National Now Foundation Times >> Fall 2007 >> NOW Foundation Launches Oral History Project
NOW Foundation Launches Oral History Project to Preserve Breadth and Depth of our Movement
By Johanna Ettin, Oral History Project Director
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NOW archive photo
The NOW Foundation Oral History Project hopes to reach activists who can attest to NOW's vast history, such as the women who participated in this ERA march in the 1970s. |
Every activist knows that, while the NOW Action Center in Washington is visible in the news, a lot of NOW actions occur when a local chapter gathers to decide who will testify at the county commissioners' meeting about inadequate funding for the local battered women's shelter, or when the state board decides to raise money to pay a lobbyist in the legislature.
The Oral History Project is designed to record and preserve this history of what The Washington Post has described as the largest and most effective organization in the second wave of the women's movement.
While the Schlesinger Library for the History of Women at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute holds official NOW documents, what a scholar reads there seldom reveals what it's really like to be on the front line of the action, picketing Wal-Mart or linking arms in front of the local abortion clinic to protect patients from screaming protesters.
Even the best-kept NOW Board minutes don't tell about the personal sacrifices activists have made over the years, the impact their activism had on their relationships and their children's lives, what they learned and how they grew from their experience.
In short, how NOW changed their lives while they were busy changing the world. These accounts are vital to understanding our full history, and in-depth personal accounts are invaluable as a counter-point to news articles of the time.
Every activist has a story to tell, and anyone who has served in a state or local office has a box somewhere in the back of a closet with a stash of newsletters and flyers, candidate questionnaires and news clippings too precious to toss.
In the first phase of the Oral History Project we are interviewing people who were active in the years from 1972 to 1982. We also are working to build a list of libraries and archives of women's history where local activists can send their memorabilia and know that it will be valued, taken care of, and made available to scholars.
If you were active in those years and are willing to be interviewed, or if you have records you would like to see appropriately placed, please contact us by email at oralhistory@nowfoundation.org or call the project director at 202-628-8669 ext. 142. And, of course, let us know if you would like to make a contribution to support these preservation efforts.
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