- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Miller talks about early feminist influences (1:48)
- Creator:
- Miller, Panke Bradley, 1940-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Durand, Joyce Jenkins, 1939-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2000-12-18
- Subject:
- Feminism
Social movements
Women's studies - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Bibb County, 32.80659, -83.69776
United States, Georgia, Bibb County, Macon, 32.84069, -83.6324
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, 33.79025, -84.46702
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798 - Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Panke Bradley Miller was born in 1940 on Parris Island, South Carolina, and grew up in Macon, Georgia. Through the support and advice of her parents, she attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in order to be exposed to a more liberal education and lifestyle. At Antioch, she majored in psychology while also studying languages abroad. She eventually went to the University of Chicago where she majored in community organizing. Miller's youthful liberalism coupled with her experience as a community organizer led her led her back to Atlanta where she became involved in the women's movement in Georgia. She was appointed to the Atlanta City Council and served as vice-chair of Common Cause in Georgia.
Miller discusses her childhood as a member of a traditional, but intellectually liberal family in conservative Macon, Georgia and says that she feels very fortunate to have been encouraged to attend Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio. She talks extensively about her experiences at Antioch, and particular, her growing involvement with the Civil Rights Movement and her feelings about her home -- the South, viewed from a liberal college in the North. She goes on to talk about her graduate studies in social work and community organization at the University of Chicago. She believes that this education gave her the tools necessary to eventually earn a position on the Atlanta City Council. Miller talks about the importance of family-friendly policies, and cites a job-sharing scheme that she implemented, and that is still successfully working today. Miller discusses Atlanta politics and development, and her feelings about Atlanta mayors Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young and Bill Campbell. She also talks about the importance of the neighborhood movement; and about her decision to leave politics and to enter the non-profit sector. When asked to consider why efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment failed, Miller states that one of the major problems was that Democratic and Republican women could not reach across party lines.
Transcript of this excerpt: PBM: And in terms of my mother's family, there was just such agreement in terms of issues and things. I mean, my father was devoted to my mother's mother who was the most political person of the whole tribe, because her husband died at a very early age and she was thrust into supporting herself and [she] went out and did that and got into a political kind of a situation. She worked at the State Capitol and got very involved in politics. Well, my father just thought that was great. My [maternal] grandmother was very -- the entire family. I mean, she was just sort of an icon of the family. And her mother had been an extremely -- well her mother was even more unusual, because her mother was the first of that -- my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother -- My great-grandmother had gone to work in her twenties and adored it, and I mean, she was the most independent of the three of them. JD: My goodness. PBM: She really was a remarkable person in that sense. Even when her friends would say, "Oh, just really don't have to work," she would say, "But why not?" She just loved it. JD: Amazing. What time frame would that have been? Before the vote [1921], wouldn't it be? PBM: Oh, absolutely before the vote. Yeah, her -- JD: Did she ever work on that? PBM: Oh, yeah. Oh very much, yeah. JD: Wow. PBM: So -- and her heroine was Eleanor Roosevelt, who of course was not greatly admired in the South. JD: Right. PBM: My great-grandmother was from Alabama, so -- in a way an even more traditional state -- so those women on that side of the family had had the luxury or whatever to really hold on to their opinions and values, and didn't get ground down at all. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2063
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2063/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:
- 29 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:
-
