- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Duncanson talks about becoming involved with the ERA (9:38)
- Creator:
- Duncanson, Mary Jo, 1947-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Paulk, Janet, 1932-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2004-04-03
- Subject:
- Feminism
Social movements
Women's studies - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, 33.79025, -84.46702
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
United States, Michigan, 44.25029, -85.50033 - Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Mary Jo Duncanson was born in Spring Grove, MN in 1947. She received a B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan in 1969 and soon began working for the Federal Education Projects (1969-1974). From 1974 to 1992, Duncanson managed her husband's private practice and beginning in 1992, she went to work for Emory University. Duncanson served as treasurer for the Atlanta chapter of NOW (1973-1975) and as the network chair for the ERA Georgia, Inc. (1981). At Emory, she served as Chair for the College Staff Consortium, Emory College, 1998-1999, and received the Emory College Employee of the Year award in 2000.
Duncanson begins by discussing her childhood in postwar Michigan and how, at a young age, she became interested in politics. She discusses her early political activities with the Democratic Party in Michigan, and what led her to Atlanta in 1971. She explains that by 1975 she had turned her attention to the Equal Rights Amendment, attending the meetings of the Atlanta chapter of NOW, and going on to serve as chapter treasurer for two years. Duncanson describes the Atlanta chapter of NOW as a somewhat transient organization -- one in which women were looking for an avenue to connect with other women with similar interests. She believes that the Atlanta chapter never achieved its potential as a significant political actor. As the treasurer of Atlanta NOW, Duncanson also served as a liaison to ERA Georgia and eventually was appointed as one of the co-chairs of the ERA Georgia network. The ERA Georgia network included women from NOW, the League of Women Voters, and business/professional women. From this point, Duncanson, along with other women, were able to attract women from around the state and in the final stages of the fight for the ERA in the Georgia legislature, Duncanson recalls they had approximately 70 county-wide leaders. She considers the state-wide organizing effort as one of the most personally rewarding moments of her work with the ERA. Duncanson discusses leadership issues and some of the problems that created tension among the different women’s organizations. The particular issues that attracted Duncanson to the Women’s Movement included reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, women’s property rights and marriage rights.
Transcript of this excerpt: MJD: ERA got me active, but I felt strongly about all the issues that were and are women's issues. I supported the right to abortion, equal pay for equal work, women's property rights and marriage rights and rights to control her children. Women doing work that they liked and could do. I always thought that if a woman was qualified she ought to be able to get the job. Those things of course, have changed completely in my lifetime which is a really good thing. Which is one reason I think that young women today don't quite have a clue of what -- of how things were when some of us were younger, and what advantages they have now. JP: Well what was your personal involvement in the Movement? MJD: [I] Started out with NOW, they put me to work. I was treasurer of NOW for two or three years, I think. Then when ERA Georgia was formed they wanted a representative of Atlanta NOW to be like the delegate or the liaison, I guess with the ERA Georgia. So I went to some meetings about that. And I remember the first time I went to an ERA Georgia meeting and gosh -- where was this? JP: Inaudible MJD: No it was before then. It was one of the early board meetings I think, and I just kind of showed up not knowing anybody, saying, you know "I'm with Atlanta NOW, but we want to be involved with ERA Georgia and here I am!" They brought me into the meeting but then at some point there were some things that they thought were confidential and they asked me to sit outside until they were done talking about this particular thing. Which I don't even know now what it was. It was probably a strategy thing or something, and they didn't know me. They didn't know who I was and there was -- you know, worries about -- JP: Do you remember who was involved with that meeting? MJD: I'm sure Joyce Parker was there. Joyce is the only one I remember. JP: So what happened after that? MJD: I just kept on going to things and volunteering for things -- JP: And they decided you were okay? MJD: I guess they did [laughs], finally, they decided I was okay. And one of the things that they wanted, and I still believe was a really good thing to do, was a state-wide communication network. ERA Georgia was conceived as a coalition of organizations and it was believed that, and obviously we knew it -- all these organizations had membership, different levels of activity and involvement and all that, but all over the state. And Nancy Nowak -- is Nancy Nowak still around? JP: She retired recently, up north. MJD: She and I were appointed as co-chairs of the network, early on in ERA Georgia I think. And we started gathering membership lists from whatever organizations would give us the names of their members in other parts of the state. So we gathered names and phone numbers and tried to get key people that would be particularly interested in organizing locally. And we started calling people. And we eventually -- we had an Atlanta person who was -- and divided up the state into all these areas. And an Atlanta person who was in charge of contacting someone in each county in their area, and -- JP: From a NOW organization? MJD: Not necessarily. We had NOW people but we also had League of Women Voters members, Business and Professional Women -- At one point, we got lists of garden club members. That was not the most fruitful. [laughs] But there's some very nice women out there, and some who said, "Well, yes, I believe in it personally but I couldn't do anything publicly about this. You don't know what it's like out here". They would say. But we got names and phone numbers and started calling. JP: Do you know how you did that? MJD: How we got them? JP: Un-huh. MJD: Well we asked in the board meetings. We asked representatives of these organizations to supply us with names. Some organizations would give us membership lists with phone numbers and some were more careful about that. And I don't remember details now about who did and who didn't. But we just got whatever names and numbers that people had and were willing to share. JP: And were most of those Atlanta, to begin with? MJD: There were always more people in Atlanta, in and around Atlanta, but there were -- JP: And how did you get the ones from around the state? Do you remember at all? MJD: Either from membership lists or from people who knew somebody out there. And there was every variation on -- you know, you call someone and they say, "Oh absolutely, I want to be involved in this. I know people who want to be involved. Just tell us what to do." And they would just, you know, get started, and do people, and get an organization created, and get activities going and events and letter writing campaigns, and they'd meet with their legislator locally. And a couple of these would actively organize other groups to do the same kinds of things. Then sometimes you would call every name you had in a particular area and nobody could do anything. I remember talking to one women in -- I can't remember her name -- in one of those counties in northeast Georgia, around Toccoa or somewhere up there. And she was a local broadcaster. She, I think, owned the local radio station and did some broadcasting of her own on that radio station and she said that she believed in [the] Equal Rights Amendment, she believed that women needed equal rights and all that, but her position -- she just could not say anything openly and publicly about it because it would jeopardize her position in the community, business wise and otherwise, personally. So, you know, we just had the whole range of responses from people. But eventually, we ended up with -- gosh, I can't remember, somewhere -- I was looking through my folders -- JP: Because you do have folders, didn't you say, you were going to give to Georgia State, along with your interview? MJD: Good! I hope they can use some of this stuff. Because God knows I kept a lot of paper, but I hope they can use it. But I think, finally when it came down to the last stages of the fight in the legislature, and all that, we had something like 60 or 70 or 80 county leaders. So, like, a person in that many counties in Georgia that was responsible for generating letters or phone calls or visits or whatever in their area with their legislators. And some of these people had always been politically active, some of them had never done a thing before, and everything in between. And I think that this was probably the best thing about -- personally, most rewarding for me in what I did with ERA Georgia -- was contact with these people all over the state. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2062
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2062/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:
- 36 pages (two audio cassettes)
- Original Collection:
- Georgia Women's Movement Project Collection
Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives - Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
