Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Northampton, MA LORETTA ROSS Interviewed by JOYCE FOLLET November 3-5, 2004 December 1-3, 2004 February 4, 2005 Northampton, Massachusetts This interview was made possible with generous support from the Ford Foundation. © Sophia Smith Collection 2005 Narrator Loretta Ross was born in Temple, Texas, August 16, 1953, the sixth of eight children in a blended family. Her mother, who brought five older children to her marriage with Ross, had been owner of a music store and a domestic worker; she was a housewife as Loretta was growing up. Loretta’s father, who hailed from Jamaica, was an Army weapons specialist and drill sergeant. After retiring from the military in 1963, he worked for the Post Office and often held additional jobs to support the family. Loretta attended integrated schools — Army schools through second grade, then public schools. She was double-promoted in elementary grades and was an honors student in high school. When Loretta was 11 years old, a stranger beat and raped her. At age 15 she was the victim of incest by a distant relative; she gave birth to a son, Howard, in April, 1969. Because she chose to keep her child, she lost a scholarship to Radcliffe College. Soon after enrolling at Howard University in 1970, Ross became involved in black nationalist politics and tenant organizing in Washington, D.C. She joined the D.C. Study Group, a Marxist-Leninist discussion group, and the South Africa Support Project. She became a founder of the National Black United Front and an officer of the City Wide Housing Coalition (1974-80). The murder of her friend and political colleague Yulanda Ward in November, 1980, which she considers a political assassination, is a turning point in her life. Sterilized by use of the Dalkon Shield at the age of 23, Ross found her way to reproductive rights and anti-violence activism. She became one of the first women to win a suit against A.H. Robins, manufacturer of the device. In 1979 she became director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, the only center at the time run primarily by and for women of color. In that capacity she organized the first National Conference on Third World Women and Violence in 1980. While serving as Director of Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women (1985-89), she organized women of color delegations for the pro-choice marches NOW sponsored in 1986 and 1989, and organized the first national conference on Women of Color and Reproductive Rights in 1987. In response to the Supreme Court’s Webster decision in 1989, Ross co-coordinated production of the pathbreaking statement “We Remember: African American Women Are For Reproductive Freedom.” As Program Director for the National Black Women’s Health Project (1989-90), she coordinated the first national conference of African American women for reproductive rights. From 1980 to 1988, she was a member of the D.C. Commission on Women. From 1991 to 1995, Ross was National Program Research Director for the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly the National Anti-Klan Network), where she directed projects on right-wing organizations in South Africa, Klan and neo-Nazi involvement in anti-abortion violence, and human rights education in the U.S. In 1996 she created the National Center for Human Rights Education, a training and resource center for grassroots activists aimed at applying a human rights analysis to injustices in the U.S. Active internationally, Ross is a founding member of the International Council of African Women and of the Network of East-West Women. She has been a regular participant in International Women and Health Meetings and helped organize the delegation of 1100 African American women to the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1984. She attended United Nations Women’s Conferences in Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing. Ross has served on numerous boards (including National Women’s Health Network, SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project, Men Stopping Violence) and testifies on women’s health and civil rights issues before Congress and the UN as well as via such national media as the Donahue Show and Pacifica News Service. She publishes on the history of abortion in the black community and is co-author of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice (2004). Ross is completing a bachelor’s degree at Agnes Scott College. Ross was co-director for women of color for the April 2004 March for Women’s Lives. In January 2005, she became National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, a growing network of Native American, Latina, African American, Asian American and other women of color groups. SisterSong’s mission is to connect reproductive rights to human rights. SisterSong promotes reproductive justice through a combination of the Self-Help approach to internalized oppression and the human rights approach to structural inequity. The Loretta Ross Papers are at the Sophia Smith Collection. Interviewer Joyce Follet (b.1945) is a public historian, educator, and producer of historical documentary. She is Coordinator of Collection Development at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. She earned a Ph.D. in Women’s History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Abstract: In this 23-hour interview, Ross details her childhood and early education, family life and sexual assault. She traces and analyzes her political evolution from black nationalism in the 1970s to liberal feminism in the 1980s, and from human rights advocacy in the 1990s to reproductive justice organizing in the present. Her account sheds light on the interplay of national and international events in women of color organizing in the U.S. Restrictions: Pages 331 and 332 are closed until January 1, 2020. Format Tapes 1-10 (Nov 2004): videographer Danielle Beverly, using Canon XL1, normal mode. Tapes 11-20 (Dec 2004): videographer Kate Geis, using Canon XL1S, normal mode. Tapes 21-23 (Feb 2005): videographer Kelly Anderson, using Canon XL1S, normal mode. Some outside construction noise during Nov and Dec taping sessions. Transcript Transcribed by Luann Jette. Audited for accuracy and edited for clarity by Revan Schendler. Transcript has been reviewed and approved by Loretta Ross and Joyce Follet. Bibliography and Footnote Citation Forms Video Recording Bibliography: Ross, Loretta, Fran. Interview by Joyce Follet. Video recording, November and December 2004, February 2005. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection. Footnote: Loretta Ross interview by Joyce Follet, video recording, November 3, 2004, Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection, tape 2. Transcript Bibliography: Ross, Loretta. Fran. Interview by Joyce Follet. Transcript of video recording, November and December 2004, February 2005. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection. Footnote: Loretta Ross, interview by Joyce Follet, transcript of video recording, November 3, 2004, Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection, pp. 34–35. Loretta Ross, interviewed by Joyce Follet TAPE 1 of 23 Ross F 1_6 9 05 Page 1 of 360 Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Sophia Smith Collection Smith College Northampton, MA Transcript of interview conducted NOVEMBER 3–5, DECEMBER 1–2, 2004, FEBRUARY 4, 2005 with: LORETTA ROSS at: Smith College, Northampton by: JOYCE FOLLET videographer: DANIELLE BEVERLY (set up) FOLLET: We are rolling. We have been waiting for a long time. OK. So, here we are. Joyce Follet with the honor of interviewing Loretta Ross here in Northampton at Smith College on September — no, excuse me, November 3rd, 2004. Enough said about that. [day after the presidential election] ROSS: Let’s try not to be too depressed. FOLLET: OK. Well, this is part of the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project. It really is an honor. It’s just a thrill to be doing this. ROSS: A blessing, you just can’t see it. FOLLET: So, this is going to be a fairly lengthy life history, so, if we begin at the beginning, let’s have you tell me about your family as you were growing up. ROSS: After waiting all this time for the question, I don’t even know where to begin. My family is a blended family, meaning that parts of us are American and parts of it is immigrants. So my father, his family is from Jamaica. My father, Alexander Ross, was born in 1918 and apparently had come over when he was about five years old, from Jamaica. There was a wave of Jamaican immigrants that happened in the ‘teens, right after World War I. But he was raised primarily in Baltimore. Now my mother’s family is from Texas, and has been in Texas since 1867. They moved to Texas from Alabama, actually. There’s a cute story attached to that, because apparently we were slaves on a peanut Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Loretta Ross, interviewed by Joyce Follet TAPE 1 of 23 Ross F 1_6 9 05 Page 2 of 360 plantation near Selma, Alabama, and then right after the Civil War, my ancestor, I think his name was John Lake, took the family down to Mobile, built this boat, crossed the Gulf of Mexico, landed in Nacogdoches, Texas, and ever since then, my family has celebrated Juneteenth in Nacogdoches, Texas, as the family reunion day. So my family’s roots in Texas go back to 1867, and my mom’s family apparently migrated somewhat north from Nacogdoches, which is on the coast, to Bell County, Texas, Temple, Texas, in the central area. And Mom was born in 1922. FOLLET: And her name — was her name Lake? 3:33 ROSS: Her name was Lorene Dolores Burton.