So, good morning, my name is Laura Micham, I’m the director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, and the curator of Gender and Sexuality history collections in the Rubenstein Library. I welcome you to Duke, and to the library, and to the Bingham Center. I want to offer special welcome
To the Griot and Gray Owl participants today, but also our many wonderful Duke and Durham and Triangle Community members, and others who have joined us today. I am so excited that we’re all here together to spend some time with Mandy Carter in this wonderful exhibit, Mandy Carter, scientist of activism,
Which was curated with intention by Duke PhD student Kamal Pope. And you can see that it takes up this entire space, which we love, this space of queer resilience, of queer joy. And we will spend about 30 minutes in this space with Mandy herself giving us a tour,
And then we will go down the hall to the Holstein Room and have some time for reflection, for arts and crafts, if you feel doing that, for writing, and then we will have lunch. Sound good. With no further ado, I welcome back into this space Mandy Carter.
Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Humbled and honored. I always start out by Mandy Carter, she, her, hers, born November 2nd, 1948, part of the baby boomer generation. What I’m excited about, actually, I think this is your inaugural, as I understand that, right? In one way, the idea that this came from,
We have an organization called Southerners on New Ground, SONG, some of you’ve heard about it or not, it came out of the idea, someone said, what if, what if we looked about organizing in the South that would connect race, class, culture, gender, sexual orientation, food justice, language justice,
And you keep on adding more as the years go by. Well, this is our 30th anniversary year. But I wanna back up a little bit, and I just wanna say also thank you to Laura, to Sallie Bingham, but also a good friend Jeanette Stokes, who actually underwrote the ability to do this.
I would say, in terms of what we’re gonna do today, I would also like to put out an invitation. This is 2023, next year is 2024, It’s the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, when people went down to Mississippi, had to figure about the right to vote, and remember, women never had it,
And so now we’re in this new generation, the possibilities are extremely wonderful. And I also say, if you get pushback, it probably means you’re making a difference. So I wanna start really simply, and I guess when we get back in there, we don’t have time to get all your names and pronouns,
We’ll get that later. But I start here, life happens, our mother didn’t know where she was born, had me, Ronnie and sister Dolores, I’m the youngest, and she put us into a foster home, not a foster home, a home for unwanted babies in Albany.
Anyone from New York, New York State? Albany, New York. Went from the home for unwanted babies, got to the Albany Children’s Home, 140, in Schenectady, in Albany, that is now Russell Sage College. The home got sold, so then we ended up with a Black farm family down in Chatham Center, New York.
At the age of 12 I got my period, she was worried about me having babies, and sent me off to Schenectady Children’s Home. I have to tell you, the thing that really was a game changer for me, and this will be one of the things on which you’re gonna write about it,
What was it that got me in the direction of wanting to do this kind of organizing? Not just me, generationally. We had a young white staffer from an organization called the American Friend Service Committee, Quakers, kind of familiar with it or not, right? And this is like 1963, ’64, ’65.
He was saying that the Quakers believe in full equality and justice for all. And then he said this thing I didn’t quite get at the time, the power of one, all right?. Then he said, “We have a high school work camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania,
Who would like to go?” game changer. Because when I went at the age of 17, they had resource people coming in, and it was this white, young folk singing couple called Guy and Candy Kerowin. Have people heard of the Highlander Center? Maybe not. Yeah. Have you heard about Rosa Parks?
Have you heard about Dr. King? Well, the Highlander Center was started many, many years ago in like 1923 or so, to intentionally bring Black folk and white folk together to strategize, communicate, organize. And out of that Candy Kerowin, I was so impressed, as a white couple, they were taking a tape recorder
And documenting the freedom songs and the freedom meeting in the South. One of the groups was called Freedom Singers, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Sweet Honey in the Rock. And I also was a cheerleader, just a Schenectady. I was a Mount Pleasant High School cheerleader, but I only say that because,
Where does this start for each one of you? Like, why are y’all here? Why are you on your journey? So this display case is just the beginning, number one. I think there’s terms for all these, it’s like these, what do you call, oh, foundations of Carter’s activism,
But you could put your name in there as well, all right? See it later. Can we move to the next? Number two. One of the things that I must say, has anyone ever been to the march on Washington at all, or familiar with the August 28th, ’63 march?
You know, they had just had the 60th anniversary. Well, one of the things that happened, in addition to finding out about what was happening around the issue of non-violence, and what’s happening down in the South, King, when he organized the August 28th, 1963 March, one of his main strategists was Bayard Rustin.
Bayard Rustin, Black, gay, came from a single mom, but also there was an issue about anyone knowing if Bayard was gay, was that gonna be an issue or not? But because of all the conversations that happened, in the long run, it turned out that A. Philip Randolph had no problems with that issue.
You know the film “Rustin”‘s out there now? Has anyone seen it yet? Okay. Do yourself a favor. But I would say that, I was like 14 when that march happened, I thought, what march are you talking about? But it turned out that when we decided to start doing Southerners on New Ground,
Another organization called the National Black Justice Coalition, we wanted to know, what does it mean if you’re gonna bring all of who you are, Black, woman, man, however you wanna identify, and as a Black lesbian, well, when they decided to have the 50th anniversary of the march,
Bayard Rustin has a partner, Walter Naegle. Walter Naegle was Bayard’s last partner. And we decided for the 50th anniversary, what could we do to bring all the issues together and the peoples and the names? So we had the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in Washington, DC,
And since that time, we decided to figure out, we could form something called the Bayard Rustin Commemorative Alliance, not just to honor Bayard, but all that Bayard was. But also, think about people like Audre Lorde, when they had that march for the 20th anniversary march, real quick, Audrey Lorde was invited to speak.
Pushback, unbelievable. No, we’re not gonna have no black lesbian speaking up on… Yeah, well she did. And that was 40 years ago, when you think about it. And then you think about “power of one”, I have to make these words matter, and Audrey Lorde was part of that.
So this is just really a… Now, with all due respect, you might’ve heard someone just recently say, “Where are the women?,” and so you see all these men, with all due respect, but we have this conversation about rallying the people, but how do you make sure, when you start something,
You’re excited about it, how do you make sure everyone is involved and included if they can be? And we just did the 60th anniversary of the march, and for the first time, they had a trans person speaking out on that stage, in addition to all the other things.
Anyone in the sororities and fraternities? AKA, Deltas? Yeah, a lot. But that was part of what that was, a lot of young kids too. So this is about rallying the people. Next. You can come back on your own time, I wanna make sure I keep on time with this.
Is this okay, Is this working all right? Great. So here we have, this is what I love, I love dates. And one of the things that happened, and by the way, after I left the home, you age out at 18, so I ended up going down to New York City,
And I just happened to come across this place that was called the League for Spiritual Discovery, LSD. It was run by who? Timothy Leary. Believe it. At the end of the summer, you might remember the Summer of Love, ’67, everyone was going to San Francisco.
So three of us went, stuck our finger out, and we said, “We wanna go to San Francisco.” And in San Francisco, they had a thing called the Haight-Ashbury switchboard, and they had a Rolodex, if you went into the office, they’d put you up for a few days, if ever.
So the card that they picked for me, Natalia and Toshi, was Vincent O’Connor with the Catholic Peace Fellowship, I couldn’t believe it. So I got to stay with him, and when I got to stay with him, they were organizing one of the first non-violent CD actions against the war in Vietnam.
So I ended up going down to Carmel Valley, they were talking about, well, we need some people willing to get arrested, I had no parents, I had no worried about that, so I did. So I got arrested, spent time in Santa Rita Prison Farm, this is just one of the examples,
But the other part that we decided was figuring out, in addition to non-violent CD, how were there other ways that we could find some way to put ourselves into a situation to underscore the importance? If you remember, Patrick Kelly was doing a lot of work around Greenham Common,
Stopping the Euro missiles going over to Europe. And then we said, but wait a minute, where are they coming from? Right here, Seneca, New York. So we decided with the War Resistors League, I think with a couple of other groups, we organized a Women’s Peace Walk, literally from the downtown Durham Library
To the Seneca Women’s Peace encampment up in Seneca, New York, it took us a month. So it was called the Women’s Peace Walk, what you need to work, no, Women’s Peace Walk to Women’s Peace Camp. My good friend Duffy Bound, we walked 40 miles,
We went, how many days, 30 days, but one other note, we rode every mile of that in advance, every gas station, every phone booth, every place where maybe we could stay. It took us 30 days to get there, we got to the Women’s Peace Encampment, and got back in one day.
But that was an amazing journey, who we talked to, what it meant. Power of one, figuring out how you can make a difference. Thank you, Duff. Next. Now, are people familiar with all this pride, y’all, some of this, I mean, I don’t, I’m getting used to it,
But this is also gonna go in, there’s a woman named, there’s an office of LGBT Gender Studies, that’s going to be put in that office, it’s a habit. What I love is that the original flag was going to be seven, they ended up with five,
And then you get more of these added on, I think in symbolism, and what you look at, it really makes a difference, is a powerful image. And then next we have, what I would say, probably the foundations of what I would call Southerners on New Ground. Does anyone remember the name Harvey Gantt?
Yep. Right? Jesse Helms, kind of. Yep. Remember, Jesse Helms in 1990 took on Harvey Gantt, probably one of the most dynamic, unbelievable races that ever happened. Well, it turned out that when that race was going on, one of the things that Southerners on New Ground,
When we started it, it’s the 30th anniversary now, we said that we’re about building transformative models in the South that connect race, class, bum, bum, bum, but we said, but how can we even figure out how we could actually put that in practice? Well, it turned out that Mount Olive, pickle company,
What do they grow? Cucumbers. There was a man who slices like he left them out there, and it turned out that that was one of the most horrific things that could happen to someone working in those fields. So we had a thing with the Inmaculata Catholic church, and they were organizing a meeting,
How can we figure out how we, as consumers, as advocates can be a part of that? So they organized a walk from Mount Olive Pickle Company all the way to Raleigh, the state capital. So one of the other co-founders, Mab Segrest and I joined it, and what was so remarkable is
That every meeting was in Spanish, and for the first time in my life, I had to put the headsets on, and I think, this is what it means to have to know what your culture is, and then how do we make sure that gets transmitted? It took five years, they got a union.
So this is sort of the, no, with all due respect, this is like one of the symbols of SONG, it’s like a heart kind of thing. But one of the other co-founders of Southerners on New Ground is a woman called Suzanne Pharr. “Homophobia: a Weapon of Sexism.”
Mab Segrest is also one of the women who, which is written as well, Pam McMichael, in fact, we’re having a meeting out at Franklinton Center, but also talking about Bayard Rustin, walks, boycotts, getting people engaged, language justice. So this really ended up probably being a really profound kind of a, not just LGBTQ,
But equality and justice for all. So that’s that. Next. Now, this is the case, but this is the living room, we wanna have people come here and meet around, and you do some yak yak, if ever you’re around, but that’s part of what this is about, and some of the questions on there
Are the ones you’re gonna have when you go into your room and think about what that is. Now, this is something that I really thought, music, spoken word, dance, how does culture have some way impacting how we make change? So Mimi Farina and some other artists who were out in Mill Valley, California
Decided they wanted to find out, how can they do a concert that would raise money for people in prisons, so they ended up calling a group called Bread and Roses. But also here in Durham, we were thinking about, in 1990, well, what are all the women’s music festivals?
Michigan, some of those women’s music festivals, some other jazz. We said, well, why don’t we start a women’s music festival that would connect politics and culture? And we called it Rhythm Fest. Our very first one was down in North Carolina in 1990, and one of our workshop was about the Helms-Gantt race.
But this is music, Toshi Reagon, Bernice Johnson Reagon did a concert here by us, has done a concert here, and Kate Clinton. So we did a thing called Real Women’s Production Bread and Roses, bringing it all together in terms of how you make change happen, culturally. And also, again,
And not just only in English in terms what that might be. But the living room we’re gonna use to have some yak yak and figure out what else is going on, if we’re having some conversation, and you’ll see that on your papers, but if you’re gonna be here long enough,
Feel free to put a thing up there, I would appreciate it, it’s not just about me, it’s about what we do. Next. Going this direction. How am I doing on time, Laura? Doing well. All right. So here is probably the one thing we have that is actually more of a digital,
The War Resistors League is hundredth anniversary this year. So a good friend of ours named Kim, decided to figure out how could she take articles, lectures, brochures, and think about 1923 to 2023, this is all interactive with the, I hope I don’t mess this up,
But it’s all like, what do you call this? Touchscreen. Touchscreen, thank you. A really great job. In fact, my question is, when I was on a plane the other day, I had like a 6-year-old with one of these in their hand, you know, I mean, what is that?
But for a lot of people, not only in English, it’s also in other languages, this might have more impact than sitting there looking at a book, book, book, book, but this is a digitized thing that covers literally from 1923 to current. And then we had an office here in Durham called WRL Southeast,
Which is part of the effort that we’ve done. And then we get into activate young people, here we go. Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bernice Johnson Reagon, thinking about when they met her down with Guy and Candy Kerowin, and Baez came and performed here, gosh, several times at The Page, I think.
In fact she now has a movie called “I am the Noise”, is that the, Baez. But still very active. But one of the things I appreciated about Sweet Honey in the Rock, when someone comes to perform, they do workshops, they don’t just perform.
They said, who we are, why we do it, what we do, how do we connect with a lot of the legacy, and what are the connections with a lot of people culturally. And so, I think we’ve had a couple of times that they would be here,
But we have a lot of local, like a lot of artists, a lot of local talent that’s in here as well. Can I just ask real quick, how many people are like between the ages of 18 and 20? 18 to 20. Younger? Older? 20, 25? 25, 30? All right.
How old are you? I’m 23. 23, so did I say, yeah, I’m just curious, because I’m just trying to think of the age range, because I’m sitting here, I used to be 23 once, I can vaguely remember, but my concern is, how do we have conversation?
What is it we would be on the same page about? And, how would we know how to interact with each other? And, what are the current things that you’re all going home to, and what that might be. But I’ve just been thinking about that poetry, music,
Now because of COVID, a lot of people are on the Zoom, on that part of it as well. So this is around a lot of work around activate young people. And then I think the one here is the one that I’m probably most proud of in one way. When my talk,
It’s called Electoral Politics and Voter Mobilization. Remember when Harvey Gantt was running against Jesse Helms, that probably was one of the most dynamic, unbelievable, who could know that that voting would matter. But because we ran a little campaign around it, we couldn’t have contact specifically with Harvey Gantt in Senate Vote 90.
But after it was over, I got to meet him, and so there’s a picture of Harvey and I meeting. But Harvey integrated Clemson University down in South Carolina, thinking about that. And then, Obama, when I thought about two people that ran, a woman, Hillary Clinton,
And a Black man, son of an interracial marriage, that was never ever supposed to happen. But now we are where we are now, what do you do with that? But then who was the, starting out to figure out how that might make a possibility, why it really matters,
And young folk trying to figure out how they vote. So this idea is, and I love this, “Silence is the voice of complicity.” You ever hear someone say something, I wanna let that go, I don’t wanna say anything, and then well, no one’s saying anything, you know?
And I remember when we did our first, like a float in the Pride in San Francisco, we had Sister Sledge, “We are Family”, so you get all these wonderful quotes that are on here. And then on the other side, “Come out voting, blah, blah, blah.” (Attendee chuckles) And then finally, wrapping it up,
So we can get to your writing assignment, Who keeps things, is anyone keeping snuff, y’all scrapbooks and whatnot? And on purpose, intentionally, or just that you just do that? I tell you, archiving is critical. Think about it, you know, when you try to think about it. And now my only question is, everything is so digitized, how can you save that?
That’s a piece of paper. And how can you make sure that that somehow gets done, or whoever comes up with those great ideas are? But this whole thing was around an organization we started called the National Black Justice Coalition. The original name was called the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum.
We were trying to figure out, as Black folk who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allies, power of one can be formed, some kind of a group, some kind of a way, no matter where you are, how you go about your daily business. But also in the South, how many historically Black colleges
And universities y’all got? HBCUs, or whatever it might be. So we thought, if we start an organization, then what’s the purpose of it, and what are the practical things we could do? So we started holding these once-a-year, kind of conversations. But once we started doing that, we ended up getting,
I think Linda Villarosa, I think was the first Black lesbian at, what’s the black paper? Black magazine? Essence. Ebony. Essence, Essence. Game changer. Game changer. Her mom said, yeah, are you gonna have this conversation? It’s like, yeah, do we really need to save? Yeah, you do.
She got a lot of pushback, but thank you, Linda Villarosa, and moms, and whoever that might be. I don’t know what you wanna do with your lives when you get done with your profession, but you think about, you get up every day, you probably have no idea
Who might be looking at what you do have an impact, they might tell you the years later, you had no idea because I saw what you were doing, that made a difference for me. And, or, if you feel like I’ll be willing to say something,
And I’m not gonna stand here and be quiet, in all kinds of ways. So we’re now in our 40th year, another organization that’s still kicking around, and we’re having conversations. I think one of the ones that I said, what I thought was good, remember the Loving versus the State of Virginia decision,
Interracial marriage? It turned out that once that whole thing had happened, we contacted Mildred Loving, and we asked her, what about the idea of same sex marriage, or same gender marriage? At first, she said, I’m not quite sure I get that, oh, wait a minute, that was me, that’s my story,
And I wanna figure out how I can then take whatever we’ve done, and then pass it forward. So we created this wonderful kind of book around organizing around same sex marriage, how you have that conversation with family, friends, whatever. But Mildred Loving said, that’s what loving’s about.
Anyone here from Virginia. What’s the model for Virginia? Virginia is for lovers. Someone said “some”, anyway… And then the final thing before you do your assignment, Meg, where are you? I’m over here. Right. What I love is that, see all this stuff that goes up around here? They have this big machine downstairs, and how they take it like from a picture,
And then they figure out how to, what’s that word, blow that up, and have that up in terms of framing. And it’s a whole kind of, like a kind of art for it, and I want to thank Megan, and also Zune, was it June? Zune. Zune, who make that happen. And then finally,
Jeanette Stokes Resource Center for Ministry in the South understands the importance of all this stuff. So with that, can we go do your assignment? I just want to point out two more things that I failed to point out. One is that our exhibit designer partner is Complex Creative. the local Black-owned firm.
And we worked with an artist called Trey Seals on the typeface in this exhibit, which is a Mandy Carter typeface which we commissioned for this. Isn’t that a trip? Am I making any money on that? So we are gonna walk down the hall, I’ll lead the way, and we’re gonna have a chance for quiet reflection, and writing, and then eating and drinking. And snacks. Thank you all, really sincerely, thank you. And stay in touch with you, we got some stuff to do. Appreciate it, all right. (All applaud)
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