HISTORY OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT REMARKS

Paige Parvin

Not long after I moved to Atlanta in 1993, I had the opportunity to see the local musicians’ performance of Jesus Christ Superstar in which the Indigo Girls played lead roles. When Amy Ray, as Jesus, walked down the packed aisle laying hands on the crowd and briefly touched my arm, I instantly felt I had been born again—as a lesbian. I had accepted the Indigo Girls into my life.

Fifteen years later, I had another chance to come into contact with Amy and her musical counterpart Emily Saliers, thanks to the Women’s Oral History Project. As a devoted fan of the Indigo Girls’ music and an admirer of their well-known social activism, I can assure you this was quite a thrill. I also had the honor of interviewing Leah Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, the first African American and woman to hold this title, and another personal hero. I will be forever grateful to this project for allowing me and Ann Borden an hour of uninterrupted conversation with such inspirational and influential public figures. Given their professional commitments, they were enormously generous to grant us these interviews, and if you have not listened to them I urge you to do so—not for my stammered, gushing questions, but for their candid, heartfelt responses.

It was incredibly difficult to choose a few highlights from these interviews to share with you, but I tried to distill what I found to be truly remarkable moments—the moments I found myself thinking about later.

For instance, I asked Amy about her deep connection to the South and her decision to make her home in north Georgia. Her answer made me realize and rethink how isolated I am from the real heart of this state, which is a challenge Emory grapples with as well. I have edited these segments for time and clarity.

I’m from a southern background of generations of southerners who have worked out their prejudices to a certain degree. My grandma was very southern, and she was a great storyteller. And I think just listening to her tell stories made me want to know people’s stories. The stories that were always the most interesting to me were the ones she told about when she lived in West End and people had chickens in their backyards still, and just the old days, which I connect to being more rural, even if they lived in Atlanta. When I moved up to where I live, I just realized I’d found somewhere where I felt comfortable, really comfortable. Obviously my community is a very conservative rural Georgia community. But there’s also pockets of people there that are outsider artists and outsider people, and we all ended up there for the same reason, we just want more space. And we want to be somewhere we can do our thing and no one thinks we’re weird. And I think that’s the case even if you feel differently politically from each other. And so I found a comfortable space, and I can hang out with someone who is staunchly conservative fundamentalist who doesn’t really agree with my lifestyle, but we have a connection for some reason. And it’s fascinating to me. I’ve never enjoyed being somewhere where everyone was the same as me and we all agreed about everything. I was always like there’s more than this. And if I can’t be around people that feel differently than me I’m never going to expand and I’m always going to have my own prejudices about people.

In the interview with Emily, I asked her whether she and Amy experienced sexism in the music industry, and her response revealed an interesting and complex dynamic for women and gay women in particular. She said:

Well, there’s sexism in our culture across the board, but there was a lot of it in the music industry and more pressure for women to sell their sexuality than men. We always sensed homophobia when we’d go visit radio stations with disc jockeys who had no place for us, really, because they couldn’t come on to us and couldn’t flirt with us on the air so that sort of permeated that environment at times. But Amy and I have always just, we know what we’re doing, you know, it comes from a pure place. We don’t let anybody mess with it. We feel good about it and we just do our thing.

I also asked Emily if she feels a special affinity for the band’s women fans. She said:

I think women have this special mystery and power about them, and I also believe that groups of people who are either oppressed or held back or are allowed to flourish the same way in the institutions or the systems, their spirits come through in a way that the ruling parties don’t. And I appreciate that in women and I appreciate that in our queer following. You know what it takes to keep your spirits alive in a world that doesn’t really want you for the most part, and we know how to love big because of that. And so that, I really feel an affinity for that, but quite honestly the bottom line, all of our fans, male, female, whatever, queer, straight, I look out and see their faces and see them singing and hear them singing and feel the power of that and I just feel grateful for everybody equally.

Most of us would agree that as women, we’re very fortunate at Emory, and this very gathering is evidence of that. But this project also has revealed the depth of bias some of our number have confronted, whether based on gender, sexual orientation, or race. When I asked Leah sears whether she experienced discrimination at Emory, here is what she said:

You know, I don’t know. I’ve always been black and female, so I don’t know. And I’ve had some tough times coming along. Sometimes it’s pretty clearly gender or racial. I always assumed that there was discrimination, particularly back then, from professors based on lower expectations. Which you just really have to fight through. Nobody called me names or anything like that, but I remember being taken aside by a professor after I scored an 88 on my first year property exam and he seemed very surprised. And he told me that there was a need by a Negro law firm in town for a Negro lawyer. Now this wasn’t a bad guy. He was just an older Southern gentleman. And my 88 would entitle me to an interview for a Negro law firm, not for one of the top law firms. I mean he was trying to do me a favor. And by the way, when I went to interview with the Negro law firm, they were all men. They told me that I was a woman. They were just point blank and they were interested in hiring black men. So there you go. But why were so many black women being sent? Where were the black men? They were laughing about it. I was very offended, by both them and the professor. So yeah, I guess I did.

Toward the end of our interview, I asked Leah Sears to describe the experience of receiving the Emory Medal. This was a particularly gratifying moment because it led her to talk about what she gained from the experience of being interviewed for this project. At the beginning, it had been pretty clear that it was tough for her to make the time, so this was a welcome new direction.

I was really very surprised, because I don’t see myself the way other people do—I see myself as still a little black girl from Savannah with pigtails, not having achieved that much. So these talks—because I don’t think about the instances you guys make me think about—so this has been good, actually. When I sit down and I think, “Whoa, it really has been a long haul. I really have gone through quite a bit.” All I’m trying to do is each day get this done, hire a clerk, do this, do that. And to be reminded of it, by your peers, and by an institution you revere so much is good. And even this has been very helpful. I’ll go back inspired by my journey, which I need to take a little time to recall. And I’m glad you’re doing this because people need to know what it was like and about the foundation they stand on, where we all -- so this is a very good thing to do. Because if I had had the benefit of this growing up, I would say, “Well, okay, so my journey is not so bad after all.”

I’d like to conclude with Amy Ray’s advice to young women today, because it is in many ways what the Women’s Oral History Project is all about. When I asked her what she would say to Emory students now, here is what she said.

Well, I don’t know, I mean everything is so clichéd now as far as advice goes for women. I think there’s still a lot of sexism and misogyny and there has been. It’s better than it used to be. You can hold that in your head and know it’s going on, but don’t ever let it hold you back or don’t ever let it make you overcompensate either. Just try to remember that you’re worthy all the time and that you can either be a victim or you can go for it and reinvent the wheel if you have to. And then I think it’s really important to respect your elders and listen to people that are older than you and remember that Emory didn’t used to have women in the school at all. And just respect your elders because I think that’s the thing in the United States we don’t do anymore and I think you can get a lot out of that, just respecting your elders and listening to what they have to say, even if you adamantly disagree with them.