- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Butler talks about reacting to pro-life activities (3:55)
- Creator:
- Butler, Sarah, 1939-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Millen, Susan A. (Susan Ann), 1951-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2004-10-23
- 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 - Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Sarah Butler was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The fourth of six children, her mother was a homemaker and her father was a barber. She graduated from the Girls High School of Atlanta in 1939, and later attended Georgia Evening College, leaving in 1949 to marry Bob Butler. Butler had two children, and quit her work at Sears Roebuck to take care of them. Once the children were grown, Butler began her 18-year association with the labor movement, and in particular, the AFL-CIO. A member of the Office and Professional Employees Union, Butler was also involved with ERA Georgia, Inc., NOW, AARP, Southwest Atlantans for Progress, her PTA, and the Democratic Party. While her husband was president of the Atlanta Labor Council, she served as the secretary of the council. Soon after she retired, Butler was inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame. She was also honored as Woman of the Year in the Labor Movement. She now lives in Gainesville, Georgia.
Butler talks about her childhood in Atlanta, and her parents activism -- her father in the Barber's Association and her mother in school and community affairs. She says that she worked at Sears Roebuck between 1939 and 1949, leaving to have her first child. She describes discriminatory practices at Sears, and says that once she became pregnant and began wearing maternity dresses, she was removed from a public position to the personnel office where nobody could see me." Butler stayed at home with her two children until her son was in 11th grade. At this time, she states, she was invited to work for the Georgia AFL-CIO as a secretary. She remained with the organization for 18 years. She describes her experiences in the labor movement, and her efforts to convey information about the Equal Rights Amendment to the labor community, and in particular to her own union, the OPEIU (Office and Professional Employees International Union). She also talks about her work (with the AFL-CIO) on Jimmy Carter's failed reelection campaign, and subsequent efforts organizing his papers. Butler and her husband were long-term advocates for civil rights, and members of SWAP (Southwest Atlantans for Progress). She discusses some of the work they undertook to bring about integration and equality within their neighborhoods and the labor movement. She also talks about her volunteer, AARP and feminist activities in Gainesville GA, and in particular, her response to local pro-life activities. Butler ends by telling women, "We're going to have to stay alert, we're going to have to stay on top of things, and we're going to have to keep the right people in Washington and locally too."
Transcript of this excerpt: SM: Now you’re talking about abortion and the days when women would resort to -- your reference to the coat hangers, because women often had to resort to using coat hangers to try to get an abortion or a miscarriage going, when they couldn’t possibly afford to have the baby. SB: Yes. The emblem of the coat hanger became a real horrible thought. But here these churches were putting up white crosses to show how many women had died, you know, or would die if we continued with abortions with -- SM: Not women, but the children, the unborn fetuses. SB: Yeah. SM: The white crosses represented that. SB: Yeah, the white crosses represented the unborn babies. And so we decided this is not fair -- those of us who believed in a woman having the right to make a choice about having a baby or not having a child. And so we wanted to get across the horror of a woman having to use a coat hanger to bring on the abortion. That to us, was no worse than the fact that they were putting up crosses for the aborted child, or the unborn child. So some of us decided to get together and we collected coat hangers -- some people call them clothes hangers; I call them coat hangers -- and we painted them red. We spray-painted them red. And one night, or late one afternoon -- it was dark -- we decided we’d go to one of these churches and hang a coat hanger on each one of those white crosses to show just how ridiculous it was that they would do this. So we -- I put on my black hat and my black sweater and my black trousers and -- the other women were not quite that severe. They went as they were. But I thought, well, here I am doing this, I might as well do it up right. So we took my car and they said, “Now, we have to be careful not to be caught." Because up here in Gainesville, it’s not a good idea to do things like that. So I covered up, I thought I was covering up a partial of -- because we were using my car. And I discovered later with a picture that I had put mud all over my license plate. But still, that way nobody could get my license plate when I was leaving the scene of the crime -- so called crime. But we did -- we put out an awful lot of red coat hangers just to make our point. We never heard anything about it. It was never, of course -- it was never in the newspaper or anything. But we got, I hope we got our point across. SM: And people passing could see both sides of that -- SB: Oh yes, and it was right on a busy highway. So we were very pleased about that. I have to say that we just got a real big kick out of doing it. We just had a marvelous time doing it. And somebody took pictures of three of us, the main ones, doing it. When my daughter was home visiting from England, she’s very -- believes very strongly as I do, I got out the pictures and showed them to her and she showed them to her husband and said, “Look, my mother the criminal.” So we had a good laugh about it. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2088
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2088/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:
- 37 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:
-
