- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Cukor talks about her early political involvement (3:25)
- Creator:
- Cukor, Janet, 1924-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Paulk, Janet, 1932-
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2004-05-03
- 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, Wayne County, Detroit, 42.33143, -83.04575 - Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Born to Yugoslavian immigrants in Detroit in 1924, Jeanette (Janet) Glavac grew up in a working class, ethnic neighborhood. She graduated from Wayne State University with a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson College of Law, cum laude. While ethnic discrimination was something Cukor had endured in Detroit, racial and gender discrimination were foreign to her until she visited the South in the late 1950s. By the time she and her family moved to DeKalb County, Georgia in 1965, the worst signs of Jim Crow had been removed, but the signs of gender discrimination remained. While progress was being made in civil rights, Cukor believed that the credence that racial issues demanded caused women's rights to be overlooked. She took an active role in the women's movement as a member of the Legislative and Executive Committees of the American Association of University Women, and as a prominent member of the League of Women's Voters. Cukor was involved in county government, working as special projects coordinator on the executive staff of DeKalb County's CEO. Since the late 1980s, she has been active in the Atlanta Regional Commission, a group that works to aid the elderly. Cukor is married with two daughters.
Cukor describes her childhood, and recounts that before her marriage and subsequent move to Canada, her earliest political experiences were working on Martha Griffiths' political campaigns. Moving to Atlanta in 1965, she recalls that she took an interest in political and governmental issues, and in 1975 was appointed to the Board of Directors for DeKalb County's Equal Opportunity Authority. Cukor says that she met Eleanor Richardson through her daughter, who was petitioning to have a student serve on the DeKalb Board of Education as a non-voting member. She and Richardson became friends and went on to work on Richardson's campaign for a place on the state senate. She describes Richardson's fundraising efforts: "She took out her Christmas card list and her list of organizations -- members of organizations that she belonged to [and her church] and she won." Cukor describes the development of the ERA coalition in Georgia. She goes on to talk about the National Women's Conference in Houston, and the anti-ERA contingent at that meeting, as well as the problems within ERA Georgia. Throughout the interview Cukor discusses issues that concern her, including Social Security for homemakers and reproductive rights.
Transcript of this excerpt: JC: I mean, I was always interested in government and I followed local politics and state politics and national politics and one time I called my local county commissioners complaining about something or other, I don't remember what it was anymore. And I also commented to them about the fact that they seemed to appoint so few women to committees and he says, "Well I've got an opening for you. Right now, I need to make an appointment" to what was then called DeKalb EOA. So I said, "Well, I'll let you know." So I talked to a few people about it and I called him back and I said, "All right, I'll accept the appointment." And I got appointed to the Board of Directors of DeKalb EOA. JP: What was, Equal Opportunities Authority? JC: Yeah. [coughs] EOA stands for Equal Opportunities Authority. That was about 1975 and I stayed on the board until just about 2 months ago. I resigned. JP: Also along with all that -- JC: And then I got involved with local politics. I got involved with the Democratic Party, and with Eleanor Richardson, which was interesting. I met Eleanor Richardson really through my daughter. My daughter got involved with something at school, trying to get a student -- well, they found out that the rules and regulations among the various high schools seemed to differ, depending on which high school you were in. And they wondered why this couldn't be the same in each high school. And they were also trying to get a student on the Board of Education, not as a voting member, but just [coughs] to offer opinions. The interesting thing is they didn't get it then, but right now there is a student. Some years later they did start that and a student does serve on the DeKalb County Board of Education, as a non-voting member. And something -- oh, at some meeting that she was at she made some remarks that some principle didn't like and was going to sue her, and -- JP: So she was an adult at this time? JC: High school. JP: She was in high school? JC: Yeah, this was in high school. She was probably a sophomore or junior in high school. Something happened. I don't know whether Eleanor heard her or what. Anyway, we were told to call Eleanor maybe -- whatever it was. And that's how I met Eleanor, who had met my daughter through one of these things. Eleanor at that time, I think, was on the Community Relations Committee. And I think -- she may have been chair. I think that's what the kids did. They went to that committee, and that's how she met Eleanor and then through her I met Eleanor. Because of the principle that didn't like what my daughter said. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2103
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2103/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/
- Original Collection:
- Georgia Women's Movement Project Collection
Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives - Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
