Showcase - Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project

Remembering Terri Lynn Jewell: Black, Lesbian-Feminist Poet

Terri Jewell at Womonwrites 1984. Photo courtesy of Rand Hall.

Terri Jewell (1954-95), Black, lesbian-feminist poet, lived in Lansing, Michigan, for the last twenty-plus years of her life, and we are happy to claim her for the South. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1984, Terri attended Womonwrites: the Southeast Lesbian Writers Conference in Georgia with the Louisville League of Lesbian Writers.

During her short life, Terri Jewell published one book of poetry, Succulent Heretic (Lansing, MI: Oral Tortuga Press, 1994), and the collection The Black Woman’s Gumbo Ya-Ya: Quotations by Black Women (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1993).

Terri’s book, Our Names Are Many: The Black Woman’s Book of Days (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1996), was published posthumously. Terri Jewell’s poems also appear in scores of journals and are anthologized in collections like A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women’s Poetry, When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, and If I Had My Life to Live Over, I Would Pick More Daisies.

When our Herstory Project editors went looking for women who remembered Terri Jewell, we found her Louisville League of Lesbian Writers friends eager to participate.

Southern Sisters, Inc.: Women in Print, a Feminist Outpost

Southern Sisters, 411 Morris St., Durham, NC (1988-1995). Photo courtesy of Melody Ivins.

We didn’t know squat about books. If we’d known what it was going to take, we wouldn’t have done it! You had to be passionate and crazy.

Rose Norman: Finding Lesbian Community in Alabama

Rose Norman, author, grew up in rural Alabama during the civil rights era. She finally found lesbian culture when she was forty, and it changed her life forever for the better.

Posted on January 22, 2024 Posted in Lesbian Land Groups, Social and Political Groups, Spirituality and Religion Tagged with Aggies, Autobiographies of American women writers in the 19th century, Baptist church, Betty Clemens, Black Womens Autobiography, Bloody Lowndes, British literature, civil rights activism, College Station, Coretta Scott King, Corp of Cadets, director of Business and Technical Writing program, dissertation, DISTAR Direct Instruction Reading Intervention PrograM, English, english composition, feminist approaches to literature, feminist criticism, Fort Deposit, Fort Deposit Academy, fort Deposit Elementary, Fortex, Fun with Quarantina, George Wallace, Haneyville, HBCU Historically Black College or University, Head Start, Huntsville Alabama, Huntsville Feminist Chorus, IBM Selectric typewriter, in store credit, Joanne Braxton, Job Corps, Jonathan Daniels, Judson College, Justine Shrider, Knoxville Tennessee, Literary London, Lowndes County Alabama, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power PBS, Lowndes County Training School, LydiaBetty Giardini, Marion Alabama, McGovern, Merril Mushroom, Nancy finley, National Television, NOW National Organization for Women, pajama factory, Pam Siegler, privileged, racist, Renaissance drama, Rock Hill South Carolina, Rose Norman, Royal Shakespeare Company, Sacred Heart Monastery Cullman Alabama, Sandra Carpenter, segregated, Sherry Mercieca, Sister Maurus, SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, South Carolina, Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project, step sings, Stratford, teachers aide, teaching assistant, tech writer, tenure track job, Texan, Texas A&M, Tom Coleman, Unitarian Universalist Church, University of Alabama, University of Tennessee, Viola Liuzzo, violence, Virginia Woolf seminar, Winthrop College, women in American History, Women in European History, Women Spirit Rising, womens college, Womens Getaway Weekend retreat at Sacred Heart

Joan P. Garner: Fostering Social Change

Interview by telephone by Rose Norman on April 12, 2013 Rose Norman: What made you a social justice activist? Mandy Carter talked about getting turned on by an American Friends Service Committee speaker in high school. What was your “aha” moment? Joan Garner: I grew up in Washington, D.C., during the 1950s and 1960s, the height of the civil rights movement. I was in the eleventh grade when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. That event was the aha for me. That very weekend, I was attending the annual conference of my high school sorority. Girls from several surrounding states were meeting in Washington, D.C., the weekend of April 4, at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Dr. King was assassinated, and a curfew was put on the city. We couldn’t leave the hotel. We were about 150 African American girls, and the rest of the hotel was completely white, except for some of the maids and other service staff. We were petrified about the assassination and the curfew; and we didn’t know what was happening. We could look out of our hotel window and see U Street starting to burn. Our sponsors decided …

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Posted on December 15, 2023 Posted in Social and Political Groups Tagged with advocacy, African American lesbian woman, Atlanta, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, civil rights movement, Creating Change conference, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, first Black mayor of Atlanta, Fund for Southern Communities, Funding Exchange Network, Human Rights Campaign, Jewell Gomez, Joan Garner, lesbian and gay movement, lesbian feminists, Mab Segrest, Mandy Carter, Mayor Maynard Jackson, North Carolina, out Black radical dykes, Pam McMichael, Simone de Beauvoir, Sinister Wisdom, social justice, SONG, South Carolina Georgia, Southerners on New Ground, Suzanne Pharr, Washington DC, Washington Hilton Hotel, women’s movement