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Phyllis Griffin interview transcript, December 21, 2004
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8 my mother, the housewife of a farmer and someone who was known as the town drunk were going to be names as the Midwest conspiracy for the Communist party. NL: That seems absurd in retrospect. But I'm assuming at the time it was a relatively serious threat. PG: I bet you if you asked for the records of the FBI, you'd find her there. And you'd probably find enough paper on her that could, um, I think you could find at least 200 pages. NL: Wow. Um, this would have been around what time period do you think? PG: Well, lets see here 1952? 53 NL: I think those papers might be available through the University of Iowa, so, I'll definitely look into that. PG: OK. That'll be a hoot. Oh, I know they said some outrageous things about her. First of all, how could they interpret what she was really thinking or doing by just sitting back and watching her go and talk to farmers down at the farmers, uh, it was kind of like a union, it was, um, packinghouse workers. NL: Oh, Ok. That's interesting. My advisor, he wrote his PhD dissertation on the United Packinghouse Workers in Des Moines during that same time period, 1949-1950. PG: in Des Moines? Cause she was invited to speak. Now how that happened, I don't know. Cause we're talking basically when you look out at the audience they're all white farmers. So she's talking... here's a black woman talking to all white farmers about the importance of organizing. So the FBI's got to be in that audience somewhere taking notes. NL: Now do you think that... well do you consider your mother a radical or revolutionary, and do you think those are words she would use to describe herself? PG: I think mom would have described herself as an activist, a mother, an educator, not necessarily in that order. A lifelong learner. And if that got her labeled as a radical or revolutionary or a Communist, most of the time she didn't care. NL: Do you think she would have considered herself a feminist? PG: Yes NL: And why so? PG: Because women have a right to work, you know? Women have a right to compensation in the home, it needs to be acknowledged how hard women work in the
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8 my mother, the housewife of a farmer and someone who was known as the town drunk were going to be names as the Midwest conspiracy for the Communist party. NL: That seems absurd in retrospect. But I'm assuming at the time it was a relatively serious threat. PG: I bet you if you asked for the records of the FBI, you'd find her there. And you'd probably find enough paper on her that could, um, I think you could find at least 200 pages. NL: Wow. Um, this would have been around what time period do you think? PG: Well, lets see here 1952? 53 NL: I think those papers might be available through the University of Iowa, so, I'll definitely look into that. PG: OK. That'll be a hoot. Oh, I know they said some outrageous things about her. First of all, how could they interpret what she was really thinking or doing by just sitting back and watching her go and talk to farmers down at the farmers, uh, it was kind of like a union, it was, um, packinghouse workers. NL: Oh, Ok. That's interesting. My advisor, he wrote his PhD dissertation on the United Packinghouse Workers in Des Moines during that same time period, 1949-1950. PG: in Des Moines? Cause she was invited to speak. Now how that happened, I don't know. Cause we're talking basically when you look out at the audience they're all white farmers. So she's talking... here's a black woman talking to all white farmers about the importance of organizing. So the FBI's got to be in that audience somewhere taking notes. NL: Now do you think that... well do you consider your mother a radical or revolutionary, and do you think those are words she would use to describe herself? PG: I think mom would have described herself as an activist, a mother, an educator, not necessarily in that order. A lifelong learner. And if that got her labeled as a radical or revolutionary or a Communist, most of the time she didn't care. NL: Do you think she would have considered herself a feminist? PG: Yes NL: And why so? PG: Because women have a right to work, you know? Women have a right to compensation in the home, it needs to be acknowledged how hard women work in the
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