- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Olson talks about Charis Circle (3:30)
- Creator:
- Olson, Anne, 1934-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Brown, Amanda, 1982-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2005-04-22
- 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:
- Anne Olson was born in Madison Wisconsin in 1934. She received a BS in nutrition from the University of Oklahoma (1956), completed a dietetic internship at the University of Michigan (1956-1957) and earned her MS in dietary administration from the University of Kansas (1962). From 1962 to 1967, Olson was an instructor in nutrition at Emory University's School of Nursing, as well as, in 1965, serving as nutritionist for Quaker House's Project Headstart. In 1974, she became a marketing consultant for the Florida Department of Citrus and from 1974 until her retirement in 1999, she was an administrator in School/Community Nutrition for Georgia's Department of Education. Olson has had a long-standing interest in feminist and human rights issues: She has been an active participant in a number of community organizations, including the Dekalb League of Women Voters (1966-1968) and The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (1969-1972). She belonged to the International Association of Religious Freedom and the International Association of Liberal Religious Women (1987); was a founding member of Atlanta's Charis Circle (1996-1998); and served as the co-chair of Human Rights Atlanta (1998-1999). Currently Olson is involved with the Georgia Living Wage Campaign, as well as the Atlanta Living Wage Campaign. Olson has enjoyed a long relationship with the Unitarian Universalist Association, beginning in 1971, when she served on the Board of Directors of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation (1983-1989), and has served in various positions for the Thurman Hamer Ellington Unitarian Universalist Church, Atlanta (1994-1999).
Olson cites one of her earliest influential events as being the time she got a bicycle. "I must have been 10 or so. I then had access to the public library. That's when I started reading and becoming a really avid reader." One of only three women of her University of Oklahoma pledge class who graduated instead of leaving to marry, she describes being frustrated with her work in dietetics, and so went on to get a graduate degree in Dietary Administration. Soon after graduating in 1962, she was married with two children and living in Atlanta. It was at this time, she says, that Virginia Wolfe's books became important to her, and, in an effort to get out of the house she joined the League of Women Voters, and got onto the Board of Directors in DeKalb County. Through the League of Women Voters, Voter Registration Drive, Olson says she became involved with the Voter Education Project and the Civil Rights Movement. Olson recounts that her interest in the Equal Rights Amendment was piqued while she was chair of the Public Issues Committee at the Unitarian Universalist Church. She discusses the democratization of her church and her push for removing sexism within the church, and encouraging women-centered curriculum. Olson states that at about the same time as her 1974 divorce, she became involved in Charis Circle, and began reading and discussing the feminist texts which led to a deeper understanding of her place in the world. This, combined with her earlier civil rights work, and work with the Unitarian Church led to her growing interest in human rights issues. She talks about her involvement with various human rights groups, including the Georgia Citizens' Coalition on Hunger, the Atlanta Living Wage Campaign, Amnesty International and the Gustav Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. She believes feminism is alive and well, and that we now need to also consider racism and classism.
Transcript of this excerpt: AO: OK, Charis Circle started some years ago because the bookstore, Charis Books and More was really struggling financially. So we tried to figure out a way that we could be non-profit, bring in grants, and handle all the program parts of the store. And that indeed happened. I did that work for two years. We did a couple of really big programs around women’s issues and by the time this was going on -- which was when, in the 19.. -- I was at Charis, well, in yeah, 1996 was when it started, there was a lot of -- I mean all of a sudden there were a lot of books by women, but it’s during the time prior to Charis Circle that I really started reading black women’s rights. So I was really beginning to see what other voices had to say. I was going after women’s voices, and then I expanded my thing to reading lesbian women’s voices. I read -- and then I started looking at women -- black women’s voices. So I read Bell’s books and I read Audrey Lord and I read Audrain Ridge, and they were such key voices for me [in] that they really helped me to clarify who I might be in the feminist movement and what I needed to learn. AB: What did they tell you specifically? What did you feel like after that? AO: Well, Audrey Lord’s work, her essays in Sister, Outsider just gave such voice to different experiences from mine. I mean, it was just -- they were urban and they were African-American, and they were just so eye-opening to me that there were other ways of being, other than the very, very privileged white middle class background that I came from. And I also remember reading Bell Hooks’ From Margin to Center and getting an understanding of marginality that I had not had before. I met Bell Hooks several times and just liked her energy and had read most of her books. Not reading them quite so much now. But I found, it really -- bringing people’s lives to me in a new way, and I can’t think of quote on this one -- but there was -- [cat meows] that's Percy -- I can’t think who quoted -- but reading about women’s lives in one’s home allowed you to think about things that you had not ever encountered in a safe way. You could read it in your own home. So, this access to Charis and the good suggestions was really important for me for developing how I began to see myself in the world, as a woman and as a feminist, and as a white middle class woman, and dealing with those issues of moving towards understanding race implications, understanding class implications, understanding heterosexism. All of those things came to me -- started out with books then moved me into training, into groups, into discussions and all of that -- was in large part due to Charis but also my experiences at the Unitarian Church. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2100
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2100/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:
- 31 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:
-
