co directors, | 32:57 | |
Pat being here in Atlanta, | 33:03 | |
Pam being in Louisville, Kentucky. | 33:06 | |
And they sort of organized everything | 33:10 | |
and then the rest of us were the founding board members | 33:15 | |
and they were also board members but they were also staff. | 33:18 | |
- | So they did the nitty gritty work | 33:23 |
of filing for incorporation and stuff. | 33:24 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 33:26 |
- | We have not got those interviews yet. | 33:31 |
- | Oh, okay. | 33:34 |
- | I'm having trouble getting in touch with Pam | 33:35 |
and she may be out of the office this week or something. | 33:37 | |
And Pat with Lorraine Fontana lives in Atlanta | 33:41 | |
- | Oh yes, I know Lorraine | 33:45 |
- | She sees Pat a good bit and is planning to. | 33:47 |
She was just recently interviewed by this | 33:51 | |
what's it called Touching Up Our Roots? | 33:55 | |
- | Oh okay. | 33:57 |
- | It's a gay project. | 33:58 |
So we were just gonna | 33:59 | |
I have sent some money to that group | 34:02 | |
and asked to have a copy and permission | 34:04 | |
to excerpt from those interviews. | 34:06 | |
But I really wanna hear her story of SONG | 34:08 | |
especially since she and Pam were the ones who | 34:10 | |
you know the ones on the ground. | 34:12 | |
- | Yes, they were, they were. | 34:15 |
- | So everybody else, | 34:21 |
Did Pam and Pat become full time on SONG | 34:22 | |
or was this just? | 34:25 | |
- | They did, yes they did, they did. | 34:26 |
- | And so the rest of you were still with your regular jobs? | 34:31 |
- | Yes. | 34:33 |
- | With SONG as a board. | 34:34 |
- | Our regular jobs and we were a board | 34:35 |
we were the founding board. | 34:36 | |
And we would meet be either here in Atlanta | 34:41 | |
or we would meet in North Carolina | 34:42 | |
well we went to Louisville a couple times. | 34:45 | |
And then I think I'm trying to remember when | 34:48 | |
because when Pat was no longer able to fulfill that role, | 34:51 | |
Mandy Carter came on as director. | 34:59 | |
And then we had a number of folks who joined the staff | 35:03 | |
because by then we were starting to receive funding | 35:07 | |
from a number of places. | 35:09 | |
We were able to, you know, | 35:12 | |
create staff and, you know, get the work going. | 35:14 | |
- | It's a very young staff now, | 35:22 |
I was looking at the website. | 35:24 | |
I think Suzanne said she's the only one over, | 35:27 | |
she's working half time for SONG now. | 35:30 | |
- | Oh, okay. | 35:32 |
- | And she she's the oldest person | 35:33 |
and the next eldest is 40. | 35:35 | |
And then everybody else is under 40. | 35:36 | |
- | Yeah, you know, for a long time, | 35:41 |
we would have discussions about opening it up to men. | 35:43 | |
And for the first couple of years, | 35:48 | |
we were adamant whenever we brought that topic up, | 35:50 | |
we were all ended up at very adamant, | 35:54 | |
no, we did not want men at this point. | 35:57 | |
Because we felt that we had more work to do, | 36:03 | |
in establishing it as an organization. | 36:05 | |
- | Well, that's interesting, | 36:12 |
because that's also very true of, | 36:13 | |
you know, most women's organizations, | 36:15 | |
and I guess now and even | 36:18 | |
the American Association of University Women admits men now. | 36:20 | |
But in those days that was | 36:23 | |
- | I think and you know, SONG does too | 36:26 |
but you know, at first, it was just a little touchy for us. | 36:28 | |
You know, it's like, you know, we're just not there yet. | 36:31 | |
We still have some work to do | 36:34 | |
in building the foundation of this group. | 36:36 | |
And we really want to make sure | 36:38 | |
that we have a solid foundation, | 36:40 | |
which meant that because, you know, | 36:42 | |
we were getting to know each other | 36:45 | |
because we knew of each other, | 36:47 | |
but we didn't really know each other. | 36:49 | |
We had to build the bonds of trust. | 36:51 | |
And we had to learn each other. | 36:55 | |
And, you know, make sure | 36:58 | |
that the organization was not just dependent on one person | 37:00 | |
or one personality, | 37:04 | |
that it was about all of us | 37:07 | |
and our collective wisdom, | 37:11 | |
which is when you ask the question who ran things, | 37:13 | |
you know, who was the ringleader? | 37:16 | |
There really was no ringleader per se. | 37:18 | |
We all had a role. | 37:23 | |
And it was a collective role. | 37:25 | |
Even though we knew that we had to designate | 37:29 | |
you know, some key people to run the organization. | 37:34 | |
And we wanted to make sure that our dynamics | 37:40 | |
could be sustainable. | 37:43 | |
Before we opened it up, | 37:46 | |
to the others to come in. | 37:50 | |
- | That's a good point. | 37:53 |
Who of those other five women did you know the best? | 37:56 | |
you said that you | 37:59 | |
- | I knew Pat Hussain | 38:00 |
because we worked in the same community here. | 38:01 | |
So I knew Pat Hussain. | 38:04 | |
I didn't know Pam McMichael at all. | 38:07 | |
She was new to me. | 38:10 | |
I had heard of Suzanne Pharr, | 38:12 | |
but hadn't really met Suzanne. | 38:14 | |
I knew Mab a little | 38:17 | |
because her partner Barbara | 38:20 | |
was on the board of the Fund for Southern Communities. | 38:22 | |
So I knew Mab but I didn't know her well. | 38:26 | |
And I knew of Mandy and had met Mandy | 38:29 | |
because we funded a group that Mandy was part of as well. | 38:33 | |
So I knew, you know, Mandy and Mab | 38:36 | |
through the work of the Fund for Southern Communities | 38:41 | |
but I knew Pat because of our work here | 38:43 | |
in the Atlanta community, you know, | 38:46 | |
being one of several outblacks, | 38:49 | |
as we called ourselves outblack radical blacks at the time | 38:51 | |
and I knew of Suzanne because of her work | 38:56 | |
and her writing. | 38:59 | |
- | I think that's really interesting | 39:05 |
that you all came together | 39:07 | |
you found each other and then it worked so well. | 39:10 | |
So many organizations you know, | 39:14 | |
you had these good ideas | 39:16 | |
and it just you know, | 39:17 | |
it doesn't survive the initial enthusiasm. | 39:19 | |
- | Exactly, exactly. | 39:22 |
- | And how would you account for that | 39:24 |
that SONG did survive the initial enthusiasm | 39:27 | |
and did live on to pay | 39:31 | |
- | I think that you know, | 39:33 |
when I look at the women that, | 39:35 | |
I was just so in awe of them | 39:39 | |
because of the work that they had had | 39:41 | |
and this is a serious group of women. | 39:42 | |
I thought I brought some you know, comic relief. | 39:45 | |
From a different perspective. | 39:49 | |
my commitment was just as strong. | 39:51 | |
but I didn't have the activist experience | 39:55 | |
that they had | 40:01 | |
And so I think, you know, on an individual level, | 40:03 | |
each of us brought a certain level of commitment | 40:08 | |
to this work. | 40:11 | |
And, we're very serious about making sure | 40:13 | |
that whatever our vision was | 40:20 | |
for how we want to be in society, | 40:24 | |
we've had to demonstrate that in our work. | 40:27 | |
So when things got tight or hard, | 40:30 | |
we took time out, to really get wisdom. | 40:33 | |
That was very important. | 40:41 | |
And to really understand, you know, what was happening | 40:42 | |
to a person or where a person was coming from. | 40:47 | |
Hello, | 40:49 | |
- | I'm here, I'm still here. | |
- | Oh, okay, | 40:51 |
- | I'm just nodding my head. | |
- | Okay, no, I think that was my cell vibration | 40:53 |
but that's okay. | 40:56 | |
So I think it was the commitment | 40:58 | |
that each of us brought to this work | 41:02 | |
to make sure that you know, | 41:03 | |
we want this to withstand the test of time. | 41:05 | |
And that if we run | 41:11 | |
up against issues, | 41:14 | |
we are committed to staying in it | 41:16 | |
to work through those issues. | 41:19 | |
- | I wonder also this has been the last question I think, | 41:26 |
unless there's something you thought of. | 41:30 | |
Have you thought of anything that you needed to say? | 41:31 | |
- | No, no. This is good. | 41:34 |
- | I've been trying to sort of, | 41:38 |
I'm seeing this chapter, | 41:39 | |
the SONG chapter is the last chapter | 41:41 | |
of the Sister Wisdom issue. | 41:43 | |
We're gonna start with Gainesville | 41:44 | |
because there was a lot of early stuff in Gainesville. | 41:46 | |
Byllye Avery she was a co founder | 41:52 | |
of the Gainesville Women's Health Center. | 41:56 | |
There was just a whole lot going on there. | 41:58 | |
So we're starting with Gainesville. | 42:00 | |
And we wanna end with SONG, | 42:01 | |
and that's 68 is when we begin and 94 is when we end. | 42:04 | |
So SONG is 93. | 42:08 | |
And I guess it's 93 is when the Creating Change was | 42:09 | |
and then that started then. | 42:13 | |
And I'm looking at, | 42:17 | |
I'm trying to get a sense of | 42:17 | |
I see SONG as a new beginning, | 42:22 | |
that a lot of things had run their course. | 42:24 | |
A lot of, you know, revolutionary ideas and separatism | 42:28 | |
and a lot of people had burned out | 42:32 | |
and moved on to other things. | 42:35 | |
And SONG was like a breath of fresh air in a way. | 42:38 | |
What do you think? | 42:42 | |
You all came to it from different places, | 42:45 | |
activism and social justice, | 42:49 | |
but you came to it with different histories | 42:51 | |
for you why was SONG the right thing at the right time? | 42:53 | |
Where was it historically for you? | 42:57 | |
How did it fit? | 43:00 | |
- | Where was it historically for me? | 43:03 |
- | Yeah. Why was it the thing to do then? | 43:05 |
- | You know, well for me, | 43:09 |
I think because there was so much that I saw | 43:14 | |
that was unfinished with the civil rights movement. | 43:19 | |
Like I said, I wasn't that | 43:24 | |
actively engaged in the feminist movement, | 43:26 | |
but there were all of these movements | 43:29 | |
that were still working. | 43:31 | |
And it's like, okay, so where are we? | 43:33 | |
Where are we, in terms of, | 43:36 | |
I saw them as separate movement. | 43:39 | |
And so I think, for me, | 43:42 | |
it was how do we make a connection here? | 43:44 | |
Because again, I had to go back to myself. | 43:47 | |
It's like, when I walk into a room, | 43:50 | |
I tell you what | 43:53 | |
it was that question that would come up sometimes, | 43:54 | |
are you first a lesbian? | 44:01 | |
Or are you first African American? | 44:02 | |
If I'm sitting in a room. | 44:05 | |
And I would say, what do you mean | 44:07 | |
am I first African American or first lesbian? | 44:09 | |
I am an African American woman, lesbian. | 44:12 | |
That's the total of me. | 44:17 | |
I can't separate myself. | 44:19 | |
And so for me, I think you know, | 44:22 | |
for me, it was alright, so if we're gonna do something, | 44:24 | |
it can't be business as usual. | 44:27 | |
We have to continue to move this forward. | 44:30 | |
And so how we make the connection | 44:33 | |
so if I'm gonna go in a room and say, | 44:34 | |
I'm here as an African American first, | 44:38 | |
or I'm here as a lesbian first. | 44:40 | |
The total of me is in this room, | 44:44 | |
dealing with all of the issues | 44:48 | |
that I have to deal with as a person. | 44:50 | |
And so, you know, for me, | 44:55 | |
it was if we're going to do this, | 44:58 | |
we've gotta to be about making sure | 44:59 | |
that we stay in the future and moving this forward. | 45:01 | |
Without the separation, | 45:07 | |
we can no longer can continue to separate ourselves. | 45:08 | |
Because there is a connection. | 45:13 | |
- | That's good, | 45:15 |
we can no longer can continue to separate ourselves. | 45:16 | |
Well, this is very good. | 45:21 | |
I think I'm gonna be able to use a lot of this. | 45:23 | |
I'm gonna type my notes. | 45:27 | |
And I'll listen to the interview so that I can correct | 45:30 | |
where I didn't transcribe it right. | 45:33 | |
- | Yes, yes, yes. | 45:35 |
- | And then what I'll do is email you those. | 45:37 |
And if you need me to I could, | 45:39 | |
I could just go ahead and snail mail at the same time, | 45:41 | |
the email will give you an electronic copy | 45:44 | |
in case you want to get in there and write things. | 45:47 | |
- | Sure, sure. | 45:49 |
But you don't have to write anything. | 45:50 | |
You just have to correct anything I get wrong. | 45:52 | |
- | Okay, sure. | 45:54 |
- | And I'm hoping to do this quickly. | 45:55 |
But I've got another set of interviews coming up | 45:57 | |
and it helps if I do it right away. | 46:00 | |
So I might get it turned around very fast. | 46:03 | |
But you will be hearing from me. | 46:08 | |
- | Okay, well thank you. | 46:10 |
I've enjoyed talking about it. | 46:14 | |
- | Well good, I've enjoyed listening to you | 46:15 |
it's very different from the other interviews | 46:18 | |
I've done Suzanne and Mandy, | 46:22 | |
I've talked with Suzanne and Mandy so far. | 46:23 | |
And it's completely different stories | 46:26 | |
not difference in opinion | 46:30 | |
- | I hope that our recollection | 46:33 |
of how we came together is similar | 46:35 | |
but yeah, completely different stories. | 46:38 | |
- | Yeah, there's no contradiction. | 46:39 |
It's just interesting how the puzzle pieces fit together. | 46:42 | |
Very very interesting. | 46:46 | |
- | Great. Well, I look forward to seeing it | 46:48 |
and thank you so much for doing this work. | 46:50 | |
- | Sure I love doing this work. | 46:52 |
It's really great. | 46:55 | |
- | Alright | 46:56 |
- | Alright well have a good weekend | 46:58 |
I appreciate the interview | 47:00 | |
- | You too. |
Item Info
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