Sutton talks about conflicts when attending a national ERA meeting (5:27)
subject: Feminism
subject: Social movements
subject: Women's studies
description: A native of Atlanta, Sherry Sutton was born in 1941 and received a B.A. in political science from Emory University in 1981. She has been active in Georgia politics since the 1970s when she became involved in the Equal Rights Amendment / Women's Rights movement. She served as legislative liaison for ERA Georgia, Inc. (1980-1981) and then served as the group's president (1981-1982). During this time she was also the chair of the DeKalb County Democratic Party (1980-1982) and served as the District 2 Commissioner of DeKalb County (1985-1992). While Commissioner, she helped lead the effort to block the construction of the Presidential Parkway. Currently Sutton works on staff at Georgia Shares, an organization that helps to raise funds for social aid organizations in Georgia primarily through workplace contributions.
description: Describing her childhood, Sutton says she acquired from her family a Depression-era mentality at an early age. In the mid-1960s, she became involved in political issues -- particularly the Vietnam War. She then became interested in women's issues -- in particular reproductive freedom, domestic violence, and equal pay, all of which, she describes as being interrelated. She talks about her fundraising work in the 1960s in an effort to assist women who had to go to New York to seek abortions. In the mid-1970s, Sutton became involved in the Democratic Party and in 1979, began her service as its chair. She was also selected as one of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention in New York City. Sutton describes her involvement in the Women's Movement, and states that one of her main objectives was to help get more women elected into office. To this end, she worked for a number of state senate campaigns. She recalls the reason for her political involvement: The only way the difference was going to come about was through the political process. Sutton's interest in the Equal Rights Amendment campaign began when she saw that women were serious about building a state-wide coalition that could effectively lobby and ratify the amendment. She served as chair of ERA Georgia, Inc. and also worked on the national level with ERAmerica. Sutton recalls that ERAmerica did not consider Georgia as a key state when pushing the amendment: This caused a rift between Sutton and legislator, Cathey Steinberg, who sponsored the bill in Georgia. As Sutton explains, her plan was to connect ERA Georgia with ERAmerica, while Steinberg wanted to try and keep the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the legislative process in Georgia. Sutton goes on to discuss the rivalries between the different women's groups such as NOW and the Women's Political Caucus at both the state and national levels. She also provides detailed accounts of each group and their leading figures.
description: Transcript of this excerpt: SS: So anyway, I went up there to that meeting and we sat around the table and we talked about the various ways that they were going to try to ratify in the various states. And Cathey Steinberg came into the meeting and sat down. She had been up there for -- at that time, her little girls were still pretty small and I think she'd been up there for something like a Bluebird meeting. And she came in and sat down and stayed about ten minutes and somebody went over and said something to her, and she went outside with the woman. I think it was the AAUW woman. She was a very heavyset woman who was very opinionated and she always would knit during meetings. She would sit and knit. And so she and Cathey went outside for a few minutes. And Cathey came back in and slipped me a note and left. And the note said, and I wish I had kept it, and I may have somewhere. The note said, "I've been asked to leave this meeting. I'll talk to you back in Georgia." So I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do because, frankly, I felt intimidated by these national people, because at one point Eleanor Smeal was there. She was at that point president of NOW, and not friendly at all to me; I mean -- just felt like Georgia was a waste of time. And, of course, she was right, and of course, they were focusing where they felt like they had a chance. So she -- I remember her being very cold and not very -- but, you know, when I look back on it, I know why. I mean, women were so -- the Women's Movement was only about eight or nine years old at that point. I mean, we had only had Roe v Wade for, like, seven years at that point. And we're still having to fight at every level to hold on to Roe v Wade and to fight the states that were trying to pass state laws that would basically overturn Roe v Wade. So it was like, we were all stressed to the max, not knowing what -- not having any kind of blueprint to follow, not knowing anything except that we knew that we wanted to do it o…
creator: Sutton, Sherry (Sherry Shulman), 1941
source: Digital Library of Georgia
date: 11/8/98
type: sound