Christine Tibbetts oral history interview, June 4, 2004

Interviewed by Mary Jo Duncanson. Tibbets begins by discussing her family, her education, and the events that led her to Atlanta. She explains that her degree in journalism helped to guide her into a life of political activism. When Tibbets accepted a position in the communications department of the Georgia Association of Educators, part of her job entailed writing and educating Georgia’s teachers about legislators, lobbyists and political action. In 1978, Tibbets moved to Tifton, Georgia, and she recounts her experiences acclimatizing to the culture of the Bible Belt. She says that while she was trying to figure out what she was going to do in her new surroundings, she received a phone call asking her to help organize South Georgia for the Equal Rights Amendment, which she knew would be a “controversial course of action.” She started organizing by calling local teachers, planning speaking events at churches and other community outlets, and using the community of Tifton to organize support for the ERA. She explains how she was able to use the community as a public forum for interviewing political candidates and for providing access to the process, so that more women could get politically involved. Through the help of the Women’s Political Caucus and the AAUW, organizers in South Georgia were not only able to educate other women on political candidates and legislators, but also on how to use the political system to help elect supporters of women’s issues to local boards, such as the Board of Elections, the library board and others, in order to start making changes from the inside. Tibbets explains, “We founded a literacy program and set out goals there for people with a fourth grade or lower reading level…what we did was got ourselves on boards to make changes then wrote grants and built non-profits to make changes and, of course, brought in more people too.” She discusses how she was able to help diffuse some of the local resistance in the community against the ERA by aligning with Margaret Curtis and the People of Faith for the ERA organization. Tibbets provides an interesting depiction of the obstacles she faced in terms of organizing and bringing political awareness to the Women’s Movement and other controversial issues in the heart of the Bible Belt. Ultimately, she asserts that women in South Georgia were able to accomplish a great deal in the midst of active local resistance.