- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Richardson talks about becoming a legislator (3:38)
- Creator:
- Richardson, Eleanor L., 1913-2006
- Contributor to Resource:
- Paulk, Janet, 1932-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 1999-07-12
- Subject:
- Feminism
Social movements
Women's studies - Location:
- United States, Georgia, DeKalb County, 33.77153, -84.22641
- Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Eleanor Low Richardson, born in Everett, Massachusetts in 1913, graduated from high school and completed one year of secretarial school. After working in Boston for an insurance company, Richardson moved to the Atlanta area and has been a Decatur resident for over 25 years. She died in February 2006. During her time in the Atlanta area, Richardson participated in women's advocacy and politics. She served as the president of the League of Women Voters of Georgia and DeKalb County and as a Democratic representative of DeKalb County in the Georgia House of Representatives (1975-1990). During her time in office, Richardson's legislative priorities included health issues, the elimination of laws that discriminate against women and the elderly, and tax relief for the elderly. She was chair of the Community Development Advisory Council of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the DeKalb County Community Relations Commission, Georgians for Quality Education, and the Church Women United of Georgia and DeKalb County. She also served as board member of several organizations including the Metropolitan Area Mental Health Association, DeKalb Community Council on Aging, the Mountain View Rest Home, and the Georgia Council on Moral and Civic Concerns. Richardson was appointed to the Governor's Council on Mental Health and Retardation Special Study Committees on Troubled Children, the DeKalb County Advisory Council (Chairman), and the Central DeKalb Community Mental Health/Mental Retardation Advisory Council. Because of her extensive work in church and civic groups, Richardson received several awards honoring her contributions to the community: She received the Woman of Achievement Award from Decatur Business and Professional Women in 1976; the Leading Ladies of Atlanta J.C. Singles Award in 1977; the Friend of Children from the Child Advocacy Coalition (1977-80); and the Valiant Woman Award from Church Women United in 1977.
Richardson begins by recounting her childhood in Medford, Massachusetts. She states that her earliest foray into activism was prior to the development of the Women's Movement, when she joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She went on to join the League of Women Voters, and to become president of DeKalb and then Georgia's League. She states that it was during her tenure of the DeKalb League of Women Voters that she was urged by a friend to run for the vacant seat in the Georgia General Assembly. Focusing on issues relating to women, children and the elderly, Richardson remained in the legislature until 1990, at which time, she recalls, "she had stopped being patient with people." Richardson discusses her personal efforts and experiences in working toward the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in Georgia. She feels that the Women's Movement has accomplished a great deal, including the election of more women elected officials and the formation of important women's groups, such as the Georgia Commission on Women.
Transcript of this excerpt: JP: So then how did you become a legislator? And what were the events that led up to that? ER: I was working full time when I became head of the DeKalb League of Women Voters, and I said -- "Well the only way"-- I had been in various offices at local and state, but at DeKalb, I said, "I can't do it and work full-time and answer all the phones and all that," and they said, "If we give you a third vice-president who will just take care of the nitty-gritty, will you do it?" And so Peggy Beard became a close friend of mine and did all that buggaluggin work. Now, what did you ask me? JP: About how you moved from that to -- ER: Oh, well -- we had two different people that represented [DeKalb County] in the Georgia General Assembly, because the House and the Senate districts are quite differently now, but they represented in the House. One went on to congress and the other one decided that he just didn't want to run for office anymore. So many people came to me and said, "It's about time for you to put your body where your mouth has been," because I had been real active in legislation. And I said, "Well, nobody knows [me]" -- because while you're an officer in the League, you never let people know one way or another. You work on issues, but not on people; for or against people. And I said, "Nobody will know [me]," and they said, "Well, it doesn't matter. You know lots and lots that will help you." I didn't have any money whatsoever. So with my best friend at the time -- we sent out postcards to everybody I ever knew in Georgia, and I never had to [use] my Christmas card list, which was the next list, because they were all over the country. I got enough money to go ahead, and my husband was my treasurer, and my father was living with us at the time, so he did a lot of the mailing and that kind of thing. So I guess that's the background, that I was asked to do it. JP: What [legislative] district were you representing? ER: It was the old 52 [House District]. There isn't any 52 now, but was definitely 52. JP: Okay. And what were some of the particular issues that you were involved in when you first started? ER: Well, a lot of health issues. Women -- children and women and the elderly were the things I concentrated on. In fact, I had -- the very first day I was in the General Assembly, a man who was a doctor at Grady called me and said, "I've got a bill for you right away," and I said, "Well, wait a minute, I just got here." Apparently, at Grady Hospital at that time, twins were born and one was perfectly all right and the other was in just terrible shape. So the man's company was able to pay, you know, the burden for the first one, but Grady was going to have to pay for the other one until the man was kind of bled to death on it. So that was one of the first things. [It] took two and a half years to get that bill passed -- that complications of pregnancy would be covered other than the simple thing that was then in the law. So Janet Cukor, who had helped me a great deal in my campaign, came down and was my first assistant down there until she went back to law school. I don't think you need to quote this, but I think you'll be interested that she went back to law school because we would sit in a room with six lawyers and each lawyer would have a different interpretation of a three-word phrase. So she said, "I'm going back to school and get my interpretation." [laughs] But she did a lot of calling around about that bill, and they would say all over the country at insurance companies -- because she was trying to find out if any other state had it -- and the insurance companies said "Oh, you're talking about that awful Richardson bill." - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2041
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2041/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Copyright to this item is owned by Georgia State University Library. Georgia State University Library has made this item available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Extent:
- 28 pages (one audio cassette)
- Original Collection:
- Georgia Women's Movement Project Collection
Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives - Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
