Carter, Mandy - interviewed by Rose Norman / Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project / Duke Digital Repository

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And I'll say, today is Tuesday, March 26th, 2013.

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This is Rose Norman in Huntsville, Alabama interviewing

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Mandy Carter in Durham, North Carolina by phone,

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for the Southern Lesbian Feminist Herstory Project.

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And I probably ought to make sure that,

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I think that's going to be okay without playing it back.

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You want to just, the first question I had

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had to do with the biographical intro that we're using.

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Do you think that I could just get

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that off of your bio when you send that?

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Well, you can but I can also,

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I mean, I'm looking right at it.

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So what I hear you saying though,

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is that I'm looking at that paragraph you wrote, Rose,

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and so, are you going to use that,

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or you want me to just send?

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I can either field that information now

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or send you my bio and you can,

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did you want me to type that up,

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or you're gonna do it on your own?

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I wasn't sure how that--

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Oh, I'll do that on my own.

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This is pretty much the boilerplate we're using.

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I mean, I filled in what I knew,

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but this may not be the way you want to say it.

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I just picked this up online.

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Right, okay, well two things.

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One, I'll just, the ones that are really quick, I can do,

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but when I send you my bio, let's do this.

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Let me send you my, I'll email you my bio

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after we get done with this call,

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and then once you see it, Rose,

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if you have any additional questions for me, let me know.

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That might be a much easier way to do it,

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if that's okay with you.

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So I was born November 2nd, 1948 in Albany, New York.

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And I think the most important part

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to know about that is that in my bio, I also say,

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I was a ward of the state of New York

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for the first 18 years of my life because my mother

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got up one day after I was born, left and never came back.

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So me, my brother Rodney and sister Dolores

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were in orphanages in Albany, New York.

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And then we got divided and split up,

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but I was in two orphanages and one foster home

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for the first 18 years of my life

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as a ward of the state of New York.

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So I was in Albany Children's Home,

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Schenectady Children's Home, and then

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between a foster home in Chatham Center, New York.

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So that's the first 18 years.

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I must say, the reason that was pivotal

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as to why I got involved in what I'm doing now, Rose,

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is that in Schenectady, children,

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so they mainstreamed us into the main

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regular school system there.

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So I went to Mount Pleasant High School

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in Schenectady, New York, graduated 1966.

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And a history teacher of ours brought

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someone in from this group called

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the American Friends Service Committee.

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And that one 40-minute class literally changed my life,

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because I had never of the Quakers,

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never heard of the AFSC.

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But he talked about Quakers and power of one

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and equality and justice for all,

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but they had a high school work camp.

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And they said if anyone wanted to go,

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I raised my hand, I went, and then

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the rest is history, (mumbles) a really short form.

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But that is the key reason that I do what I do now,

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because of that class with the Quakers and the AFSC.

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That's great.

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And they were talking about,

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I guess I want to know what it was

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that bent your ear, what it was that grabbed you about that?

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Well, let's remember that I,

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it's funny, because right now, we're looking

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at the demographics of the country,

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and one of them that's interesting is that

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post World War II Baby Boomers,

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that were born after WW II, so between 1946 and 1955,

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that's that huge Baby Boomer, 79 million people right now,

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that generation, what was going on at that time?

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The Civil Rights movement was huge.

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Now, we're in upstate New York

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and we're very much aware of what's happening down South,

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but I think that when the gentleman, he was just a young kid

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from the local, now have you heard of

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the American Friends Service Committee?

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Are you familiar with them at all?

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Yes, I do know about that.

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Okay, yeah, well they had a New York branch,

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and so when he came into our social studies class,

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it's a history class, he was talking about the fact

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that the American Friends Service Committee

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and the Quakers as an institution,

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they were down South as the white allies,

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trying to figure out how they could help

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in the Civil Rights movement.

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So against that backdrop, he was saying

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they're down there, what's going on,

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remember this is '64, '65, '66, and said

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that one of the tenants of Quakerism,

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which is a long tradition, was this concept

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of the power of one that every single person

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had the potential to impact change.

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To hear that, number one, secondly he was talking about

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this broader concept that if your fundamental

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philosophies around equality and justice for all,

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that means that at any particular time,

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at any particular point, whatever particular issue

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or issues are involved, that you really see

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kind of a broader kind of a pattern.

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And I didn't quite get that at that time,

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but when he said that, it really struck me,

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because remember, what happened on November 22nd, 1963?

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Kennedy was assassinated; everyone knows exactly

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where they were at that moment in time,

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in terms of what was going on

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with the president being assassinated

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against the backdrop of what was happening

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down South, with the Civil Rights movement.

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Rose, at the time, they were still doing

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these air raid drills, where these sirens go off

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and you duck under your desk,

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or you run home as quick as you can.

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And then also the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

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I distinctly remember, as young as I was,

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on the radio, they were saying last rites on the radio

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because of the potential for a missile strike

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to hit New York City, would impact Albany

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and Schenectady were not that far away.

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So all that's rolling around in this young kids mind

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and then someone comes in and talks about

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this power of one and equality and justice for all.

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But it was the third thing he said

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at the end of his presentation, he said,

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and by the way, we have an AFSC high school work camp

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in the Pocono Mountains, who would like to go?

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I raised my hand and I got permission

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from the Schenectady Children's Home to go.

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It was going to that summer, that one week

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in the Pocono Mountains that really just sort of went from

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hearing great ideas, sounds great, to spending a week

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in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

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They were bringing people up and in as resource people,

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we read about Gandhi, read about nonviolence,

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and then there was this young, white folk-singing couple,

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Guy and Candie Carawan, from the Highlander Center.

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Never heard of them, never heard of the group, but they came

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and I was just fixated on just what they were doing.

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They were singing, but they were recording

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songs of the Civil Rights movement.

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So what was just something (mumbles) made real

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by two people, white, young folk singers

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coming to our one week session, and then he talked about

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the School for the Study of Nonviolence

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with Joan Baez and Ira Sandperl,

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which I ultimately ended up going to.

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So I guess what I was saying is

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that at the moment, I had no idea

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what the impact was, but when I look back

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and ask, what was the turning point, or what was the moment

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that really sent me in this direction?

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That would be it.

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And also in our school, we had an NAACP chapter,

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but it was a white guy, a white young student.

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I thought well, isn't that for Black people?

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Anyway, so just a bit more background

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because that's the grounding of which I then

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moved onto a much longer span of time with this stuff.

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I ended up going to the institute, blah-de-blah-blah,

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got arrested during the Vietnam War, went to jail

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and then got my first job at the

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War Resisters League in San Francisco, 1969.

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But in '68, went to the Poor People's Campaign

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in Washington D.C., '68 went to the Institute session,

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'69 got my job at WRL and

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that's where I am now, here in Durham.

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Well, that's a great story, I'm gonna transcribe

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that story, I mean that'd be a good beginning to the,

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I will edit these notes, it won't just be

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a straight, literal transcript.

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Yeah, understood, but that would just help you

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kind of get the, a little of the journey,

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because when you read it as a text it's one thing,

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but when I tell it, it's just,

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I just don't know how to describe it.

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But that, you know what I was

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just thinking of, Rose, though?

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That wasn't the thing I was thinking of,

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can I just ask you, how old are you?

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Just, I don't know if I'm being disrespectful or not, but.

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(laughing) 63, I'm 63.

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Okay, you know what I'm saying?

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That was our generation, when I say our generation,

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of that 60's generation.

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Not everyone was involved but

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that was, to be a anti,

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a lot of us were too young

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for the Civil Rights movement, but King,

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when he gave that moment,

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not that speech that he gave in '63

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at the March on Washington, but when he gave

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that speech, April 4th, 1967 at the Riverside Church

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in New York, when he talked about,

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we have to challenge what we're doing in Vietnam.

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And that speech he gave, when he said,

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how can you ask Black men to go thousands of miles away

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to another country of color, Vietnam,

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and basically kill or be killed in the name of democracy,

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when they didn't have it when they left this country

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and they didn't have it when they got back.

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And so I'm not sure if he hadn't given that speech

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that a lot of us who were just

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a little too young for the Civil Rights movement

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then smack dab in the middle of that Vietnam War thing,

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and then (stammering) a lot of Vietnam War,

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I was working in San Francisco, it was so male dominated.

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And then you had feminists start toughening up

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and talking about nonviolence

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and feminism, is more about just Vietnam.

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And then feminists who didn't

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want to have lesbians involved.

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So lesbians, and then lesbian feminists,

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it was like, okay, we'll go where we need to go

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to get this stuff done.

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But then you had people like, oh my God, Barbara Deming.

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Lesbian, feminist, and (mumbles), just incredible

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and it unrolled before our eyes.

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And so there's a lot of the South here part of that,

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and then we'll still here.

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That's the key, we're still here.

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Well, let me just for dates...

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When that quaker guy came to your class,

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is this after Kennedy's assassination?

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Yeah, because Kennedy was assassinated in '63.

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It was '64 or '65, it must have been my senior year,

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so it would be '66, '65, '66,

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but it was after the Kennedy assassination, yes.

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'65, '66, so that would've been

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when you went to that Quaker...

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Yeah, the high school work camp.

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Work camp; that would've been the

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summer of '66 maybe, after graduation?

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I'm trying to figure out the timeline because

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it would either have been '65, '66

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because I graduated in May of '66, but I didn't hear about,

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and when Guy and Candie Carawan talked about the Institute,

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that didn't even start until '66.

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So it had to have been either they

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had heard about she was starting it,

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because the Institute started in 1966

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in Carmel Valley, and they told me about it.

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So it was either in my junior year of 1965

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or my senior year, either one of those.

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I'd have to almost get the exact time,

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it was either '65 or '66, for sure.

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It's not real important but I just,

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whenever I can (papers shuffling) get dates.

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No, no it's good.

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And I'm still trying to figure out

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that timeframe for myself because

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because after I graduated high school,

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one of the things at the homes that they would do,

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this was extraordinary, they would pay

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for my entire college education, if I stayed in college.

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Well, I tried to do that, but I had already heard about

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the Quakers and what was going on

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with the movement or whatever,

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and I dropped out and they said,

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you had to stay in school, they didn't pay for my education.

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So I dropped out and ended up going

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to San Francisco ultimately.

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But I spent the summer of '67 in New York,

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so I think it might've been '66, actually,

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Rose, because after I graduated I went to

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Hudson Valley Community College, then I decided

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I didn't want to do that, dropped out,

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then I spent the summer of '67 down in New York City.

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So I think '66 is the right year.

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Okay, so summer of '67, you're out of school,

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you've dropped out of that community college,

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and you're in New York City?

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Yes, down in New York City

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and long story short, I ran out of money

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and ended up sleeping in the park,

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but that was like, the hippie thing

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was going on then.

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And it brought me one of those, who knew moments,

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I'm sure you had one, (mumbles).

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I ran out of money, I was working on the West Side

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and there was this sign in the window,

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free lunch, come on in!

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I went in and it was a place

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run by Timothy Leary (laughing) LSD.

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And I got a job there for the summer,

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sleeping on the couch in the back.

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They said, as long as you are willing to

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answer that phone between the hours of

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eight at night and eight in the morning

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when people are having bad trips,

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and you tell them how to come down

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from it, you can stay here.

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And I did, it was great.

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And then at the end of the summer,

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everyone was (mumbles) well let's hitchhike

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out the San Francisco, because that's where it's happening.

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And that was a big year, going to San Francisco,

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and Haight-Ashbury and three of us

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hitchhiked out across the country

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and got to San Francisco, one of those,

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another one of those who knew moments.

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Anyone who got into San Francisco,

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they went to the Haight-Ashbury Switchboard

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for a place to stay, right?

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So three of us go down to the Haight-Ashbury Switchboard

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and get the phone number of a guy named Vincent O'Connor.

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Of all the people in the world we would've gotten

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a place to stay, Vincent O'Connor

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turned out to be a draft resister

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working with the Catholic Peace Fellowship

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and because we all three stayed there,

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ultimately he said, you two have to go, she can stay,

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because I was interested in nonviolence,

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in what was going on and volunteered

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at the Catholic Peace Fellowship in San Francisco

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and boom, got the opportunity to go down to

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the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence

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with Ira Sandperl and Baez.

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And they were talking about doing a CD action

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at the Oakland Induction Center;

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who wants to be involved, who wants to go?

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I went.

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It's almost too weird, but yeah,

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I went and in jail, it was like

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a hundred women got arrested

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at the Oakland Induction Center, December, 1967.

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Jane Schulman came over and said,

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Mandy, have you ever heard of a group

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called the War Resisters League?

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And I said no, I never heard of it.

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Well, we'd like to invite you to one of our potlucks.

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(Rose chuckles)

15:27

I went, that led to stuffing envelopes and mailings,

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to going on a couple of trips

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to listen to people talk about WRL.

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And a gentleman by the name of Randy Keeler

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who was at the office with Jane Schulman

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was doing draft resistance, went to jail

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and said, we have an empty spot, who'd like to fill it?

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I did; Rose, that is literally how I got my job

15:48

at the War Resisters League in San Francisco in 1969.

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Gosh, things were really lining up for you there.

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Oh man, I don't believe in pre-destination,

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but it makes you wonder; the likelihood

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of going into that place on the West Side and

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going to places, the Haight-Ashbury Switchboard

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and getting with Vincent O'Connor,

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getting to the Institute and blah-de-blah-blah.

16:12

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Well, I want to go back one thing I'm a little vague;

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there was the Poconos work camp, the Quaker work camp,

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and then there was another place that you went after that?

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I don't think I quite have that straight.

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Oh well, let me do the...

16:31

How it went.

16:35

So I graduated high school in 1966,

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and technically, not even technically,

16:42

legally in the state of New York, at that time,

16:44

and (mumbles) too across the country,

16:47

at the age of 18, you aged out of the welfare system.

16:50

So if you're not adopted, either you're in a foster home,

16:55

or you're in an orphanage, the way the law reads

16:58

that once you turn 18 years old,

17:00

you no longer are a ward of the state, you are on your own.

17:03

And so when I was graduating from high school

17:07

at the age of 17, the Schenectady Children's Home,

17:10

the guy who ran it said, Mandy,

17:13

you're one of the few who's ever gotten

17:15

this far in high school, and I got a college prep

17:17

because I wanted to be a doctor.

17:21

He said, one thing that we think we'd like to do with you,

17:23

because most guys were going off to Vietnam or

17:26

women, they got out of the home,

17:28

whatever, they went on with their life,

17:31

but they said, we'd like to offer you this possibility.

17:32

If you get in college, and I got into Hudson Valley

17:36

Community College, we will pay for your entire education

17:40

because this is what we'd like to do, invest in you,

17:43

even though I'll turn 18, you see what I'm saying, Rose?

17:46

They said the option (mumbles).

17:48

And I started to do that, Rose, but I was living

17:51

at the YWCA in Troy, New York because I was,

17:53

the community college is part of

17:56

the SUNY system, was there in Troy.

17:58

But every day that I stayed there, I wasn't happy

18:03

because I had lived in institutions

18:04

all of my life, with the exception of

18:06

that foster home experience for four years.

18:08

And I felt like, what's different about this?

18:11

I'm not happy, but also because of that class

18:13

and hearing about what was going on

18:16

with the nonviolence, and hearing

18:18

what was happening in the South.

18:20

And at this point, because I had done that

18:21

AFSC high school work camp,

18:25

had new resource people coming in,

18:27

talking about nonviolence, reading about it,

18:28

getting more information about the Quakers

18:31

and the American Friends Service Committee.

18:33

This was all rolling around in my mind.

18:35

So when I decided, I don't wanna do this anymore,

18:38

he said, well, you realize if you decide

18:40

not to do this, then you are on your own.

18:42

I said, I realize that, and that's when I said,

18:44

that's when the break happened.

18:47

I literally took a bus to New York City

18:49

with $80 in my pocket, hoping I could

18:50

get a job and start there.

18:52

That's when I ran out of money, I didn't get a job,

18:55

and that's when I happened to go by this place

18:57

that Timothy Leary ran, and I spent the summer in '67.

18:59

So that literally was...

19:03

Graduate high school, Schenectady Children's Home,

19:07

didn't work out to do school, then I

19:11

hitchhiked down to New York City, did that,

19:13

and then I got out to San Francisco.

19:15

Does that help a little bit with the question

19:17

you had about just the frame?

19:18

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Yes, so the American Friends Service Center

19:21

work camp was the summer of '66,

19:24

before you went to the community college?

19:28

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Yes, that's right.

19:30

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So this is rolling

around in you as you start

19:33

with community college--

19:35

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Oh, absolutely.

But not just me, and again, whenever

19:37

I share this I say, not just me.

19:39

When you think about where this country was at that point

19:41

and even though the Civil Rights movement

19:44

was happening down South, and even though

19:47

we're all (mumbles) in Upstate New York,

19:49

it seemed like almost a world away.

19:51

I don't know how to describe that.

19:53

But because of the kind of change from the

19:54

absolute focus on what was happening

19:58

down South, '64, '65, '66.

20:00

By '65, '66, more and more of what the news was

20:03

what's happening down South, it was the war in Vietnam

20:07

because after the assassination of Kennedy in '63,

20:10

who came into presidency?

20:14

Lyndon Johnson, and Johnson would still focus a bit

20:15

on the Civil Rights movement, because remember,

20:19

he was the one who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

20:21

I'm in high school, then we got

20:26

the Voting Rights Act in 1965, I'm still in high school.

20:29

And by the time the Voting Rights Act,

20:34

but the other extraordinary thing

20:35

that happened in '67, Rose, was in 1967, it was the

20:37

Loving vs. Virginia case of ending, once and for all,

20:41

the ban on interracial marriage in this country.

20:46

And look what's happening today, by the way,

20:50

what's happening in the US Supreme Court today?

20:52

(chuckles)

20:54

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Wow, yes indeed.

20:55

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Yes, and so that's why I thought that the King speech,

20:57

even though it didn't get as much high profile

21:01

as his speech in the March on Washington in '63.

21:04

When he gave that speech in 1967,

21:07

that was almost a transformative moment,

21:09

I think, for this entire country,

21:12

because here's a Black man, who was leading

21:14

the Civil Rights movement down South who said,

21:16

we now have to talk about not only the war

21:18

in Vietnam against the backdrop of Black men,

21:21

but also before he got killed,

21:25

also on April 4th, 1968, what was he talking about?

21:27

He went on to economic justice issues, Rose,

21:31

because he said if we fight for the right

21:34

to go to a lunch counter and have a right

21:37

to sit at that lunch counter and get a meal,

21:38

do we have any money in our pocket

21:41

to buy anything once we're there?

21:42

That became the focus of his, with economic justice,

21:45

thus the poor people's campaign of 1968.

21:48

So it's like, my personal life and

21:53

that whole generation of their lives at this point.

21:54

And then what was happening with the

21:58

sort of like Civil Rights, boom, right into Vietnam War

22:00

-

Gosh, you ought to write a book

22:04

about your life, this is so interesting.

22:08

-

Very interesting, I'm glad to talk,

22:10

well now they have this thing called Dragonfly,

22:12

I think you can actually talk in it.

22:15

I don't write, but anyway, but yeah.

22:16

But that was all of us, Rose, I mean, I don't know,

22:19

where were you November 22nd, 1963,

22:23

when you heard the news about Kennedy?

22:27

-

Oh, I was, yeah I was walking to PE class in Alabama.

22:29

-

There you go.

22:38

And by the way, you're in Alabama, you could never forget.

22:40

It's funny you're talking about that,

22:44

because we're doing, I was just at the UA Tuscaloosa,

22:46

we're doing this big stuff around,

22:48

this is a huge, big anniversary down there

22:50

with then Governor, George Wallace standing

22:52

in the doorway down in UA Tuscaloosa.

22:55

What was it, June 11th, 1963?

22:57

Amazing, and after the March on Washington,

23:01

Birmingham, Alabama, 16th Street church bombed by the Klan.

23:05

-

Yeah, I don't know, I think I was,

23:14

I had a lot to overcome in terms of being ignorant of...

23:17

I grew up in a county that was very,

23:25

very, well, what's the word?

23:29

Well, racist, and it was majority Black

23:31

but of course the white people ran everything.

23:34

A lot of civil rights activism.

23:37

I mean, I was sort of watching and not understanding.

23:41

And I'm making up for it now by (laughs)--

23:45

-

No, no, but you know what fascinates me

23:50

when you share that, it's so interesting because

23:50

someone said the way we look at life is like

23:54

we're all around a certain thing,

23:56

they use an elephant, for example.

23:58

And then you ask each person,

24:00

well, what do you see, what's your reality?

24:01

Well, what I see is a long trunk and two big tusks.

24:03

No, no, no, that's not what this is,

24:06

I'm looking at something that has a tail.

24:08

But unless you then all kind of rise up above it all

24:11

and realize you're looking at the exact same thing.

24:14

But what you're looking at is your reality,

24:17

and from where you are, because all

24:19

you know is all you know, but when you start

24:20

stitching these little stories together,

24:22

you begin to think, oh, my gosh, because I know exactly

24:24

where I was on November 22nd, and everyone does.

24:27

And then you ask, where were you, what did it mean,

24:30

what was going around you, you know what I mean?

24:33

And you're living in the state of Alabama,

24:36

which is the epicenter of whatever, but yet,

24:38

how old you were and what was, I mean

24:42

that's what I find fascinating, history.

24:45

I love it for that reason.

24:46

And then here we get to share these stories now

24:48

because this is where we are, this is the...

24:50

Just at a recent, I was just at UA Tuscaloosa,

24:53

they had a sixth annual Southeast LGBTQ

24:56

student leadership conference.

25:00

And one of the demographics is that

25:04

people who are between the ages of 18 and 23,

25:06

80 million, and we have 79 million who are our age.

25:10

I said, talk about needing an

25:13

intergenerational conversation here, this is it.

25:15

-

Yeah.

25:19

-

Anyway.

25:22

-

Okay, all this is really good because our early,

25:23

our period starts in '68, we're just trying

25:27

to contain it to '68 to '94, and of course,

25:29

the women's movement and lesbian feminist activism in that.

25:31

So let's shift over to that.

25:34

I still want to know why you picked Durham,

25:37

did you want to go to school, or?

25:39

-

Oh, there's a practical reason,

25:41

because that's where War Resisters League office was.

25:42

Because when I was living in San Francisco,

25:46

working at the War Resisters League in San Francisco,

25:48

I said, when I decided to leave San Francisco, I said,

25:51

I wanna go east of the Mississippi,

25:54

because I was born and raised in Upstate New York,

25:56

I missed the four seasons.

25:58

And I said, is there a War Resisters League

26:00

office anywhere east of the Mississippi?

26:04

You know where it was?

26:06

Durham, North Carolina; that's why I chose it,

26:06

because they had a WRL here.

26:08

I interviewed for a job and got a job

26:10

at the War Resisters League southeast office

26:12

in Durham, North Carolina, that's how I got here.

26:15

-

And that was really kind of a hotbed of a lot of

26:19

civil rights activism

26:20

-

Oh, my gosh, tons.

Well, between Duke and then,

26:24

the thing that struck me about Durham,

26:25

have you ever been here at all?

26:27

Have you ever been to North Carolina or in Durham?

26:28

-

Yeah, I spent some time at the Duke University Library

26:32

going through ALFA archives

26:35

-

Oh, yeah!

Oh wow, yes, yes, they had their archives at,

26:38

is it the Sallie Bingham?

26:41

-

Yes, at the Sallie Bingham,

they have the Mab Seacrest archives are there,

26:44

Minnie Bruce Pratt, I looked at all those.

26:46

-

Oh yeah, Feminary and now SONG has all their stuff there,

26:49

Ladyslipper has all their stuff there.

26:53

-

Oh, I don't know that I looked

26:55

at the SONG stuff when I was there,

26:56

because that's really what I wanna,

26:58

we're trying to write a chapter about SONG.

26:59

And maybe I should ask you if I'm wrong, but

27:02

it seems like, here SONG comes at the end of our period.

27:05

And of course, historically, there's never

27:08

any sort of beginnings and endings,

27:10

there's all this transition going on,

27:13

but it does seem that SONG coming where it does

27:14

right before ALFA closed down.

27:17

-

Yeah, (mumbles) how many years was that group,

27:21

how long were y'all, how long did

27:24

that group exist for, when did it start?

27:26

-

I think it started in '72 or possibly,

27:28

I need to go back and look at that,

27:31

I don't have my timeline.

27:32

It's either '72 or '74, because we're saying

27:34

about 20 years on ALFA, which is a very long time.

27:35

A whole lot of groups formed, Knoxville had

27:38

a lesbian feminist alliance, too

27:42

and it lasted not hardly at all,

27:44

like two years or something.

27:46

-

No, yours did for a long time.

27:48

I think, weren't you one of the longest running ones?

27:49

-

I think it was the longest running one,

27:51

although I don't have the date on it.

27:52

But here comes SONG right at the end of this period,

27:54

and it's like there was a new way of looking at things.

27:58

Maybe something like that transition you were talking about

28:03

between civil rights activism and then economic rights.

28:05

So okay, let's think about, well I want you to respond

28:11

to the lesbian feminist activism question,

28:16

whether you see yourself fitting that label

28:18

or you want to expand it or how do you feel

28:25

about the label lesbian feminist activism?

28:26

-

Yeah, okay I'm looking at it right now.

28:28

Well I would say personally for me,

28:31

for me personally, I would say, how do I (mumbles)?

28:32

Well one thing about being in San Francisco, certainly

28:38

because I was there, once I got connected

28:42

with the War Resisters League, I was still,

28:47

that was my first movement job.

28:48

And so the whole thing, that entire time

28:51

was all around that war in Vietnam.

28:54

And because San Francisco was literally

28:55

across the bridge to where every single male

28:58

who was going into Vietnam had

29:01

to go through the Oakland Induction Center,

29:03

which is why we had Durham, or one reason why

29:05

the War Resisters League was in Durham is because

29:08

we're only literally three or four miles away

29:10

from every military post that's involved

29:12

in every war in this country.

29:15

Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, whatever.

29:17

So WRL sets up where you're in the backyard basically

29:19

of where the war machine happens.

29:23

So but I was also a lesbian, and so

29:25

when I joined the staff of WRL West,

29:27

I knew that the staff in New York,

29:30

there were so many gay men there,

29:32

Igal Rodenko, Dave McReynolds.

29:33

But Igal Rodenko wasn't just a gay man,

29:37

he was on the 19, oh we just got done

29:40

celebrating the 65th anniversary

29:45

of the pre-'63 Freedom Ride.

29:46

He was working with Bayard Rustin and some other men,

29:50

not as a gay man, but as someone

29:53

who believed in pacifism, who was gay.

29:56

And I say that because when I was at WRL in San Francisco,

29:59

I wasn't old enough to go that lesbian bar

30:04

called Maud's, because you had to be 21.

30:06

So not only was I active in the anti-war movement,

30:09

but as a lesbian, the only place you could go

30:12

as a lesbian were the lesbian bars, but when you went

30:15

to the lesbian bars back in that day, Rose,

30:18

that's where a lot of the beginnings of Harvey Milk

30:21

and the kind of political activism of the queer movement,

30:24

because there was no roots, no place to go except the bars.

30:27

So the bars were, in essence, the kind of

30:30

breeding grounds of activism,

30:34

in terms of the queer liberation in San Francisco.

30:37

So I was doing both.

30:40

I had to wait to be 21 to go to the lesbian bars

30:42

but I was hanging out with the lesbians there.

30:44

So in a way, I would describe it as

30:47

sort of like Barbara Deming,

30:49

and Mab Seacrest, and Suzanne Pharr.

30:51

I'm a lesbian, but my world is more defined

30:54

than just being a lesbian.

30:56

I care about domestic violence,

30:57

I care about the Klan, I care about.

31:00

And so when you think about SONG,

31:02

when you think about the six individuals

31:05

who ended up forming that organization

31:07

out of the 1993 Creating Change conference,

31:09

where Mab Seacrest gave one of

31:12

the most amazing speeches about why

31:14

as an LGB, I don't know if we had the T at that point,

31:17

we have to care about NAFTA,

31:21

we have to care about the fact

31:23

that President Clinton, at that time,

31:25

because that trade agreement,

31:27

between Mexico and the United States,

31:29

in terms of economically what it was gonna do to people.

31:33

People at Creating Change said,

31:37

well, why are we talking about NAFTA?

31:38

What does that got to do with being gay?

31:40

Well, we did a workshop, Rose.

31:43

It was Suzanne Pharr, what was she doing?

31:45

Domestic violence out of the

31:48

Women's Project in Little Rock, Arkansas.

31:49

I don't know if you know her, but Joan Garner,

31:55

who was working with the Fund for Southern Community,

31:56

who was funding progressive organizing in the South.

31:58

Pat Hussein, out, Black lesbian, organizing

32:02

around issues in the South, in Atlanta,

32:04

not just around being gay.

32:07

Do you know Pat Hussein, or Joan Garner?

32:09

They're both Atlanta.

32:11

-

I don't know Joan Garner.

32:13

Pat Hussein is, like you, is difficult to get a hold of,

32:14

and she was recently interviewed so we've

32:16

arranged to get permission use those interviews,

32:19

but Joan Garner

32:22

-

(rapid talking)

but I think if you keep trying,

32:25

she's in a good place right now.

32:27

We were at the Creating Change conference in Atlanta

32:30

and she's really in a good space, she's doing well.

32:33

So I don't know, when's the last time

32:35

you contacted her, do you know how long ago?

32:37

-

Lorraine contacted...

32:41

Well Lorraine was at that (mumbling),

32:44

a whole bunch of interviews in, I think it was last fall.

32:47

That was when Lorraine talked to her,

32:53

but I don't know that she's actually turned us down.

32:55

-

No I think, in fact, I told her,

32:58

I said Pat, we really should do this.

33:00

I will give you her phone number,

33:02

I'll be more than glad to call her

33:04

and tell her be in direct contact with you.

33:05

I know she'd love to do this with you, Rose.

33:06

-

Well, great, give me her phone number!

33:08

-

(stammering) I'll get my Rolodex.

33:11

In fact, can you hang on one second?

33:14

I need another thing of water

33:15

and I'll get my Rolodex and then

33:17

I'll finish answering that question, okay?

33:18

-

Okay.

33:20

-

Okay, hang on.

33:21

(telephone receiver clicking)

33:22

Okay, I'm back, sorry.

33:24

I think I pulled the wrong one,

33:27

I'll see if I can find that.

33:28

I certainly have her address too, just in case.

33:30

She's also on Facebook too, by the way.

33:33

So what I was saying is that, so this might get to,

33:38

so anyway, (stammering) so for me, personally,

33:41

I don't mind using the term, I'm a lesbian feminist.

33:43

I don't mind it; I wouldn't certainly,

33:45

if I had to qualify it I would say,

33:49

well what am I?

33:50

I'm a southern, Black, lesbian social justice activist.

33:51

But I don't use it like,

34:00

Barbara Smith would say, good friend of mine,

34:01

well I would consider myself a Black, lesbian feminist.

34:05

And that would probably be really true

34:09

and accurate for Barbara.

34:10

I probably would say I'm an out, Black

34:12

lesbian social justice activist.

34:13

But feminism is certainly part of it,

34:16

but I wouldn't tag it that way, does that make sense?

34:17

-

Yeah, I see.

34:20

And I think that can, you put that in there and

34:22

a lot of people have different, seems to me like

34:23

they have different reactions to that label.

34:27

-

Yeah, maybe it's almost by default,

34:31

just by who I am or whatever,

34:34

but some people want to make sure

34:36

that they stretch that, so.

34:38

But you know what I find interesting?

34:41

I have to tell you, maybe it's just,

34:43

remember I said all you know is

34:44

all you know, what's around you at the time?

34:45

In San Francisco, this huge world, besides the stuff

34:47

we were doing in terms of the anti-Vietnam organizing,

34:50

was just how male-dominated that whole thing was,

34:53

because when the draft resistance,

34:55

you know, we had the draft at that time.

34:56

And so we had all these men, no disrespect,

34:59

but you go to meeting after meeting,

35:03

men, men, men, men, men, and I thought

35:05

one of the best meetings, when someone

35:07

really tagged it about what was wrong.

35:09

We were at a meeting down in Palo Alto and they had a

35:11

what was called the resistance,

35:14

which was happening all across the country.

35:16

We're sitting in a meeting, men and women,

35:19

and someone said, well we need people

35:21

to sign up for something, and let's pass that sheet around.

35:22

Well it got to a women, a friend of mine,

35:26

and she looked and said,

35:28

there's nothing but penises on this list.

35:29

(laughing)

35:32

And I thought, that just tagged, that just marked it,

35:32

there's nothing but penises on this list.

35:35

And a lot of women who were so active in that movement,

35:37

not just lesbians, but feminist women

35:41

were saying, well where's our voice, what do we get to do?

35:43

Well, this great group out of Boston,

35:46

was called Resist, R-E-S-I-S-T.

35:49

They wanted to figure out, how could we complement

35:53

the draft resistance movement that was all men

35:56

by people who couldn't be drafted

36:00

because they were either women or too old or whatever,

36:02

and that became a point of where we could feel like

36:05

we could have an equal voice and an

36:08

equal role or equal visibility.

36:10

And remember, one of the first people who signed

36:13

that was Dr. Benjamin Spock, the baby doctor.

36:16

And look what happened, see what I'm saying?

36:20

It was like, oh, finally!

36:22

That all of us could figure out a way

36:24

that we could have a role in terms of

36:26

how we ended that war, protest the war in Vietnam.

36:28

But for women, a lot of women said,

36:32

and also people, Barbara Deming maybe could point you,

36:35

said it's more than just this particular war in Vietnam.

36:37

What's going on here?

36:39

The rapes, the women that were

36:42

in these clubs with all these guys.

36:43

You looked at what was happening

36:45

to the women of Vietnam, with the soldiers,

36:47

that there's more than just the killing

36:50

of men and women, each other,

36:53

talked about all the other surrounding things

36:54

that happen when a war happens in your country.

36:56

And she began to fine tune it,

36:59

started to understand some of the bigger reality.

37:01

People like Suzanne Pharr, who talked about

37:05

that great book she wrote, Homophobia, A Weapon of Sexism.

37:08

You see what I mean, Rose?

37:12

So you've got more of a dissecting and a bigger, bigger

37:13

picture of what the hell was happening.

37:16

And so for WRL, that was, has always been opposed

37:20

at every single war, started by three women.

37:24

Three women!

37:27

-

Who were they?

37:29

-

I knew you were gonna ask me that.

37:31

-

I can look it up, that's okay.

37:33

-

You can look it up, but if you go to War Resisters League,

37:34

what is it warresistersleague.org?

37:38

Three founding women, Jesse Wallace Hughan.

37:40

Anyway, but that was interesting too,

37:44

was that it was three women who started

37:45

that legacy as well.

37:47

-

So do you suppose that Palo Alto meeting,

37:50

one of Lorraine's questions was when

37:52

did you realize you wanted to do work

37:55

on sexual orientation, along with race or class?

37:56

Was that, where was your feminist consciousness raising?

37:59

-

Well actually, I think, what I was gonna say,

38:02

I mean, that was already happening already

38:05

because for the War Resisters League, I think

38:06

was one of the few leagues that actually hired,

38:09

I mean, had women on staff.

38:12

Everything was really male,

38:13

it was like, men, men, men, men, men.

38:13

We even began the movement with gay men, men, men, men, men.

38:16

I mean, there was a interesting parallel,

38:19

we had a movement called the gay movement.

38:20

We had to end up adding the L for lesbian

38:23

but for WRL, all I'm saying,

38:26

that moment in Palo Alto, it was just one of those

38:28

a-ha moments like, yeah, that really said it all.

38:31

But a lot of that feminism was really whirling

38:34

around the WRL because the War Resisters League,

38:37

even when I joined it back in 1969 on staff,

38:40

you had some very strong, powerful women

38:43

in the War Resisters League out of New York.

38:46

I mean, these women, they were my role models of,

38:49

we can be women, we're strong, we're feisty,

38:52

we're started by three women.

38:55

But never a meeting would happen without

38:57

equal voices in the room because,

38:59

you know what the key word was, Rose?

39:01

Intentional.

39:03

That, to me has been, if I've learned

39:05

nothing else over all these years,

39:07

if you're intentional, when SONG started,

39:10

it was intentional to have three Black, three white.

39:12

It was intentional, about intentional intersections

39:16

of why we understand about those isms.

39:18

And I think that where we are now,

39:22

and I look back against the backdrop

39:24

of all the groups we've had and what we've done

39:26

and the journeys we've been on.

39:28

That work, to me, is the essence of what is

39:30

and needs to be right now.

39:33

And so I think one reason why SONG has carried on for 20,

39:36

we had no clue, believe me, Rose,

39:39

when the six of us got together and thought,

39:41

well, what do we want to do?

39:43

Well, it came out of the fact

39:45

that, if you don't mind me sharing this really quick story--

39:46

-

Sure, go ahead.

39:49

-

Are you familiar with the National Gay and Lesbian Task

39:51

Force or the Creating Change conference we do every year?

39:54

-

Yes.

39:56

-

Okay, well in this particular year, in 1993,

39:57

Ivy Young, Black lesbian working with the task force,

40:00

whatever talk that they were gonna do,

40:03

it fell through, and she knew we had

40:05

some good stuff in Durham.

40:07

She called and said, Mandy, we just lost the site,

40:08

can we bring the conference to Durham, North Carolina?

40:11

And she said, that would be good because it's

40:13

the first time it's ever happened in the South.

40:15

Yes, absolutely, we have a great community here, fantastic.

40:18

I had moved here in 1982, this conference

40:22

didn't happen until 1993, so I knew

40:26

what we around us, what we pulled together.

40:28

So here are the phone calls we started getting, Rose,

40:31

from people coming to the conference, and this is the tone,

40:34

(speaks indignantly) well is there an airport down there?

40:36

(Rose laughs heartily) Yeah, Raleigh-Durham is like,

40:39

20 minutes from where we're gonna

40:41

be meeting in Downtown Durham.

40:42

Well why are we holding it in North Carolina?

40:45

Isn't that where Jesse Helms is from?

40:47

We're holding it in North Carolina

40:50

precisely because that's where Jesse Helms is from.

40:51

Well are we gonna be able to get

40:55

regular food, and what are grits anyway?

40:56

Do you see the tone, do you hear what I'm saying?

40:58

This is what we were getting.

41:02

My God, what did you think?

41:03

And then finally, I always throw this in jokingly,

41:04

are the streets paved down there?

41:07

I mean, am I lying?

41:10

The anti-Southern bias was unbelievable.

41:12

And so we thought, well maybe a few of us

41:15

who know each other, let's do a workshop

41:17

on what it means to be living and

41:19

organizing in the South as lesbians.

41:20

So who'd we get?

41:24

Suzanne Pharr (chuckling),

41:25

Mab Seacrest, who's doing anti-Klan organizing,

41:27

Pat Hussein, who's down in Atlanta, Georgia, Joan Garner.

41:31

And then we ended up adding Pam McMichael later,

41:35

who's doing organizing around labor stuff in Kentucky.

41:39

That one workshop and Mab's speech,

41:43

which I think is printed somewhere,

41:45

I know I could find for you and send it to you,

41:47

and (mumbles), who gave a speech about

41:49

why we have to be beyond just queer stuff.

41:52

That was the kernel of the dream of what now

41:55

is still going on with SONG all these years later,

41:58

because we were intentional but because of

42:01

that backlash around being in the South, what?

42:03

-

Cool, I like that, that's a great connection.

42:07

-

That's it, that's--

42:13

-

That's the beginning.

-

And intentional, we were intentional.

42:16

-

So SONG, you get the idea for SONG because there's...

42:22

Because you're doing a workshop on doing activism

42:29

in the South.

42:33

-

In the South, right.

-

Then you've got all these leaders in Southern activism.

42:35

And this Joan Garner, I have not heard her name,

42:38

I need to get in touch with her, I think.

42:41

-

Yeah, do; and I can also, I'll get you her information.

42:43

She's now, she actually ran for (stammering),

42:46

I think she's either on City Council,

42:49

or some kind of elected position down

42:51

where she lives, down in Atlanta.

42:54

She's also on Facebook as well.

42:55

But at the time, I don't know, are you familiar

42:58

with Funds for Southern Communities at all?

43:00

-

No.

43:02

-

They fund activist groups in the South,

43:03

and that's who they are but you

43:06

could google that or whatever.

43:08

But that's where Joan was at the time,

43:11

now she's a elected official in Atlanta.

43:13

But at the time, that's what she was doing.

43:18

So really, I mean the essence was, we knew who was around,

43:20

that people were gonna come to Creating Change,

43:23

and Mab was already tapped to do this keynote.

43:26

And so it was almost a culmination

43:29

of all those little things, but what really

43:31

what made SONG, and the reason

43:34

why we came up with this name

43:36

and the reason why we ended up coming up

43:37

with our original purpose; the thing you have here,

43:40

that was the more recent update

43:43

of the statement of purpose.

43:45

Our original one that came out of our forming

43:47

with Mab and me and Suzanne

43:50

and Joan, and the sixth, Pat, was building

43:52

transformative models of organizing in the South

43:57

that would connect race, class, culture, gender,

44:01

sexual orientation, and I think we added gender identity.

44:06

And I think the key word's transformative

44:11

models of organizing and with the intentional

44:13

thing around the isms was to show

44:16

that it wasn't just about being a Southerner,

44:19

it wasn't just about being gay or Lesbian or whatever.

44:21

And then if you took all that and then

44:25

looked at the world around you

44:27

or what you're organizing around,

44:31

you could see the connections.

44:32

But I will tell you this, Rose,

44:35

I think one of the key things

44:37

that was most important for us

44:38

when we all met, the six of us,

44:40

when we were meeting, we were talking about

44:43

the work we were all doing at that time, and we were talking

44:46

about how do we take each piece

44:50

that we were talking about in what we're doing,

44:52

and trying to figure out how we could then say

44:54

it wasn't just about us, it wasn't just about being Lesbian,

44:58

it wasn't just about being a Southerner.

45:01

What would be the thing that you could

45:04

take anywhere, particularly in the South,

45:05

that would allow us to sit

45:09

at a number of different tables, right?

45:10

What would be the thing or things

45:13

that would allow us to sit at a number of different,

45:14

that were not ours, that were not gay, whatever.

45:16

And one of the first things we decided to do was

45:20

to try to figure out how we could work with

45:22

a non-gay issue that was around economic justice.

45:25

And one of the things that we worked on was the,

45:31

it came a little bit later in the years,

45:33

but it was this thing called the Immigrant Freedom Ride.

45:36

I don't know if you remember that at all,

45:40

but there was an immigrant workers Freedom Ride

45:41

around farm labor, across the country.

45:44

And you know, there's a lot of farm labor

45:46

in the South, as you know.

45:47

And so that was a particular intentional thing

45:50

of hooking up the African-American community

45:53

with our history of our Freedom Rides in the South

45:56

with the farm labor organizing that was Latina, Latino,

45:59

and figuring out how we would work with

46:03

that and not just as a gay thing with SONG.

46:06

So one of the stops was in Durham.

46:09

Another one was the Mount Olive Pickle Boycott,

46:11

out of Mount Olive, North Carolina,

46:14

and SONG was at that table.

46:16

So it was almost like we had to intentionally go

46:19

to someplace else that normally

46:21

we wouldn't be sitting at that table.

46:23

And those relationships, that work,

46:24

really probably for a lot of people said,

46:26

well maybe being gay isn't

46:29

just about being gay, it's about broader issues.

46:30

But also for a lot of groups,

46:34

like the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, you name it.

46:35

There's a lot of gay and lesbians in those organizations

46:38

but they wanted to find out, how can I

46:41

be real with who I am, continue the important work

46:44

that I do, but bring all of who I am

46:47

to the work that I do, bring all of me?

46:51

And I think that has just been such a touchstone for SONG.

46:53

So we work with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

46:57

We are in coalition right now with immigrant organizing

47:01

in Atlanta, Georgia and Alabama.

47:04

And so people see, we show up.

47:07

We're there, we're serious, we mean it.

47:10

We're here because of your issue

47:12

and we all understand about the justice issues

47:13

across all of those different levels

47:16

and SONG will continue to be

47:18

a constant partner in this effort.

47:20

We don't want you to join us,

47:21

we don't want you to be us.

47:24

We want to figure out how we, we, move all of us forward.

47:25

That's it.

47:29

-

That sounds very much like what

47:31

Bernice Reagon Johnson talked about

47:33

with coalition building in the 90's.

47:35

-

Dead on.

47:38

That's the future too, for me, in my opinion.

47:40

-

Well that is a great story.

47:48

And so the longevity, you think,

47:50

has to do with this fact that it's focused on

47:54

being at the table and being there?

47:59

-

Yeah, and there's a quote that I got

48:02

from my good friend, Randy Roma,

48:05

down in Little Rock, Arkansas,

48:07

one of the quotes is, are we about,

48:09

and that's, yeah I think this queer movement

48:11

right now, at this point,

48:12

are we about justice, or are we about just us?

48:13

We are right smack dab in the middle of that,

48:18

as far as I'm concerned, and I am so upset,

48:20

I cannot tell you how upset I am

48:23

with a movement that seems to be,

48:26

I shouldn't say all, I'll qualify it.

48:28

But I've heard more than one time, Rose,

48:31

I've heard this quote.

48:33

I've heard people say, well you know what?

48:34

We're almost getting everything we want.

48:36

You know, Don't Ask Don't Tell, thanks Bill Clinton.

48:38

DOMA, who knows what's going to happen with

48:42

the Supreme decision--

48:44

-

That was another

thanks, Bill Clinton.

48:45

-

Yeah, don't even get me started.

48:47

But the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,

48:50

if we put anywhere near even 1/4

48:53

of the energy and money we would put

48:55

in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

48:57

for jobs, at the behest of marriage.

48:59

Well I've heard people say, I'm good,

49:01

and I've said, well what about

49:05

other issues, what about immigration?

49:05

What?

49:07

No one told me that was a gay issue.

49:08

I mean, that's penalty; no that's not a gay issue.

49:09

You know what I mean?

49:13

It's like people have been so focused

49:15

on just their gay stuff and the minute

49:17

you try and bring something in,

49:19

reproductive rights, that's not a gay,

49:21

in fact, you have a group of gay people

49:22

who are bent on, they're anti-choice.

49:24

And so as we move on, depending on

49:27

what's going with the court case,

49:29

but also what happened before this one?

49:31

The Voting Rights Act, my God!

49:34

We're gonna bring that up again?

49:35

And I've heard people say, well who cares about that?

49:37

We want to talk about marriage.

49:39

It's frustrating, and so SONG and other groups

49:42

are in this moment of asking, I'm looking online,

49:45

Facebook, there's tons of stuff on the Facebook right now.

49:47

Scot Nakagawa has this great piece about marriage equality.

49:52

Yeah, but what about the broader

49:56

big issue of equality and justice for all?

49:57

And Suzanne Pharr and I and a bunch of people

50:00

signed this great thing called Beyond Marriage.

50:04

Why is it that the only way you get access

50:06

to all these things, being married, gay or straight?

50:09

What if you never get married, what happens to us?

50:13

No, you should get this stuff just because.

50:16

So we're gonna have some interesting conversations, I think,

50:19

however the state goes, but it's been out there.

50:22

And it's gonna come to a head sooner or later,

50:25

because it is more than just about the queer thing.

50:28

I'm done with it, I just can't deal with it anymore.

50:31

I'm for marriage equality, great.

50:36

But I'd like to have a job (Rose chuckles).

50:40

Put energy into that, for goodness sake, get on with it.

50:42

-

Yeah well, this project is focused on

50:46

all the kinds of activism that lesbians were doing.

50:49

And what's happening, I've interviewed

50:54

a whole bunch of Gainesville women,

50:56

and we have a whole chapter about the

50:58

Gainesville Women's Health Center,

51:00

which was one of the first.

51:01

And what happened there was,

51:04

well they did a conference on women's health.

51:07

A national conference, in Gainesville,

51:09

about the year after they did their clinic.

51:11

And they had been having struggles with

51:16

lesbians and straight women working together at the clinic.

51:20

So they had a workshop on this

51:24

at their Women's Health Conference,

51:26

and it was so popular they had to have two sessions.

51:29

And then they started keeping meeting,

51:32

and of course by the time this was over,

51:34

they were all gay (raucous laughing).

51:36

-

When did this happen?

51:40

-

This is in the 70's.

51:41

-

Oh, my gosh, really?

51:45

-

Yeah, so working on women's health issues in the 70's

51:47

in Gainesville, Florida and working

51:51

with straight women and all this.

51:52

What would happen, in fact, one of them

51:54

told me, this was interesting.

51:55

I asked her if she identifies as a lesbian feminist,

51:57

she says, you know, I've been living with a woman

52:00

for 20 years, and I still identify

52:03

as a heterosexual who's chosen to be a lesbian.

52:05

(raucous laughing)

52:08

-

Now that's fascinating, isn't that (mumbles).

52:09

Wow, that's interesting.

52:14

-

Because you know, lesbians

had a great time and the straight women

52:17

were jealous, really, I think (chuckles).

52:19

-

I always wondered that too.

52:22

I always wonder, deep down whether or not this sort of,

52:23

I can't believe there's lesbians (mumbles),

52:27

I don't know, I don't want to go too far on this.

52:29

But you know what I mean?

52:31

What is that, what is that kind of a (grumbles).

52:32

But listen, remember the Lavender menace was now.

52:36

I mean, look at that drama

52:38

that went on, are you kidding me?

52:40

-

And that new show, the Makers movie

52:42

that was just on, it's so depressing to me.

52:45

I don't know, I guess I should've felt better about it

52:47

but when it talked about the 1977 World Conference on Women,

52:49

when NOW and Betty Friedan come out in favor of lesbians.

52:52

And the white wing used it against them, in 1977.

52:56

-

Oh wow, what movie are you talking about?

53:00

What's it called, The Makers, what's that?

53:05

-

The Makers, it was on PBS.

53:07

I didn't even know about it, I was interviewing

53:08

Billie Avery who was in, she was with the

53:11

Gainesville Women's Health Service,

53:16

what I was interviewing her about,

53:17

and she was telling me about that movie,

53:20

which is really a good movie, it's three hours long.

53:21

I mean, I could not watch it all at one time.

53:23

But it's a history of the Women's Movement,

53:25

on PBS, I'm sure you can get it somewhere.

53:27

-

I'll have to look it up.

53:30

-

Yeah I think it's called Makers.

53:31

-

Is it called M-A-K-E-R, The Makers?

53:33

-

The Makers, I believe that's it.

53:35

Wait a minute, let me look at the...

53:37

-

Yeah, please do, I'll google that.

53:39

-

It goes over a lot of that anti...

53:47

That anti-women's stuff.

53:52

(mumbling)

53:54

Oh, there it is Makers, just Makers.

54:07

It came on February 26,

54:08

-

Okay great, I just thought I'd write it down.

54:10

-

It's (mumbles) about the history.

54:13

It's a good show but whoa, reel in some of that

54:15

the bad stuff, like the ERA not passing and all.

54:19

-

Oh, yeah.

54:22

Can I ask you a real quick question?

54:25

It's still relevant with this interview.

54:26

I am struck, and maybe it's just me,

54:29

I am so struck right now over,

54:32

well remember how Women's Studies programs

54:35

started at college campuses, remember how,

54:39

now we have Women and Gender studies,

54:41

but I was thinking about the Women's Studies programs

54:43

going on, and now here at Duke, we have a great women's,

54:46

they're doing a three-part series on Women's feminist stuff.

54:52

And we're in these classrooms, Rose,

54:55

the kids know all about the reading of these people,

54:58

they have not bumped into the real, live people

55:01

that are living right here in Durham, so.

55:03

Kathy Rudy, who's a professor, said

55:06

what would be good, and we're partnering

55:07

with the Sallie Bingham Center,

55:09

what we need to do is,

55:11

you can read the book but why don't

55:12

you bring the people in who you're reading about,

55:13

because they're right here?

55:16

I mean, it's not intellectual, it's real life.

55:17

So I guess what I'm saying is that when people study,

55:20

when they study Women's Studies,

55:25

and they're going back to the 1970s, we're all still around.

55:27

(laughing)

55:30

So Sally Bingham, last year had this great

55:32

symposium, and she brought back women

55:34

who were active then and now

55:36

from the 70's, so they could look at us and say,

55:39

we're here, ask us what you want to know.

55:41

I mean, it's not like reading some intellectual kind of,

55:44

you know what I mean?

55:47

There's a difference between reading it

55:49

and seeing it and hearing it

55:51

from the people who were actually there.

55:52

-

Gainesville's University of Florida

55:55

has been doing a series called

55:56

Radical Women of Gainesville.

55:58

And they do these little panels where they bring

56:01

these people, Corky Culver's the person

56:03

that was my connection in Gainesville.

56:05

She was on one of these panels

56:07

and they video taped them.

56:08

But they don't have a huge crowd come to them,

56:10

but at least there are these women talking about,

56:13

and they're mostly not lesbian,

56:15

I think Corky's usually the one

56:16

that talks about that.

56:18

But they were women who were radicals,

56:21

who are still radical feminists.

56:23

-

Exactly, exactly, and I was gonna say to you,

56:26

what I found fascinating is that when I think about it,

56:28

and when the 70's, I mean that's a huge

56:31

pool of people, so we're all still around.

56:34

And in fact, now that we're doing this big anniversary

56:35

at the March on Washington, when we screen the film,

56:38

we always ask people who were there,

56:41

come and talk about what it was like, you were there,

56:44

and share what that's like.

56:46

And then all of us will,

56:49

because we have set the dates,

56:50

it's gonna be what, the 24th through the 28th of August.

56:51

Back in DC, the King Center's gonna do

56:54

this big 50th anniversary thing.

56:56

But they're focused on King, we'll be focused on Bayard

56:58

and all the other whatever.

57:01

But when you have living history right in front of you

57:03

and you're not aware of it or you're not accessing it,

57:05

because these students, they're at Duke,

57:09

they never venture off that damn campus.

57:11

And you're right in the heart of Durham with Duke.

57:13

Some of the major Civil Rights stuff

57:16

that happened in this community;

57:18

feminist stuff that happened in this community;

57:20

lesbian feminist stuff is two blocks away.

57:21

And they're not moving from that campus

57:24

so we have to almost bring it to them.

57:26

But with the series that Sallie Bingham is doing

57:29

and Kathy Rudy's class, it's really

57:31

opening up a lot of doors, it's just wonderful.

57:34

I see the young women and some of them said,

57:36

no we don't use the word feminist anymore,

57:40

everyone knows we just are (chuckles).

57:41

And when you can say you just are,

57:45

please remember those came before you

57:46

so you can just say, we just are.

57:48

-

Wow, I think we might have covered,

57:56

oh, did you know, one of Lorraine's questions,

57:58

did you know any of those SONG founders before?

58:01

You must've known Mab because she was--

58:04

-

Oh, knew them all, oh yeah, I knew them all.

58:07

And that was the reason why we were able

58:09

to bring the people together, that was it.

58:11

(stammering)

58:13

Yeah, the reason why we brought together

58:15

the people we did, because we knew each other.

58:17

And so we all were working in the South,

58:19

and when this kept on coming up

58:21

about this anti-Southern bias stuff,

58:23

and plus because we also wanted to,

58:24

probably for the first time if I remember,

58:27

interject into the usual LGBT stuff

58:29

around progressive work, issues, not just gay.

58:33

Yeah, so we already knew each other.

58:42

Then the question was, how do we go

58:43

from knowing each other to forming this thing called SONG?

58:45

And that came out of a five day retreat,

58:48

when we met, talked, what we wanna do,

58:50

what was gonna be the issue.

58:53

I must say probably two critical points in our growth,

58:55

is I'll use that term, and this

58:59

might've happened without it as well;

59:01

remember, we were three Black women, three white women

59:03

in the South, but at one point we said,

59:05

this is not the South anymore.

59:08

This is not the South, we're not reflecting

59:09

the real South in which we live.

59:11

It's not just Black, white anymore and it's not just women.

59:13

So we made a critical decision to, oh, also

59:16

remember intentionality of three Black, three white?

59:21

The other intentionality was co-directorships.

59:24

All we have are co-directorships, not just one.

59:26

So we had Pat Hussein living in Atlanta as a co-director

59:29

and Pam McMichael, white lesbian living in Kentucky.

59:34

So when we decided to shift up the dynamic,

59:37

we hired a Black, gay man,

59:40

Craig Washington in Atlanta, who took over

59:42

for Pat and Pam in Kentucky.

59:44

But then we said we also have to start looking for

59:47

non-Black, non-white people.

59:49

And at one point, we decided,

59:54

it's time for us to let this go.

59:56

Who can we else get in, keep the SONG thing going,

59:58

but who else can we get in?

1:00:01

And because the current co-director is Paulina Hernandez,

1:00:02

was at Highlander where Suzanne was the executive director

1:00:07

for five years, as was Caitlin Breedlove.

1:00:11

They became the new directors.

1:00:14

And so Suzanne's still in there, we're in the mix,

1:00:16

but you see what I'm saying, Rose?

1:00:19

I mean that intentionality, being very careful,

1:00:21

being very committed, being very serious

1:00:23

about the intentionality.

1:00:26

And I think another reason why the longevity factor,

1:00:27

we have so many (papers tearing)

1:00:31

we partner with in the South.

1:00:32

And I think the South is much more conducive to

1:00:35

how can we cooperate, not compete?

1:00:37

I have been organizing for so long

1:00:41

where you go, no we don't work with them,

1:00:43

no you can't look at our list, no you don't,

1:00:45

everything's always being so, we don't trust you.

1:00:47

Here it's like, what can we do together?

1:00:50

And I think that's another part of why the longevity.

1:00:52

We're just like, how can we be a part of?

1:00:55

I would say that.

1:00:58

-

That reminds me of, I've interviewed some people

1:01:01

about the National Lesbian Conference in '91

1:01:04

that was such a disaster (laughing).

1:01:06

-

Oh, my God who could ever forget that conference?

1:01:09

Oh, my lordy (laughing).

1:01:12

Were you there?

1:01:14

-

No, a friend of mine has the archives from it.

1:01:16

She was local, it was Gayle (mumbles),

1:01:23

she was the local disability person.

1:01:26

And when they packed up that thing

1:01:28

they left the office just full

1:01:30

of stuff she had to pack up, she didn't want to

1:01:32

throw it away.

1:01:36

-

What are they doing with it?

That should be archived, is it not being archived someplace?

1:01:38

-

Well, it is now, when I met with her

1:01:40

she was going through it and figuring out what to keep,

1:01:42

and then she will send it to Duke, so.

1:01:45

-

All right, good, good, good.

1:01:47

All of my stuff's there too because I've got,

1:01:49

listen, being in the heart of that,

1:01:51

all my stuff over there too.

1:01:52

But I have to tell you, despite the drama over that thing,

1:01:54

that was one of those moments I would call a moment,

1:01:56

was that lesbian conference.

1:01:58

Anyway, I'm sorry, go ahead.

1:02:01

-

Well, you know, you're talking about the longevity of SONG

1:02:03

and being intentional, and the NLC was doing that,

1:02:06

was trying really hard to be intentional

1:02:13

around a lot of things, but it just

1:02:15

backfired all over the place.

1:02:17

-

Well, if you want my two cents,

1:02:19

having been in the mix of all that, no disrespect.

1:02:21

(stammering)

1:02:24

This might be true for you,

1:02:27

sometimes things happen at the moment

1:02:28

but it takes a few years later to figure out

1:02:30

and go, oh, so that's what that was all about.

1:02:33

Well, that's what I would say

1:02:34

about the National Lesbian Conference.

1:02:35

From the very beginning and the perception

1:02:36

of the concept of it, to where we ended up

1:02:38

doing it in Atlanta.

1:02:41

This is me, and I'm gonna tell you straight from my heart,

1:02:44

I thought there was some lesbians

1:02:48

who were being so intentionally disruptive.

1:02:49

And even to this day, I have gone on my trips

1:02:54

and I see people that, I don't know how to describe this,

1:02:56

I don't know what it is.

1:02:59

It's almost like NOW, what is this negative thing

1:03:00

that happens with NOW?

1:03:02

There's so much drama in there,

1:03:04

and it's almost like, someone said maybe because as women

1:03:05

that we have been so traumatized ourself

1:03:09

that sometimes we don't know how to shut that off.

1:03:12

So we end up doing the exact same thing

1:03:15

to other people that's happened to us.

1:03:18

It's like a mother who batters,

1:03:19

someone who is a victim of battering,

1:03:24

but the person who's battering her,

1:03:27

had that happen to her.

1:03:28

And with NOW, I finally had to just kind of withdraw.

1:03:31

Deep battles over who's going to be the president,

1:03:34

who's going to be the vice president,

1:03:36

who's going to be these teams?

1:03:37

And you've been to a NOW national conference

1:03:39

lately, or have you been?

1:03:43

-

I have never had a good feeling about NOW, I don't know.

1:03:44

-

But I think, and part of that might be

1:03:48

I don't know if it's just me, and I'm telling you,

1:03:50

a lot of that played out against

1:03:52

the National Lesbian Conference.

1:03:54

We'd have these meetings, and there'd be one or two lesbians

1:03:55

who just, it seemed like their purpose in life

1:03:58

was just to be as disruptive as they could be.

1:04:00

And because there was (mumbles)

1:04:03

and everyone has a right to say, blah, blah, blah.

1:04:04

We're having something on a main stage,

1:04:07

a woman comes up out of nowhere, steps up

1:04:10

and says, we need to stop everything right now

1:04:12

because I just heard blah-de-blah, blah.

1:04:14

And how we got through it, I don't know.

1:04:16

And I don't know, I don't know how else to explain it

1:04:20

but I felt that there was almost a very,

1:04:26

a pattern of what can I do to mess this up?

1:04:30

I'm not trying to be not fair,

1:04:33

but I'm also saying, I've sat in too many meetings.

1:04:35

-

Under the guise of political correctness.

1:04:39

-

Go ahead.

1:04:42

-

Under the guise of political correctness,

1:04:43

this all comes--

1:04:45

-

That's it, exactly.

1:04:47

And because everyone bought into that,

1:04:48

everyone stopped everything (mumbles).

1:04:51

And finally someone said, you know what?

1:04:53

Enough.

1:04:55

And then this is what we ended up saying,

1:04:56

maybe people need to make a decision at this point,

1:04:58

if you decide you don't get along in this process,

1:05:00

the question you have to ask yourself,

1:05:03

do I remove myself, or do I continue to be

1:05:05

something that's gonna hold something up,

1:05:07

or do we figure out at some point,

1:05:09

consensus doesn't work anymore, and you move on?

1:05:11

-

I've seen that a couple of different...

1:05:18

Well, organizations.

1:05:22

One is the Atlanta Women's Feminist Chorus,

1:05:23

or Feminist Women's Chorus.

1:05:27

I've transcribed an interview with some of those people,

1:05:29

and they were talking about toward the end

1:05:33

why it didn't last, this no longer really exist,

1:05:35

and it ended in the 90's,

1:05:39

was that there was a toxic group

1:05:42

who finally had to (mumbles).

1:05:45

And similarly, at Woman Rights, which is

1:05:49

the organization that's working

1:05:50

to put this project together.

1:05:51

You know about Woman Rights, don't you?

1:05:54

-

Oh, yeah.

1:05:55

In fact, I want to go at some point in my life.

1:05:56

I might go next year when I have my year off.

1:05:58

I've never been able to get to it.

1:06:00

-

Yeah, I hope you do.

1:06:01

We will make it happen if you want to come.

1:06:03

-

Oh, definitely, definitely would like to do it.

1:06:06

Go ahead.

1:06:08

-

Back in the day, I think this happened in the 80's,

1:06:09

I only started attending in the 90s,

1:06:11

but there were these sort of tales?

1:06:13

We're at a point right now where the biggest issue is

1:06:17

that we don't have enough young people coming.

1:06:20

But there used to be all these issues

1:06:24

that would come up, and one that was told a lot

1:06:26

had to do with, about anti-racism.

1:06:32

We also don't have enough Black people come,

1:06:35

and from the beginning that's been a problem.

1:06:38

Here we are, so close to Atlanta

1:06:41

and there might be three Black women

1:06:43

at the whole conference, and there might be 80 people.

1:06:45

But there was people who would make

1:06:48

these little dramas around, somebody

1:06:52

gets up and gives a reading

1:06:53

and they decide that it's racist somehow or other,

1:06:56

and they make a fuss, and so

1:06:59

then we have all this processing.

1:07:03

-

I always wondered, so how did (stammering)

1:07:07

what happened, did the group shut down, or what happened?

1:07:09

-

Well, this is our 35th Woman Rights.

1:07:13

We have a never missed a year since 1978.

1:07:16

-

Wow, so do you know where

1:07:18

it's gonna be in 2014 at this point?

1:07:20

-

It's always the same place,

1:07:21

and I attribute that location to our longevity.

1:07:23

We never have to look for a place.

1:07:26

-

Oh, good, good, good, oh yeah.

1:07:28

-

It's in (mumbles) State Park,

1:07:31

which is about an hour south of Atlanta,

1:07:34

actually less than an hour, but.

1:07:37

How did we get onto that?

1:07:41

I think what happens is that time passes,

1:07:42

and then the people who were there

1:07:45

don't wanna do it again.

1:07:47

They don't want to have to deal with that again,

1:07:51

and maybe people go away,

1:07:52

like, Minnie Bruce Pratt doesn't come anymore.

1:07:55

-

I was gonna say, and this is what I wonder too, Rose,

1:07:58

and maybe this is one of those interesting

1:08:00

how do you make lemonade out of lemons?

1:08:02

I think another thing I've realized,

1:08:04

and I think a lot of people do,

1:08:07

there's this great quote, I don't organize,

1:08:09

if there's a need, fill it.

1:08:10

And this is happening on a lot of campuses right now

1:08:12

where you have gay student groups,

1:08:16

but you have people of color within those groups who say,

1:08:17

but I don't feel comfortable,

1:08:20

and they want to start a people of color group

1:08:22

and then they say, don't do that,

1:08:24

why do we have to be separate?

1:08:25

Well that's what's happening with Prides.

1:08:27

I mean, in a weird way, this kind of

1:08:29

gets to a bigger piece of it,

1:08:32

but you always had Prides, well the Prides

1:08:33

are predominantly white, no big whoop, that's okay.

1:08:35

But when we wanted to start doing Black pride,

1:08:38

to complement, not compete, the first reaction we got,

1:08:41

this was in DC, why do you need

1:08:44

a Black pride, we already have pride?

1:08:46

They missed the point.

1:08:48

The point was, we all want to be a part of your pride,

1:08:50

but we want to have something

1:08:52

that celebrates, honors, and acknowledges

1:08:54

the Blackness of who we are.

1:08:56

You could say the same about Latina, Latino,

1:08:58

naming whatever it is, but if you want to put it

1:08:59

in either or, and you don't put an and in there,

1:09:02

and you don't find some way in which

1:09:05

you can co-exist, that's when you get people

1:09:08

going against each other.

1:09:09

And then here's the real reality,

1:09:10

the demographics of this country are shifting dramatically.

1:09:12

California is now majority people of color.

1:09:16

Why am I going to a meeting, it's a gay meeting,

1:09:19

there's no people of color in that meeting?

1:09:21

See what I'm saying?

1:09:23

And now women are numerical majority in this country.

1:09:24

So at some point, I think each person

1:09:28

has to ask themselves, am I gonna sit here

1:09:29

and be dramatized or traumatized,

1:09:31

and I don't like it, I'll go start something else.

1:09:34

What's the point?

1:09:37

And to me, the more we start, some things last, some don't,

1:09:39

but what scares me, we're losing good people.

1:09:41

We're losing talented people because

1:09:43

they just can't deal with the drama anymore.

1:09:45

And where do they go?

1:09:48

So you try to create something

1:09:49

where it's a space for them,

1:09:50

whether it's one or two or something.

1:09:51

I just kind of think we have to figure out some way

1:09:53

in which you don't lose wonderful people.

1:09:54

But again, the intentionality;

1:09:57

for me, this would be my opinion,

1:10:00

if you start anything new at this point,

1:10:02

how can you start without starting automatically

1:10:03

with the diversity of what you'd like to get?

1:10:06

That was (mumbles), we didn't want

1:10:08

to start with all Black or all white.

1:10:10

These orgs do that and they say, well who's missing?

1:10:12

Oh, let's go ask them.

1:10:14

Well you've already started your group already.

1:10:15

Start from the get with what you want it to be,

1:10:17

what you want it to look like.

1:10:20

Then you might have a lot more success

1:10:21

in terms of where it could go.

1:10:23

And that's just, to me, practical,

1:10:26

from this point forward, whenever, if you're serious.

1:10:29

And then there's other times when

1:10:32

you need to be just by yourself, what's wrong with that?

1:10:33

It's complex, but I think if we're honest

1:10:37

and serious about trying to get all of us moving,

1:10:40

we, not the I, not my, but we,

1:10:42

how do we have a serious, honest conversation about how?

1:10:45

Or if you find out it ain't gonna work, then be honest about

1:10:49

that and get on with it, move on and not hold up stuff.

1:10:52

But I mean, I think we're in an amazing moment.

1:10:56

I think we are truly, this country, this world;

1:10:59

if anyone thought, on August 28th, 1963,

1:11:02

standing on that hot Lincoln Memorial and on the mall,

1:11:06

that 50 years later we would have a Black man,

1:11:10

who's the son of an interracial marriage,

1:11:13

who supports LGBT rights, in that White House,

1:11:15

people would say that it's not possible, it's not possible.

1:11:19

And look what's happening to Supreme Court,

1:11:23

it's just unbelievable, but yet we are in a moment.

1:11:25

I get chills about it, seriously.

1:11:30

So where do we go?

1:11:32

(chuckles)

1:11:35

-

Okay, this is good.

1:11:38

This is a lot of really good stuff here.

1:11:40

I want to sit down and transcribe it

1:11:42

and start editing and shaping it some.

1:11:45

I have got Suzanne Pharr lined up for Thursday this week.

1:11:49

And what I would like to do is go ahead and share

1:11:54

my transcript of this with her, as well as you,

1:11:58

before you have had a chance to respond, is that okay?

1:12:02

-

No, no, no problem, go ahead.

1:12:06

Knock yourself out, not a problem.

1:12:07

-

(laughs) okay, I mean we are,

1:12:10

the deadline we're looking at is to send this (mumbles)

1:12:12

everything we have, in May, and have them tell us.

1:12:16

And it's way more than one issue,

1:12:19

what we have already is enough for a double issue.

1:12:21

But they have to tell us if they'll

1:12:25

let us have a double issue.

1:12:28

So we're trying to get as much good stuff

1:12:30

as we can ready to send in May.

1:12:32

Our final deadline is November,

1:12:34

but until we know whether we're gonna do

1:12:36

one issue or a double issue,

1:12:38

we don't know what we would have to cut,

1:12:41

how long the interviews can be.

1:12:45

We're shooting for 1500 words

1:12:46

but they're tending to be 3000 words.

1:12:48

This interview's probably 10000 words right now,

1:12:51

but of course there's a lot,

1:12:56

like all my stuff that can go out, but.

1:12:57

So it won't be a literal transcript

1:13:00

like somebody who's, like a court reporter would do.

1:13:03

It'll be what I think we can use,

1:13:08

it'll be what I think we can use,

1:13:09

and it'll be edited and I'll have questions for you in it.

1:13:11

-

Great.

1:13:16

-

Okay.

1:13:17

-

Okay, well what I'll do is, I'm gonna,

1:13:18

when I get off this call, I'll forward you my bio,

1:13:23

I'll find Joan's email and Pat,

1:13:25

but they're both on Facebook as well.

1:13:29

And also their phone numbers and email,

1:13:31

so that should help you.

1:13:33

And then I'm in for the rest of the week,

1:13:35

so if anything else comes up, let me know.

1:13:36

But I really appreciate this call,

1:13:38

because I have to tell you, Rose,

1:13:41

one thing about interviews, and this might be true for you

1:13:42

(mumbles) but I'm so busy doing it,

1:13:46

I don't take time to stop and think about,

1:13:47

well what's it all meant?

1:13:49

So until people ask me these questions,

1:13:51

that's what I love with the questions

1:13:52

Lorraine had, and yours.

1:13:54

(stammering)

1:13:56

that's why interviewing and keeping record is so important.

1:13:57

And I realize the importance of that.

1:14:01

So thank you, you've got me jazzed now,

1:14:03

I'm up for the rest of the day now.

1:14:05

(laughing)

1:14:07

Anything else, are we good?

1:14:08

-

I think we're good, knock on wood (rhythmic knocks).

1:14:12

-

All right, thank you.

1:14:14

-

Okay, talk to you later.

1:14:16

-

Wait, and hopefully, oh and are the dates

1:14:17

always the same every year for Woman Rights (stammering)?

1:14:18

-

They aren't; we do meet twice a year now,

1:14:20

in May and then again in October.

1:14:23

And it's roughly, this year we're meeting kind of early,

1:14:27

May 12th through 19 is the whole conference,

1:14:30

pre-conference starts May 12th

1:14:32

because there's something called Mondo Homo in Atlanta.

1:14:34

We used to meet close to Memorial Day weekend,

1:14:37

it turns out that's conflicting with Mondo Homo

1:14:40

and we think that's why we're not getting young people.

1:14:43

-

Oh, I see, okay, all right.

1:14:46

Well for next year, I definitely,

1:14:47

like I said, next year, in fact,

1:14:49

one thing nice about taking a year off,

1:14:51

I get to do all the things I've never

1:14:52

been able to get to, like Michigan, Woman Rights.

1:14:52

And so I'll check it out, and then I'll be able to

1:14:56

kind of put it on my calendar

1:14:58

because I can go where I want,

1:15:00

when I want, which is nice for a change.

1:15:01

-

Actually, I have the May 2014 dates

1:15:03

because we were able to get those, I'll send those dates.

1:15:05

-

Oh, really, for next year?

1:15:10

So when is it, May what?

1:15:12

-

Oh, I have to look it up.

1:15:15

-

All right, well if you find it, either forward it

1:15:17

or whatever, because I'm starting to put

1:15:18

my 2014 calendar together now,

1:15:20

and so there's certain key things.

1:15:24

I wanna keep a lot of dates open

1:15:25

because that's the whole point,

1:15:26

don't have any things on the calendar.

1:15:27

But I definitely want to get to Woman Rights,

1:15:29

never done that, and I told Lorraine I would love to

1:15:31

and some other people, and Michigan I think, maybe.

1:15:33

Once in my life, at least once, I've never been there

1:15:36

and I wanna--

1:15:38

-

Me either!

Yeah, I want to go to Michigan too.

1:15:39

-

Anyway, okay, all right well, let me get

1:15:42

this other stuff down, I'll get it to you and

1:15:44

thank you, thank you, thank you, Rose,

1:15:45

I appreciate this.

1:15:47

-

Thank you too, great.

1:15:47

-

All right, bye bye.

1:15:49

-

All right, bye bye.

Carter, Mandy - interviewed by Rose Norman

Transcript

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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