The emergence of NOW in Chapel Hill and the effort to legitimate its authority
Slifkin talks about her own personal reasons for joining NOW when a local chapter was founded in Chapel Hill. With anger as her original impetus, Slifkin almost immediately became one of the organization's leaders and at once set out to make NOW seem like a legitimate organization within the community. She specifically emphasizes her use of rhetoric in lending a sense of authority to the Chapel Hill branch of NOW.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Miriam Slifkin, March 24, 1995. Interview G-0175. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
LYNNE DEGITZ
You mentioned in the other interviews (with Emily Adams in Fall 1994) the
variety of reasons women got involved in NOW. Why did you get
involved?
- MIRIAM SLIFKIN:
-
Well, I never thought of it. You're angry. That gets you started. But
once you're in it, you keep going.
- MIRIAM SLIFKIN:
-
We had a funny system in the local chapter. We started off, I was
treasurer. You know why I was treasurer? Because I could add and
subtract. That's why I was treasurer. We had somebody else at first,
before we were officially a chapter. She couldn't add worth a dime! And
I got so disgusted, I said I'll take over. So somebody else had to be
president. I don't know that they would have wanted me anyway. But that
was sort of the informality of it all. And after I decided I didn't want
to be president, I was, I think number three, I said, that's enough for
one person.
- MIRIAM SLIFKIN:
-
But there were projects I was interested in. So in order for my letters
to different people to have some credibility, I would put down
"Chair of the Education Committee" or "Chair
of Compliance", so it sounds good. You know, I would bring it
up to the chapter, "I'm interested in this. Do you
mind?" "No, go ahead, do it!" That's the way
it was. It worked fine. I don't know that anybody else pulled that sort
of trick, but it worked fine. And I did that on the state level when
Cynthia Drake, my predecessor, was president, I said I was, I don't
remember, I said "Do you mind if I put myself down as Chair of
the Task Force of whatever?" She said, "Go
ahead!"
(laughs)
Whatever. So what. But it was fun that way and it accomplished.
That's the thing. Are you getting your goals. And it worked.
- MIRIAM SLIFKIN:
-
And I remember once giving a speech to I think it was Seratoma. This is
another ironic thing. When Poquita advised me not to have my name on
that news release, I was being asked by men's civic clubs, as a member
of NOW, to come and speak. I mean, listen, isn't there something wrong
here, something strange? But that's the way it was. I think the first
one I did was when I was treasurer. And I said in my correspondence,
"Chair of Speakers' Bureau." And so it was
legitimate.