{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/h41jh3fx72/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Kwajelyn Jackson: “Reproductive freedom requires us to be connected to one another” "]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/699/original/Georgia_Dusk_Tagline_Primary_2x.png?1750685138","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Holding Repository"]},"value":{"en":["Georgia Dusk"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Sound"]}},{"label":{"en":["Genre"]},"value":{"en":["Oral history interviews"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-09-23 (Created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Jackson, Kwajelyn (Interviewee)","Rollins, Dartricia (Interviewer)","Combahee, Ashby (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright to this material is held by Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history. Requests for permission to publish should be directed to: \u003ca href=\"mailto:info@georgiadusk.com\"\u003einfo@georgiadusk.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eJackson, Kwajelyn. “Reproductive freedom requires us to be connected to one another.” Interviewed by Ashby Combahee \u0026amp; Dartricia Rollins. 23 September 2022, Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history, georgiadusk.com.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eKwajelyn Jackson currently serves as Executive Director at Feminist Women's Health Center (FWHC) in Atlanta, GA. She has the optimistic vision and pragmatism needed to lead an independent, non-profit, Feminist, multi-generational, multi-racial reproductive health, rights, and justice organization, providing compassionate abortion care in the South. Since 2013, she has led the expansion of FWHC’s statewide and national impact and deepened its community partnerships, leading the organization’s civic engagement, advocacy, education, and outreach teams, before becoming the organization’s first Black woman Executive Director in 2018. She sits on the board of directors for All-Options, Abortion Care Network, the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, and the Lola. Kwajelyn has been named as one of the 500 Most Powerful Leaders in Atlanta by Atlanta Magazine in 2020, 2021, and 2022.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Duration"]},"value":{"en":["02:02:29"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eKwajelyn Jackson currently serves as Executive Director at Feminist Women's Health Center (FWHC) in Atlanta, GA. She has the optimistic vision and pragmatism needed to lead an independent, non-profit, Feminist, multi-generational, multi-racial reproductive health, rights, and justice organization, providing compassionate abortion care in the South. Since 2013, she has led the expansion of FWHC\u0026rsquo;s statewide and national impact and deepened its community partnerships, leading the organization\u0026rsquo;s civic engagement, advocacy, education, and outreach teams, before becoming the organization\u0026rsquo;s first Black woman Executive Director in 2018. She sits on the board of directors for All-Options, Abortion Care Network, the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, and the Lola. Kwajelyn has been named as one of the 500 Most Powerful Leaders in Atlanta by Atlanta Magazine in 2020, 2021, and 2022.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright to this material is held by Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history. Requests for permission to publish should be directed to: \u003ca href=\"mailto:info@georgiadusk.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003einfo@georgiadusk.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Georgia Dusk"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Georgia Dusk"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/699/original/Georgia_Dusk_Tagline_Primary_2x.png?1750685138","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/274/786/small/Photo_Kwajelyn_Jackson-9.23-22-Georgia_Dusk%282%29.jpg?1748348455","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - KJackson_Oral_History.wav"]},"duration":7349.28109,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/274/786/small/Photo_Kwajelyn_Jackson-9.23-22-Georgia_Dusk%282%29.jpg?1748348455","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-georgiadusk.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/274/786/original/KJackson_Oral_History.wav?1748348329","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":7349.28109,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Kwajelyn's transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins  0:\u003c/strong\u003e My name is DARTRICIA ROLLINS, and I am here with ASHBY COMBAHEE. We are interviewing KWAJELYN JACKSON for Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history project. Today is Friday, September 23rd, 2022, and we are conducting this oral history at THE FEMINIST WOMEN’S HEALTH CENTER.   You have been asked to participate in Georgia Dusk, an oral history conducted by Ashby Combahee and Dartricia Rollins. The project is partnered with the Spelman College Archives, a component of The Women’s Research and Resource Center founded by iconic Black feminist Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and which serves to document the experiences of contemporary Black feminist scholars, activists, and cultural workers.    The purpose of Georgia Dusk is to gather and preserve first-hand narratives of organizers and cultural workers who have a connection to Georgia and who are part of the southern freedom movement. The oral history interviews provide elements of history that are often not apparent in traditional archival documents or dominant media. The interviews enable participants to reclaim the narrative and historical representation of liberation movements throughout Georgia. When used with other research materials, the oral histories help to provide a more holistic view of history.    KWAJELYN, can you please introduce yourself by saying your name, pronouns, age, and your work in the field of Reproductive Justice?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786#t=0.0,93.0"},{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKwajelyn Jackson:\u003c/strong\u003e My name is Kwajelyn Jackson, I use she and her pronouns. I'm 42 years old. And I serve as the Executive Director of Feminist Women's Health Center, which is a 44 year old reproductive health, rights, and justice organization provides abortion care, comprehensive gynecological care, outreach, education and movement building in the state of Georgia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786#t=93.0,120.90897"},{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Wonderful. And as part of this oral history, we also wanted to invite you to dedicate this to someone, and so who would you like to dedicate your oral history to?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786#t=120.90897,137.87569"},{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKwajelyn Jackson:\u003c/strong\u003e I will dedicate it to my maternal grandmother Gloria Bibb Washington, whose portrait is up on my office wall right now. She passed away in 1998, but was a high school principal in Macon, Georgia, and at the time, was the largest high school in the country, because it was a combination of four high schools into a complex in Macon, Georgia. She's also a graduate of Spelman College and put me squarely in the granddaughters club and so happy to dedicate today to her.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786#t=137.87569,172.0"},{"id":"https://georgiadusk.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3309/collection_resources/149484/file/274786/transcript/81642/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you. Okay, so let's start with some general questions. Where and when were you born? And where were you raised and who raised you?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  3:08   I was born in Topeka, Kansas, July 28, 1980. I always find it odd that I was born in the Midwest because I feel so southern. But I was born in Kansas. Then we moved to Kansas City, Kansas. Technically, Overland Park, Kansas, for a little bit of my early childhood, but the majority of my childhood, I was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, in North St. Louis County, in Hazelwood, Missouri, by my mother, Elmeta Charisse Jackson. Now Youngblood and my father, Michael Jackson. Yes. My father's name is Michael Jackson. Um, and one other note that I just always like to throw in is, you know, like many black children had like a myriad of caregivers, you know, across my childhood, but one that always stands out to me I had a woman who had a daycare out of her house, who I called my two mama because she was like, my second mama named Hazel Schofield who was just like, very formative of just like that, you know, two to like five year old period of time. Because she was like my everyday mama while my parents went to work.\n\nDartricia Rollins  4:42   I love that. Your two mama. \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  4:44   Two Mama. \n\nAshby Combahee  4:45   Are you still in contact with her?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  4:47   Oh, she's she has passed on too ya.\n\nDartricia Rollins  4:52   Okay, could you tell us what is a significant memory that you have from childhood?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  5:00   I have so many I've, my brother teases me because I have a really good memory. So I can remember being at my two mama's house and her teaching me how to make grilled cheese sandwiches, teaching me to put butter on both sides of the bread, before you put it in the skillet. A story that I've told before in repro spaces, I have this really distinct memory of being about four or five years old, and watching a movie about teenagers. And then going to my room, and sort of dancing in front of a mirror with just a t shirt on and just like feeling, like I was being an adult, I was being grown up, I was like, there was something about, like, sort of wanting to be like the teenagers, and then getting caught by my mother, and feeling instantly ashamed, because I was like, exposed. And, and there was just, I don't know, it was this sort of like very innocent way of like, understanding my own sort of sexuality and sense of self, and image of what maturity and adulthood would look like. But it's one of those memories that is just feels like it is like I can see it like a movie in my brain.\n\nAshby Combahee  6:29   Can I ask where do you think that shame came from?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  6:31   I don't know. It's one of the things that I think about all the time is like why at such a young age, I was immediately was able to associate, like nudity and self expression with shame. It felt instantaneous, and my mother was not angry at me. She didn't yell at me, she didn't punish me. But I felt embarrassed. And it feels like it's probably like the strongest, like feeling of embarrassment that first. Like I've done something that I wasn't supposed to do, I'm not supposed to feel this free kind of feeling. But that's a memory that I think about I reflect on, often, you know about the ways that we I don't know, teach kids really early to shrink, and to be small or, you know, not. And it's a disconnect with the things that maybe are taboo or again, like about themselves, their own bodies, their own sexuality, because we are afraid of what that might mean or because we are afraid of the harm might come to them. I don't know if somebody told me something that I held that brought that shame so quickly, but it was palpable.\n\nAshby Combahee  7:52   Curious, do you think you had friends the same age or siblings who felt the same way? Like if you were able to commiserate with peers about that sense of shame?\n\nSpeaker 1  8:01   I don't know. I mean, I, my I have a younger brother. And so he was far too young at the time if I was four or five than he was like, two or something like that. So I'm sure we did not talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I think I probably felt really alone. I can remember being a really independent child, like I was very good at entertaining myself and telling myself stories. And I watched a lot of television and read a lot of books. And so I think that I spent a lot of time in my own head. I can imagine Dartricia that you might relate to this, like, you know how when you're reading a book, especially kids books, like that inner monologue that the author is writing for the main character, I felt like that I could feel that inner monologue in my head all the time, just sort of like there was like a narrator of the things that I was doing. She walked over to her dresser and pulled out the drawer and looked for her favorite blue sock. Like I could hear it in my brain. And so I think that in that way, I was kind of, in my own head. A lot of my childhood.\n\nDartricia Rollins  9:14   Did you tell your brother any stories?\n\nSpeaker 1  9:17   Um, I think when we were little kids, even though we're not that far apart in age, we're just about three years apart. I really felt like it was my job to teach him things. But I don't think that I was as open about my insecurities, or my feelings and those kinds of things. I think those were very internal. But I was the kind of kid who like I came home from school and I was like, I'm gonna teach you math because I learned math today. And here's the lesson that I got in second grade that you kindergartener are gonna learn right now. I think he benefited from all of my tutelage and coming home and bringing him things ahead ahead of the game. But, but no, I think that there was certainly we're much closer now. I mean, we certainly are, really, really close and share a lot about what we're going through. But as kids, I think both of us kind of taught ourselves to self soothe and take care of ourselves.\n\nDartricia Rollins  10:30   You mentioned that your mother, like didn't shame you. So what what was your upbringing, like?\n\nSpeaker 1  10:38   My parents, I think that they were so cool. I feel like when I was little, especially, I was like, my parents are so cool. They put on cool clothes, and they go out to parties, and they go out to clubs, and they do cool fun things. You know, again, I don't think very different from a lot of folks upbringing, I had a lot of different caregivers who were in my life because my parents were working, and my parents were out. And so I didn't feel neglected by them. But I also didn't feel super. I don't know, managed by them necessarily. Like they, every now and then they would, you know, watch us play a video game or play a board game with us. But you know, it maybe this is that generation, X, latchkey kind of feeling of just like they weren't around all the time, we were just playing by ourselves, or we went outside and we were just out. But I do remember my parents talking a lot about their youth, I mean, maybe not their childhood, but especially their college years, I remember hearing so many stories about what my mother did in college, what how my father was in college, both of them were in Greek organizations. And so what they did in their fraternity or sorority. And so I felt like I had a lot of freedom to be myself, and, uh, not a lot of restrictions on my behavior. You know, we certainly we got punished, we got chastised, we got things taken from us, but we was really not a strict household at all, was very much like, you know, you could explore, you could make stuff you could, you know, leave and not come back until the fall of night, and nobody was checking for you. Kind of thing. Watch ridiculous amounts of television, hide books in every room, that kind of stuff. But I think at the same time, like, because my parents were so free with us, I think I put a lot, I imposed a lot of rules on myself. Because I wanted to be good, because I wanted to be trustworthy. You know, I think, inevitably, even though it did not feel like an external pressure, that expectation of black excellence was just like, present. And so being doing well in school being well thought of being complimented by your parents, peers. Those things were important to me, even though they were not, like sort of foisted upon me.\n\nDartricia Rollins  13:42   That actually makes sense. I like the point about, you thought your parents wore cool clothes, because you are someone known to wear cool clothes.\n\nSpeaker 1  13:56   So I have one more story about that. I've told this in other spaces, too. My mother. Still, to this day is still a very impeccable dresser, but it was like clothes and appearance and aesthetic. For generations. It's like super important in my family. And I can remember all growing up my mother when you come home from school or come home from the event, she's gonna ask you how your clothes were like, how did that skirt do today? How were your shoes today? Like it was about like, you went your clothes went out to do this thing. And you want to know, like, did they have a good time? You know, how did that how did your outfit work? And that was just like, in me, you know, laid out from the barrettes to the socks. The whole thing thinking about like, how do I want to feel in these clothes when I go do whatever this important thing is that I'm gonna do and like I said, I can just remember that being so emphasized. I mean, honestly, not just for the women in my family, like everybody, it was about like, we're gonna show up. We're gonna, like, be seen. So, yeah, clothes have have been a very important part aesthetic, and adornments and all of those things have been like a really important part of my life from my whole life. \n\nDartricia Rollins  15:22   It's beautiful. \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  15:24   Thank you.\n\nDartricia Rollins  15:24   Okay, um, I have another question about do you remember any significant events from your childhood? So other than a significant memory, anything in like, the news or in school that might stand out? \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  15:44   Um, I can remember. Like, when I was first sort of conscious of elections, and like when I think it was during Bill Clinton's campaign that it was sort of like the first like, really prominent on in my mind, and I remember when Ronald Reagan was president, of course, but but I think Bill Clinton was the first time that I have sort of like, was able to be like conscious and aware of like, of campaign and like when he went on Arsenio Hall, and like, all of that kind of stuff. I was, of course, in high school during the OJ trial. So I remember all of that stuff super significantly, and when, like, going to school on the day that the verdict came down, and people being so like, I don't know, it was a very weird feeling of people being so excited as if this was their. As if, as if it had been a sporting event and their team won. But also, people were murdered. And so it just felt very weird for us to like cheer about it. That was certainly a really big thing. There was a major flood in in St. Louis, when I was in the I think middle school. And it lasted for such a long time. And I can remember going down to the Mississippi River like river front. And like we took pictures in front of like the floodwaters like we're like in front of like a flagpole. where the water was like, up, like almost up to the flag. And I know in retrospect, it seems really odd, like we weren't in immediate danger. But it was just sort of like the thing that was happening. I think those are probably the biggest ones from like, below High School. Of course, I was in college when 9/11 happened. So I definitely have lots of feelings and remembrances about that day. But I think those are probably the most significant moment moments of my childhood childhood.\n\nDartricia Rollins  18:07   What do you what do you remember about Bill Clinton's election?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  18:13   I mean, I remember all the conversation about him being black, and not that he was actually black, but just this way in which people were assigning coolness again, and you know, that he was \"down.\" And I didn't certainly I was too young to know what his actual platform was, or what the things he stood for. I mean, again, in retrospect, I see a lot of the things that happened during the Clinton administration. But at the time of the campaign, it was just like, the conversation among young people was just like, he's so cool. You know, he eats cheeseburgers, and he, he plays a saxophone. And, I mean, hearing small bits about the affairs, but again, not really completely understanding. You know, we also like when we look back at that time, and in particular, the way that women were so maligned in the media, and were villainized in all of these ways, when so often, they were clearly victims and clearly being exploited. But at the time, just all of the ways that he was propped up and the women around him who were demeaned. I can remember that for sure.\n\nDartricia Rollins  19:39   I can definitely, so, the coolness. He was on Arsenio Hall. \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  19:42   Yeah. \n\nDartricia Rollins  19:43   How could he not be?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  19:45   He was on a late night. It was I mean, yeah, he was a cool guy. And then of course you want to cool President?\n\nDartricia Rollins  19:53   Yes. Okay. And you said another significant event was 9/11. And you were in college.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  20:00   Hmm...\n\nDartricia Rollins  20:00   Where were you at in college? \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  20:01   I was at Spelman College, I will never forget it, I was on my way to an art history class as my senior year of college. This was the period of time where I'd already finished all of my requirements to graduate and I was just hanging out, just doing other stuff. But um, I got up early that morning, and I just was getting ready for class and I turned on the TV and I was expecting to watch something else. And the feed was cut. And they were talking about what had happened. And I the first plane had already hit. But then I kind of was watching while like this, like the second plane hit in real time. And then I turned off the TV and went to class and then the teacher was like, some of you might not know what has happened this morning, some of you might, I want you to go back to your rooms and turn on your television so you can know what happened. And I and then it was just like the whole day. Just felt like, surreal. Yeah, that's what that's my rememberance, was like, I don't ever watch the news in the morning before going to class. That's not a typical thing. But whatever I was trying to watch, the news had come and crept into.\n\nAshby Combahee  21:21   What do you what do you remember of the aftermath?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  21:26   I mean, I remember people who lived in whose family lived in New York, or, you know, in kind of basically the tri state area, like trying to connect with their people and like, cell phones not being getting through or people not being able to, you know, find where their folks were. So really silly story. I remember a guy that I was seeing, I was like, I felt like I was in a daze. And I just needed to get off campus and put on some random action movie that was had nothing to do with anything. And was like, trying to make something happen. And I was like, this is not the time. This is not the time. Nothing about today feels sexy, I can't do any of this. I just want to, like be still and be in my brain. Yeah, just remember it feeling super surreal. And you're not just sort of like not really understanding the gravity and then just continuing to hear like the other plane crashes. And what does this mean, and just the effect that it was having on so many students who either had connection to New York or were, you know, trying to reach out to find their folks. Those are the most vivid memories. And then later, like in sort of, like the months later, you know, I was an economics major, and a lot of folks in the economics department well had all these like ambitions to go to New York and work in the financial district. And that was just like, the thing we're all doing, and so many people feeling like, well, now that's twarted. Like, I can't go to New York anymore. And I don't really know what. But that that was really the sentiment of just like, well, now I can't go because everything is different there.\n\nDartricia Rollins  23:23   Yeah, did you have any aspirations to go to New York?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  23:26   I did not. I did not want to leave Atlanta. When I was little again, I never felt like I was supposed to be in the Midwest. I was gonna I told myself, I told my teacher in the fourth grade that I was gonna move to Atlanta and go to Spelman College and become a sophisticated woman. And that's what I wanted to do. And I wanted to be here I wanted to, when I the first time I visited Atlanta, I think I might have been eight. Because my I went to my, no I was younger than that. My aunt, who I'm named after graduated from Spelman in 1986. And I came to her graduation. And we went to, I don't know, a mall, and we went to a restaurant and we went to Spelman's campus. And I was like, Well, this is where I'm going to live for the rest of my life. Because it was just a place where sophisticated people lived. I've wanted to, you know, I guess all this keeps going back to this idea of just like, wanting to be cool and wanting to be mature and wanting to be sophisticated, and wanting to do important things. And like, that's what I associated with Atlanta. It was shiny. It was fancy. It was very black. And I was like, well, that's obviously where I'm going to be. So when I got ready to graduate, I had a job offer that would have taken me back to St. Louis. And I didn't want to I just begged everybody. So I could find a job that I can have here so I could stay because I just didn't want to go back to St. Louis.\n\nAshby Combahee  25:08   I um, I want to back up a little bit. And ask, did you talk about any politics at home?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  25:16   Um we talked a lot about blackness at home. But like political figures, or like what was happening in the news?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  25:31   Some but I think, um, I think a lot of it like I got, I got like bits and pieces of news, like off the radio, you know, there were periods of time where the radio like DJs were constantly talking about, like, what was going on. So on the, in the car rides between places, like that was where I picked up things. It wasn't like sitting down and watching the news or anything like that. And I don't think my parents were dissecting the news with me or my brother, on any regular basis. But, you know, in, in the sense that we talked about racism, and we talked about race, for sure. Those are things that were felt like very present in my house pretty much all the time. Yeah.\n\nDartricia Rollins  26:27   The 80s and the 90s were like a really important, like, cultural moment for blackness. And so I'm curious about like, yeah, how you related to blackness? \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  26:41   Yeah \n\nDartricia Rollins  26:41   And your blackness and your family, especially being, you know, very pro black.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  26:47   Yeah, um, fascinating. So, when I lived in Kansas, we were in a very white part of the country. And so there were only at my elementary school, I think there were maybe like five black people in the school, like I was definitely the only black person in my grade. And I, ohh, another story just popped into my head. When I was in kindergarten, I had a best friend named Ashley, who had red hair. And after one show-and-tell we, on a Friday, we decided to trade toys, she was going to take my toy home for the weekend, I was going to her toy home for the weekend, and we would swap back on Monday, she took a black baby doll home for the weekend. And they came back on Monday, with the head pulled off of it. And I was like, and she was told that she couldn't play with me because her family didn't know that I was her best friend. And she didn't have no problem. But they definitely had a problem. So that was, that was the kind of environment that I was in. And my mother said, I didn't remember this. But my mother said that in my preschool, I had come home and said something about washing, washing the black off or something that somebody had said to me, I don't really remember that happening. But I remember her telling me about it. So it was those kinds of things were happening when I was little, little. And then we moved to St. Louis in 89, when I was just before my ninth birthday, and it was much blacker neighborhood. Much blacker school, it was still wasn't just probably 20-25% Black, give or take. So I had more black people in my grade. There was one black teacher at the elementary school. And I still was a little bit nervous. And I didn't feel like fully in my skin. And so I was still hanging out with white girls for like fourth and fifth grade. And then I remember, in sixth grade, I had the one black teacher in the school as my teacher, the first one of only a handful of black teachers I had in my entire life, primary school life. And there were like maybe seven black people in my class. And Vicki Agnew said to me, we're gonna make you black this year. Like said it to me straight up. And I was like, I don't know what that means. Because I felt Black at home, but at school, it was just like, I don't know, it was a different energy and I was oftentimes even I think intentionally by the school or by the administrators. This is another I think maybe telltale thing of the period of time, but just like trying to separate out like the gifted and talented kids, a.k.a. the light skinned kids, a.k.a. the quiet kids, a.k.a. the middle class black kids. Like there was a way that there was like barriers put up in between me and the black kids who were bused in from the city because there was a desegregation program that had went on my entire again, like through me graduating high school, I think it went on into the early 2000s When they're busing kids from city of St. Louis into St. Louis County, to go to the public schools. But there were. And I think I just I both fell into that. And I also was intimidated and nervous about my how my blackness showed up. But that period between sixth grade and seventh grade, like I was, like, I'm just, I was tired of hanging out with white girls, I did not relate. They didn't understand why I couldn't get my hair wet. They didn't understand. They didn't listen to the music I listened to. They, it was just so I was like, when I got into seventh grade, I was like, I'm not. I mean, they're fine. I didn't like, make them my enemies. But I intentionally was like, I'm going to be with the black people from now on. And I sort of made it my mission to be authentically myself. Like, I don't think I changed my personality, but just really more comfortable and confident in my ability to be myself around other black kids. And, um, I mean, I think the other side of that, like the home me, both of my parents went to HBCUs. So my, my mother and many of my mother's family went to Spelman, my father, my grandparents, my uncles, all went to Tennessee State. And so, I grew up going to HBCU homecomings. My grandmother would take like my birthday cards and colored them in with eyebrow pencil so that they will be black. Like, it was very, it was, I was in my house. It was, I'd never felt like I don't understand black culture. I am separated from it. It is foreign to me. But when I was at school as a small child, I was just like, I don't know where I fit. I don't feel like I, I fit. But yeah, by the time I got to middle school in high school, I was like, this feels right to me. This is good. I had my clip on ponytail. I was ready to go. I was ready to go. And my daisy dukes and my clip on ponytail. And my bamboo earrings and I was myself.\n\nDartricia Rollins  32:38   Yes. So Vicky's project.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  32:40   She I mean, she was successful, honestly. Yeah. Five stars. She wasn't mean about it. She was just like, she's like, you're not gonna stay over there anymore.\n\nDartricia Rollins  32:51   Yeah. Do you remember were there any activities or anything that you were involved in outside of school or even in school?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  32:59   Yes. So I danced most of my life. I went to a dance school in St. Louis called Best Talent Center, where I took ballet tap, jazz, African, palm. It was an all black dance school, and did it probably from like age 10 to 15 or 16. And then I like I said, My My parents were both Greek. So my mother was an AKA so I also did Little Miss Fashionetta, which is a cotillion. I didn't do the high school, Fashionetta, but I did the Little Miss Fashionetta, where we took etiquette classes and we learned to waltz and we wore the white dresses and that whole thing. I did inroads when I was in high school, so it was specifically for talented minority youth to get us trained to go into business in the industry. But that's how I got internships and scholarships. And, you know, my first job was at a brokerage company. I never worked at the mall. I never worked in fast food. I was, you know, working in an office, you know, I learned how to write a resume I had. So inroads was so fun because like, was kids from all over the county. And we had summer classes at the community college. So again, it was this opportunity be like, I'm on a college campus. And I'm 15 and I'm being very cool. And I'm learning about stuff and I'm eating in the cafeteria and I'm swiping my card and I'm taking calculus and it was it was so fun. Just like getting to like be around kids. from all over, again, like still this sort of artificial, you know, elitist groupings of like, these are the these are the talented black kids that are allowed to like be in this thing, which whatever. I have lots of regrets about some of the things that, I mean, I think that they benefited me. But I do think I think a lot about the structures that were behind the motives that were behind some of those programs. And then, last, I was at high school. I was on the dance team. We weren't cheerleaders, we were called the Pridettes. And so we didn't cheer, we danced. And I was also on the step team. So yeah, I did a lot of that kind of stuff. I never played a sport and never played an instrument. But I danced a lot and, you know, tried to be involved in activities and such. Yeah, was really busy doing doing all kinds of stuff.\n\nDartricia Rollins  36:11   Yeah, it sounds to me. And you said early on that, like you felt very southern. And it sounds like you were even if you lived in the Midwest, like your family roots seems to be very southern and very black southerner. \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  36:25   That's right. \n\nDartricia Rollins  36:26   And so I'm also very curious, you said like your maternal grandmother, Macon, Georgia. \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  36:31   Yep. \n\nDartricia Rollins  36:31   So could you tell me a little bit about, yeah, your family? And y'all's relationship to Georgia?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  36:35   Yes. So my, my grandmother was originally from Alabama. She was born and raised in Alabama, and had one sister but she moved to Georgia to go to school. And she got her Bachelor's at Spelman and got her Master's at Clark College before Clark and Atlanta University merged. And then I think she got one more degree after that, from the joint Clark Atlanta, and was in education for her whole professional career like I still have her bound master's thesis. And one of the other things that was so remarkable to me is that her mother had a, it's not quite a college degree, but had like, I could have her diploma from her education degree. And so I know that there's like a way in which, for a lot of people across race, like being the first person to go to college, like, the fact that my great grandmother has a degree is like, so remarkable to me. And then, my grandfather, her partner, was from Albany, Georgia, and then who had gone to Atlanta to go to Morehouse and they met on that campus and settled in Macon after they both graduated. He was also an educator. And, yeah, and then they raised my mother and my aunt Kwajelyn in Macon. And they, their whole lives were really sort of centered around education. And so, you know, my mom, there wasn't daycare for my mom when she was little. So she went to school with my grandmother, so she skipped a grade because she learned everything in the kinder in the first grade, before she even went to kindergarten. So they were just like, you already know all of this stuff, just go on. So education was a really big deal. And like, my grandmother was an AKA she was a link. She was in all of these sort of like, our kind of folk organizations and Macon is not a big city. I mean, it's it's not nothing but most of my family were very well known in Macon. There's a street named after her. There's an auditorium named after her. She has an exhibit in the Tubman Museum about her like she was a prominent figure in Macon. On my dad's side, they were all from Tennessee. So my father grew up in Nashville. And like I said, they all went to Tennessee State but again, both grandparents met at Tennessee State. And my grandmother was raised in Cedar Hill, Tennessee. And one of the remarkable things there is the the enslaved people that we are descended from in Tennessee, were at a plantation that kept really meticulous records. So we have a lot of genealogy of my grandmother's past, going back to folks who are who who are enslaved there. And like I said, and on that side, too, my, my paternal grandmother was also a teacher was a primary school teacher for her entire life. And she's my only grandparent who's still living. She's in a memory care facility off Cascade now, and yeah, I feel like education, and all of those things. Were just as important on that side. And she was also an AKA, and very involved, and her and her sisters were, you know, active in, like, what was happening in Tennessee in the 50s and 60s. And so, yeah, I mean, that's sort of a little bit about that lineage. And I know, I still think about it a lot about the immense amount of privilege that I'm able to access because of what they did. You know, my my paternal grandmother, her father owned a huge farm hog farm, that also I think they had some agriculture, but it was mostly livestock. And so having all that land and having enough money to, for him to send six girls to college, you know, in the 20s. Like, yeah, I guess that just an immense amount of, of privilege that I definitely benefited from.\n\nDartricia Rollins  41:52   I mean, no wonder you were so studious. You were from a family of educators.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  41:55   That's right. That's right. \n\nDartricia Rollins  41:58   Yeah, It seems like the values were were very much education, but also like being black. What, what other values do you think you you've brought into adulthood with you?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  42:14   Well, um, I feel like, like I said, the, the black excellence thing is definitely present and was was present. Um, I feel like the guiding value for my life right now has really been integrity, like, I just want to be able to be, like, able to, like stand in, whatever it is, whatever my decision is, be able to, like, stand in it. And like, stand behind it. And being like, honest, and upfront. And direct and truthful, has always been something that's been really important that I think I did gain in childhood. I mean, you know, kids certainly lie. But I feel like the value of being authentic and honest, is something that I kept carried with me now. You know, just to jump back a little bit to my mother, like, she had lots of different careers when I was a kid, but she started doing social justice work, probably when I was I was probably in high school, maybe middle school, when she started she was teaching but she became like a diversity coordinator and she started partnering with nonprofit organizations and then she became a program officer full time for these like youth social justice programs. And so I think that like an attention to like fairness and justice and equity, even not necessarily in those terms, were things that were also really present.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  44:23   Yeah, I mean, I think being just and being fair, and being in integrity are just like, I know that those are the things that drive my decision making. Now like in my current position in the way that I want to live in my personal life, like those are the things that feel the most important to be I want to be in right relationship with people. I want to be able to like be, you know, same things I said earlier, I want to be trustworthy, I want to be relied upon. I want to be able to like be vouched for. So yeah.\n\nDartricia Rollins  45:02   Yeah. Okay. So I have, we have a question about community? And how do you define community and how have you built community? I think you've been in Atlanta for a long time. So you made a very specific choice about where you want it, and how you wanted your life to be. And so like, how has, how has your community been?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  45:30   Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I. When I think about how I define community, I mean, I think outside of, like, professional context, I just think about, like, who are the people who, you know, I turn to in the celebratory times, and in the crisis moments. And so, I feel like that has certainly, you know, evolved over time. But I don't think about it necessarily as, as much about like a place, like, as much of a like these other people in my neighborhood kind of way. But, you know, I do think that there's a lot of ways that like, work has been oh, a vehicle to develop community, like being in relationship with folks who are going in the same direction, I'm going, who helped me, you know, sharpen my analysis, and think about things differently. Helped me like question, my you know, my understanding of how, how things work and how things could be different. So I think there's a lot of people that I would consider like, like, that I would consider myself in relationship with, even though we're not necessarily like intimately close, but because we are, because their work and their praxis are so important to how I see myself in my work, if that makes sense. And, you know, early on, like, when I was first out of college, I was working in banking. And I did definitely did not think about my, like, colleagues in the workplace as my community, they were just, you know, I liked them, and they were fine. But they were not like my people. But at that time, I was also like, super involved in a church. And that was my community that was like, where I lived. And it wasn't, I mean, in retrospect, it was not great. There was a lot of not great things that were happening around that. But I definitely there, there are people from that period of time that I am still incredibly, like close to, and you know, our lives are just like, inextricable from one another because we went through that period of time together. And then I think a lot about the art community, because when I left corporate America, I worked at an arts nonprofit called WonderRoot, which is also not a great time, but also was a great time, like it was a difficult work environment for lots of reasons. But it was a period of time where I really got entrenched in the arts community, people who are making all kinds of things and using art to explore these things that I cared so much about, it was so rooted in community, it was so reflective of identity, it was the place where I met so many organizers. Because all of these different organizations were doing work, using art and art making and like WonderRoot at the time was like, a place that was you know, bringing sort of folks who were thinking about, you know, climate and history and sex and all of these things, together and. Yeah, I feel like I built a tremendous amount of community through that. And I learned Atlanta in a different way. And again, I think that those were super formative. There are some relationships, like, my literal marriage that came during that period of time, I've just been connected with folks who are making music and who are making films and who were, you know, making sculpture and doing, you know, performance art, that are still really important parts of my life. And I wouldn't have made it to Feminist Center if it had not been through that period of time and the relationships that I was able to make. So yeah, I think community is super important. And whenever I'm in conversation with folks about like, how to get engaged and how to get involved, like, that's always my first recommendation is like, if they got a membership meeting, go, even if you're on another, say, sit in the back, you know, learn people's names, who are doing the thing, get on the newsletter, find out where they're going to be next started showing up. And that's literally what I did, I would just like go to everybody's meeting, go to everybody's rally, get on everybody's newsletter, and I'd just show up, they need me to unfold chairs, if they needed me to, you know, pass out water bottles, whatever the thing was, and I was just like, I just, I'm excited to be here. I just want to know what's going on. But like, that's how you know what's going on. And then after time, like people will start to trust you people will recognize your face, people remember you and they're like, oh, yeah, you haven't met Kwajelyn. I've met her she was at such and such, and so and so. And, and being able to just sort of like, I don't know, be a part of like, what's happening, I wouldn't have known about so many of the issues that are happening in Atlanta if I had not been able to just like, show up and sit in the back of the room. And so to me, like that's such, a powerful way to affect change is to like, start by building community, start by building relationships, start by building like, trust and affection. Because I just feel like that makes the work better, if you like, are doing it alongside people that you have affection for that you you know, even if you don't understand exactly what the expectation is. It's like, you know, if Roula tells me, this is what we're gonna do, I'm gonna do it, because I trust that she has done the vetting for me.\n\nDartricia Rollins  52:35   Yeah, okay. I love that. I had a question. And it seems like you've already kind of answered it around, like, when did you begin to build political consciousness? And if I'm like hearing correctly, it is like you going moving into a nonprofit world through art, but also just showing up to different spaces?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  52:58   I mean, I think I think it really started to develop at Spelman, if I'm honest, I was not a Women's Studies major, but I did take classes in the Women's Center. And so I think that some of those classes were certainly a part of that, like, sort of formative. I mean, again, the there were certainly a sense of like, blackness and the ways that blackness is devalued in society was present in my whole life. Like I was very aware of all of that, but like, I think that my connection to my womanhood and my understanding of like, even though I didn't have the language for it at the time, like the misogynoir parts of it, I think that was what was cultivated at Spelman. Like taking classes where we talked about the quote, unquote, video hoes having like long discussions about the autonomy of women who dance and music videos, because that was, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, THE VIDEO VIXEN was the thing. So, even though I did not have reproductive justice language in my body, there was black feminism that was present, you know, reading Patricia Hill Collins, reading bell hooks reading Audre Lorde, like those things were happening for me at Spelman. And so certainly some of that stuff was really unlocked at that period of time understanding like how many different ways black women get to show up in the world? And what things we were kinds of obstacles and barriers we would continue to face. So I think that that was probably a really big piece of it, but then certainly, I think it got sharpened during that time period of time at WonderRoot. Because, you know, I think in particular, the things that I learned working with Project South, like I went to their university without borders, workshops. And, you know, so I learned a ton there. And, you know, of course Feminist Center had an abortion speak out at WonderRoot and Spark (SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!) had their fire media camp photo exhibit at WonderRoot. And so just like those were the times where I felt like I got a lot more of an intersectional understanding. And like I said, at the same time, my mother was really, in this like, parallel path. She was at that point working for Planned Parenthood, and she was the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, and Education. And so I was learning a lot through her as well, just in our conversations. So yeah, I mean, I could just remember, like, different, like, moments in time of like, not necessarily having everything together, but having, you know, debates with Morehouse men about various things, and, you know, trying to assert my, like, understanding about autonomy and about. Yeah, like, how, how I like, trying to think about how the effect that like patriarchy and misogyny was having on my life, in like, every day, you know, interactions and things like that, like less of like, the theoretical, and more of just like, this is how it feels. So, yeah, I think it's probably between those two periods of time where, like, the most of it. But I mean, even when I was at the bank, I was working in community development finance, which at the time, I felt like was the most like, mission centered part of the bank, because we were funding low income, housing and mixed use development and, you know, economic development in underserved neighborhoods. But I mean, again, in my, you know, later, understanding, I was like, I was, I was facilitating gentrification, but at the moment, it didn't feel that way. It didn't feel that way at the time, I was like, we're, but you know, I, it started to really dawn on me, and it became so impossible for me to keep working there. Especially in 2000, like 7, 8, 9, when it was like the housing crash, and all this kind of stuff was going on. And we were foreclosing on, you know, all these affordable housing units, because the developers were just walking away. And it was, it was devastating. But I was literally a part of tearing down Section Eight housing so that we could replace it with, you know, multi income housing that would have like 5% of the units that will qualify for Section Eight or something like that, it was just and so I didn't really know as much then, as I do now about sort of the history of the ways that real estate and redlining and all of these things have had such detrimental effects on us as a people. But I could feel that this is not helping us, this is not where I want to be. Because it feels like it's it's harming us more than it's helping. And I don't want to be a part of the thing that's tearing up the neighborhoods that I care about. So like, I wouldn't say that I had like a full analysis then but I was just, I was aware of like, the harm and the effects. So yeah.\n\nDartricia Rollins  59:37   I think you're...Okay. So I do have a question about was it at Spelman that you started to identify as a feminist but specifically a black feminist, or did that come later?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  59:56   I think it came later. I think it was in me But I don't think that I was actively identifying as such. Probably until my late 20s, early 30s, that I was really actively identifying as a feminist and talking about what that meant for me. And I don't think I was rejecting of the term in any way. But I don't necessarily I don't think that I felt qualified, perhaps to, to like, own the term, like I had read some books, but I was like, You need to really know this stuff to be a feminist. And I think at a certain point in my late 20s, I just, I let go of that as a, as a bar of like, I don't have to have written a book, or I've been a Women's Studies major, like these things are reflecting how I see the world. And therefore I am. And I think, in particular, having conversations with folks that I was in relationship at the church, is where it really started to come out, because I was just so defiant, I guess a lot of what was being told to me, I was just like, This doesn't make any sense. And so I think that's part of what helped me to, like, be like, I had my legs under me, because I was like, this, ain't it. And so, I, this other thing is this, you know, the what you all are talking about this coming from the Bible does not relate to me as much as Sister Outsider [by Audre Lorde] does, honestly, it's like, so...\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:01:50   Yeah, it seems like you were up against for yourself, like, theoretically, feminism, or like, but you also kind of already had this like material analysis of feminism, you said, like, you could see how patriarchy was like, impacting you.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:02:10   Definitely, I mean, in college, for sure, just like, there were times we would, in the middle of the day, if you just like walk onto Morehouse's campus, and walk past the dining hall, which is like this wall of mirrors, and you can just feel like 150 necks turn, doesn't matter how you look, or what you have on, it was just sort of like this, like, overwhelming feeling of being observed. And I can remember having fights with people. I mean, this is a really random remembrance, but just like having fights with people about like, the R. Kelly sex tape, thing and that happening and just being like, I was very early adopter of Mute R. Kelly [#MuteRKelly], like, I stopped listening. I was just like, I can't, nothing about anything that this person represents, is healthy for me. And so like, running out of rooms, when it comes came on and like, kind of thing. But like, again, not necessarily articulating that in well thought out concrete arguments that could have been, you know, backed up by feminist theory, just being like, this is gross. This is monstrous. This is harmful. I don't know how you can listen to people talk about children, let alone grown women in this way. Like that kind of thing was just so. And then it's like I said, it's the same thing at the church, like the ways that people's dress, and body shapes were being scrutinized and surveilled. And I'm talking about how like, you can't be seen in a hallway with a person of the opposite sex, who you're not married to, because it will leave this impression of it was was dumb. They were like, you can't ride in a car with a man who's not your husband. Like, what does that even mean? Like it just those kinds of things were happening. So it's on both extremes of like the, you know, women are intended to be sexual objects of desire and the women are intended to be, you know, mothers and matriarchs and asexual autonomous automaton's. Like neither of those things reflected like my understanding of myself or my peers. And so I was just like, I obviously am a feminist because this ain't, like I said, this ain't it, this this stuff is not it and like, trying to really I don't know just figure out how to not be um, to like push up against all the ways that we're just conditioned to be. I felt like those are the things that I learned that I felt like I was feeling them. And then I got affirmed when I read them, if that's really what it felt like that, like it was, I, these things are already happening in my life. And then I read this article or this book. And it's, it's gelling for me. So I think that it was always there. I mean, I can remember reading Color Purple [by Alice Walker] when I was 14, and I had the flu. And just like, crying, reading the book, and you know, just those, I feel really grateful that I was able to be exposed to a lot of different things that helped me crystallize the different components that came from my regular live lived experience.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:06:06   So you said that, your mom worked at Planned Parenthood? And so I'm curious about what were your thoughts about abortion? And then how did you then move into reproductive justice work? \n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:06:18   Yeah, I I've tried to think about this a lot. I can remember how like Dirty Dancing was one of my favorite movies still is one of my favorite movies. And I took think it took me several watches before I really knew that this was a movie about was about abortion. I knew that Penny was in trouble. And I knew about the folding table and the dirty knife, but I didn't actually really know what was happening the first few times I watched that movie, but I do remember many of my peers getting pregnant very young. Some of them continuing that pregnancy, and some of them not. And I feel like at the time when I was in like Junior High High School, I don't think I felt either kind of way about it. I think I just mostly was indifferent to abortion. When I was young. My mother didn't start working for Planned Parenthood until I was in college. So I was, I had a much different perspective by them. But when I was in high school, I just was like, it never felt like it was that big a deal. And maybe that was just about the kinds of conversations I was having with other black teenage girls, but it was just like, some people had their babies and some people didn't. Um, and yeah, so it didn't, I don't I just don't remember feeling any I was not like a super activist for it, or like, you know, thinking about it constantly, the way that I definitely do now. But I remember the first time that a friend of mine told me that they had an abortion Well, after the fact that they had it. And I was surprised that they didn't tell me before or that they didn't like I was like, I don't know why you thought I would feel differently about you, or why you thought that you had to keep it from me. And they, you know, we had a whole conversation about it. I've, you know, several people in my life, who've had abortions at you know, different points. And I don't know, I've never felt anything but compassion and caring for that person. Well, before I started doing anything related to abortion, it was just sort of like, how are you? How are you doing? How are you how, how do they treat you? Are you okay? But the idea of like, having a child with a person you don't want to have a child with at a time where you don't want to have a child seems very normal. And a matter of fact, it feels and so I yeah, my mother was working plan for Planned Parenthood. I was either just, it was in like the later stage of me in college or just getting out of college. But I was definitely in my 20s. And she would talk about going to conferences and the sex education and stuff like that. I tell people all the time, she's the first person who took me to the Mother House. She was visiting Atlanta and she was like, I'm gonna take you over and we're gonna meet my friend, Dion, who works for SisterSong and I was like, okay, cool. And we went over there and got a tour of the Mother House and had lunch. And I ain't know anything about a SisterSong. And yeah, I think the way that I got connected to Feminist was really was through WonderRoot like I said, I'd get familiar with the organization there. And when I left WonderRoot, and I was doing some volunteer work with Project South, a friend told me that they, that Feminist Center was hiring and passed me the job description for a volunteer coordinator. And I applied and somehow got the job and made it happen. I mean, that's, that was pretty much it. And it wasn't because again, I wasn't because I was like, so supersaturated in reproductive justice, it was really just that, I knew I could do program management, and volunteer coordination, because I had done it at WonderRoot. And I knew that I was a feminist, and I could articulate that. And I knew about intersectionality. And like how, you know, all of these system ways the systems of oppression affected me and affected my folks. And that's what I think I talked about in the interview, I really can't remember what I talked about at the interview. And I remember, I think it was probably a pretty matter of fact, of just like, abortion is needed and necessary. And if people need to have them, that's fine. And that's probably all I said. But when I got to Feminist and I started doing the work, I did the same tact I talked about before, I was like, Okay, who are all the people who are doing this work in Atlanta, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna have lunch with Monica Simpson, I'm gonna have lunch with Malika Redman, I'm gonna have, you know, I just wanted to like, sit down with everybody. And like, tell me about your approach to the work. Tell me about who else I need to meet with. Tell me about your relationship with the organization? Like, how can we, you know, do you have thoughts about how we can work together more closely, I just was like, tell me what you want me to know. So I specifically was just like, who are all the black people who are doing this work that I need to know. And and then over time, I started to really more clearly understand the distinctions between sort of, you know, the white feminist history, the second wave feminism, the, you know, the founding and like, sort of coining of reproductive justice, you know, the Combahee River Collective statement like I was, that's when I really like I was already here, when I started to sort of, like, deepen that analysis of like, what has this look like, over time, you know, the March for Women's Lives, you know, talking Dazon [Dazon Dixon Diallo], like, just trying to understand, because I didn't want to just have, you know, sort of, like, the organization, the institutional understanding about what was happening in Georgia, in Atlanta, and then in the movement, wider. So, yeah, I mean, it was just, it was a same, I'm just gonna sit in the back of the room, and I'm gonna learn what I'm supposed to learn. And I'm gonna try to build relationships and build connections. And then just doing that over over time. That's how I think that my, like real understanding of reproductive justice really came into play is because other black women helped me to, like ask the right questions and get that understanding.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:13:49   I know that the Feminist Women's Health Center did not always have a reproductive justice framework. And I kind of think you had a lot to do with that adoption. But could you tell us a little more about how you kind of developed your work here, and how you how the organization grew.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:14:09   So the organization kind of co-opted a reproductive justice framework at a period of time, but not a real, like thorough analysis and a way that that was tangibly reflected in programming. It was just like, there was a frame of mind that this is an organizing tool. But it was not. It was not embodied. And I remember I started at the organization in 2013, the summer of 2013. And in 2014, which was the anniversary of sort of the 1994 period of time when the black women who were at who were in Chicago, like had their meeting, and there was an article that was put out, there was a letter, an open letter to Planned Parenthood that several reproductive justice leaders had published. And I remember our former executive director being like, well, I don't know why we weren't invited, like, because we're not reproductive justice. She was like, but why aren't we and I was like, but we're not like, we're, we're not. And so, you know, I certainly was able to through that relationship building start get getting invited into more reproductive justice spaces, and bringing back. Well, these are the ways that we need to adapt and adjust our programming, our trainings, our workshops, in order to be more authentically reflecting the tenants of reproductive justice. Again, I was still in a different position, I was not in senior leadership, so I did not have a lot of decision making power. But I think I was listened to, to a degree. And so I was able to shift a lot of our community facing work to say like, if we're going to do organizing, and we're going to have a lot of white volunteers, then they need to have training on power and privilege and understand how their identities affect the ways that they are able to organize and help us to shift some of our, like \"us\" and \"them\" language, which was really prevalent for a long time about, like, this idea that we were, this white organization was going out to save \"them.\" And so trying to shift some of that language and trying to push back against, you know, our staff, and donor base who are, you know, really uncomfortable talking about gender, and we're very gender essentialist. And so just like saying, we don't actually have to say women all the time, and that some of that work predated me, because we did have a trans health initiative before I came. But, you know, pushing that even further. So that we could better reflect the people that we are the people that we would, that we wanted to be in community with. Um, so I don't I don't take credit for it. I don't think that I introduced reproductive justice to the organization, I don't think that I, you know, was like the catalyst or anything, but I do think that the relationship building and the ways that I was able to shift our outreach programming, changed the relationships that we had with other black led organizations, and got us, I guess, more credibility in spaces than we had had before. And then when I came became Executive Director, I did have a different opportunity to make more tangible changes. Because to me, it was like, it only goes so far for our work out in the community to reflect reproductive justice. But if our internal work doesn't, if we are still upholding all of these capitalistic, white supremacist, patriarchal values in the way that we do the work. I mean, and that's invalidates what we're what we're able to do so, you know, trying to figure out how to make reproductive justice, tangible. And so it's still ongoing, it's not, it's not done, it's just, you know, it's still ongoing, just like interrogating and excavating and reckoning, and, like going through that process. So that we can be really honest about what who we want to be and how we want to be. Because, I mean, I found that in lots of organizations that I partnered with and, and volunteered with and worked with, like, ways that the mission and the outward facing work was like so powerful and so important. And then the inside was just like, messy and toxic and harmful and like, you know, so I was just like, I don't ever want to be at an organization that can't say it in integrity, like, in like, all of it, all of it is important. And like, I just didn't want to be a part of making people I don't know, like be so beholden to the work that they are, that they ignore the ways that doing the work makes them feel. I felt like that was my a lot of my experience like at WonderRoot. I was so like, in love and raptured with the mission, I was like, this is it, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. This is magical. But being in sort of like a really toxic harmful work environment where I was devalued and mistreated, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I was just like, I could not reconcile how like. And so I was just like, I don't want anybody else to ever feel like that, like they are like, it's they have to sacrifice their well being in order to like do this big thing in the world. So I know, that's deviated from your question. But like, I think that that's the thing that I thought a lot about with this organization, since I came into leadership is just like, how do I make sure that we are simultaneously doing good, unnecessary, impactful work, and the people who are doing the work get to be cared for in the process? And I'm, you know, I'm absolutely not perfect at that. But like, that's really the aspiration. It's like, how can I leave this organization in a way that is above reproach, like, again, not perfect, but just like, willing to be as authentic and transparent as, as necessary? Because the work is worth it?\n\nAshby Combahee  1:22:02   I mean, you're describing this process, I mean, eeckoning and also, getting a group of people to have praxis, is messy work, it's challenging. And without getting too much into details. I'm just wondering if there's stories that like, help us see illustrate that processing?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:22:31   Yeah, I mean, it has been hard. I mean, one, like, the moment that we're in, I mean, I think really, from like, 2020 of just like, doing like DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] work is just like a thing to do, because we have to prove and show that we like, you know that Black Lives Matter. And like we've checked the box and like so just trying to be able to do something that is authentic, and is not perceived as surface or shallow or for show like we've been, I've been wanting to do this. I don't know, for better part of a decade, but it's just like, the timing of when we got the money to be able to do it. So I just always have a little bit of like, in the back of my mind. Like, do people feel like, Oh, we're just doing this now because it's the thing to do. I don't think that that's been people's experience. That's my hope, but certainly a fear that I had. And then we are very multigenerational organization. So my mother works here. We have definitely have people who are in their 60s 70s 80s who work here. We have people in their, you know, very early 20s work here. So there certainly is quite a generational spectrum. And I think that that affects people's comfort level with having vulnerable conversations at work. And their comfort with change and new ideas and things like that. I mean, again, across the spectrum, I think that there's a patience with other people, like meeting people where they are that also is a dynamic that has been really present of like, people want everybody to develop their analysis instantaneously. And for some folks, you know, unlearning is a slog. You know, I think really specifically like there is a way in which I have witnessed and experienced how when people of color or Black people in particular, come in and inherit historically white led institutions. There's a, like a clean up woman kind of phenomenon of like, I have to take be accountable for all of the past harms and mistakes that didn't have nothing to do with me. But being willing to do it anyway, and just be like, you know, you're right. We own that, that belongs to us, that's ours to fix, and not being defensive, and just sort of saying, Well, that was them. And I'm, you know, so, you know, being accountable for the ways that other people have, like, messed up before you got there. That I like I said, I feel like that happens. I've seen it happen to black people more, very often. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's because we've been in this process for such a long time, like, I everybody's not going to want to go where you're going. And that's hard. Like, you want to move at a pace where you're not leaving anybody behind, but also not be sort of like, hinder, hindered from progress, because people are so resistant. And I know that the way that we've been socialized around work, the way that capitalism tricks us into thinking that our value is in our productivity, and that mistreatment and harm and abuse are par for the course, are normal and expected. I do have one sort of like anecdote story, because I think this is what you're actually asking for us, like I had, we had a staff member who was terminated after sort of like, multiple processes to give feedback. But said during the exit interview, that they felt blindsided because they never felt like they were in trouble. And so that really like the sense is because the feedback was given in a respectful and encouraging and, like, here's what we needed, here's what didn't happen. Here's what we need in the future kind of way and not an a, you're in trouble. You're bad, you're through your job is being threatened kind of way, not in a punitive way, that we're like, Well, I never, I was never in trouble. And so I just sort of like, those are the kinds of things that really boggle my mind. It's like we're trying to move away from, like, the ways that we replicate the carceral system in organizations, and we use threats in order to control people's behavior. Like we don't want that. But people are so used to that. They're like, well, if you didn't write me up, then it wasn't real, then the feedback wasn't real. And I, it's like that those things feel really hard, like people don't trust that or just are not accustomed to the ways that it can be different. And that's hard for me sometimes to be like, what, you know, we're trying to be different, I guess. Yeah, I think that those are some of the things that have been really difficult in the transformation process of just like we're trying to people not being able to sort of, like fully accept and recognize the ways that the things that they are used to were actually harmful, because they're so used to them, if that makes sense. Like I don't know if that answered the question perfectly, but that's what that's those are the things that have been coming up in like this internal part of the work. Just like, you know, you offer a new benefit, and people are like, don't trust it. Like, what, what does this actually mean? Kind of thing.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:29:30   This is shifting culture. And it is a process and I think it's a it's a hard and beautiful process, and very grateful. You know, I think 2020 had a significant impact on everyone. And I think it challenged us all to grow. And I think it seems like Feminist is is meeting that challenge in trying to grow internally and externally.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:30:02   Trying. Trying. I mean, we have to, like, project, you know, into the future. I mean, that's really what I've been trying to do is like, the moment is bad. The moment is bad, there's so many bad things. But what are we what are we building now that is going to hold us and sustain us 10 years from now, you know, 20 years from now, what are the things that we can do right now that are going to take care of our future selves for the people who are coming behind us. So that we can withstand the bad, the bad parts. That's what I want, I want to be able to like have like, a solid foundation that is real, that really is reflective of values, like the values feel like they are like, front and center and clear. And like when we, when we're at a crossroads, like we have a guidepost. Because the values are so clear and strong, the vision is so clear and strong that it feels doesn't feel like a struggle to decide which direction to go. That's what I want to be. I think about how like buildings in California, like they build the sway in. So when the earthquake comes, the building can move with it, but they don't fall down. Because it's there. It's like, it's got the sway in it. So I want us to be like, stable and agile, at the same time. Because that's what I that's how I think we survive. I mean, that's how I feel like, you know, oppressed people survive is like, being able to move and evolve and adjust and adapt. While the move Earth moves under your feet.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:32:05   And speaking of the Earth, moving under our feet. So now we're hear in 2022. And Roe v Wade, has been overturned. And so I am a little curious about you know, there's been big moments in reproductive rights where it's been like Roe is gonna be overturned, like it's, it's not like it was a new thing like we've been hearing it. And I'm curious about like, what, what in this moment felt like, oh, no, this is really actually happening. And then the moment of like, oh, no, it's actually happened.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:32:48   I mean, I felt sure that it was going to happen. When I listened to oral arguments in the Supreme Court. When I listened to it. I was like, this is a wrap for the team. I mean, I Lowkey felt like with the last couple of confirmations. I was like, this might be a wrap for the team. But like listening to oral arguments felt particularly like slicing, like. I, took particular umbrage with this way that the conservative justices were comparing this case to, you know, the landmark cases that reversed you know, racist policies, and like, protecting the unborn was equivalent to, you know, affirming the humanity of black people. I was just like, y'all. If you all could take those things back, you would, so don't pretend like, anyway, that was those were the things that really made me the maddest. But I feel like the writing has been on the wall for abortion for a really long time. And you know, just watching the ways that state legislatures were intentionally trying to throw as many blatantly unconstitutional laws out as possible so that they could try to get one to get to the Supreme Court, like it felt. I mean, I was surprised that anybody was surprised that that was the strategy that they're like, change the lower courts, change the circuit courts, change the Supreme Court, and have a pipeline of bills that can go um, but when the June decision came in our favor in 2020, like that was, I don't know for some reason, because I think maybe it was about like, the makeup of the court at the time. Like I wasn't worried about June. I wasn't worried about June. I was like, June is gonna go our way. But Jackson Jackson's not going to go our way. And I mean, I'm not, you know, I didn't have any like inside information, it was really just a feeling it was just a gut. And the leak, I think, was also really particularly difficult. Because I felt like, again, both really angry at some of the sentiments reflected in the leaked opinion. And I was frustrated by the media response. Yeah, I think maybe the leak was sort of the other like, this is happening. Because it felt like there was no turning back like this. It's, it's happening, and it's going to happen this way. There was, I think, maybe a couple of people who had like, like, oh, well, the leak was just to test how the, you know, public will react, and maybe they'll backtrack, and it won't be as bad. I was like, no it's out here now. It's this is this is it. So I think I still feel, you know, not surprised, and also not. It was hard to really capture how I feel about all of it. I mean, I think that we haven't really seen the worst of it yet. That's really, that's, I think my probably my biggest impression is that, you know, when SB8 was allowed to stand in Texas, that was also just another indicator of like, oh, they just really don't, they don't care. They don't I mean, I, and again, it's like one of those things, like, we knew that they didn't care. We knew that even something as confusing and potentially, like, unwieldy as the way that SB8 was structured. And the potential for that same strategy to be used in a myriad of different ways. And you know, people just being like, shrug, sounds fine. Those are all those were all sort of, like, I feel like really strong indicators of just like, this is this is this is it, this is this is it. And I've also always really been very impressed by the resilience of our movement. And I mean, like, there is a way that abortion providers have had to be nimble for such a long time. And it had to sort of like we're adjusting to new restrictions all the time. You know, we are trying to, like reconfigure all the time. We've been, you know, threatened into extinction in so many ways for such a long time. But I think for the rest of the country to really recognize how the long what I believe are going to be the long lasting implications of this. Like, that's the part that I continue to be I guess, surprised about like, I know that I'm entrenched in this work in a different way than like my friends who don't do movement work at all or don't do repro work, but just like the fact that everybody sort of like moved on at this point. Like in you know, September October like now that they've had a few months of okay, well, Roe is over and everybody's again, just sort of like well, I guess it's just normal for you to have to fly to California for an abortion. I guess that's just that's just the way you get abortions is you go to New Jersey, like I just the fact that all of that is just normalized. Is real wild to me. And so I'm always surprised that people are surprised or always surprised that people are when people don't really understand all the implications that this will have. Anyway, I don't know if that was I don't know if that was a coherent answer to the question either, but it was just like, this has felt like such a long time coming. And it's not over. It's like still happening. It's still unfolding. It's like. So that's how I think I feel about it.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:40:24   How's it how's it impacting Feminist, now?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:40:29   Yeah, we are. Our six week ban went into effect in July. And I mean, one of the really, I mean, I could go through the whole, I've told this almost exact story on so many stages, but the Supreme Court decision happened on June 24th. And in the days immediately from following the Dobbs decision, we had hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of calls, like we could not staff, the phone center sufficiently to actually answer all of the calls that were coming in. And during the period of time, between June 24th, and July 20th, we saw probably 40-50 patients a day, give or take maybe more, because we were trying to help absorb some of the need around the Southeast, and really just around everywhere. And then there was we were in constant communication with our attorneys about what to expect about the six week ban. And every piece of information that we had suggested that when the decision comes down from the 11th circuit, which is where the case was our HB 481 law that had been enjoined, since 2019, had been permanently enjoined, and then had been appealed by the state and we're still in the appellate court, that once they levied their decision, which we had some indication would not go in our favor, that it would be 28 days from the decision for the mandate issue to be ordered. And so we will still have time, like everybody was like, this is the way that this Court, it's the way all of the decisions go. And instead, they put forth the the opinion that based on the new Supreme Court precedent, that the law was allowed to go into effect. And then 30 minutes later, they're like, and the injunction is lifted immediately. And so we were just like, nobody was expecting that. Nobody. So that was certainly like I mean, and you know, you can't predict what anything anybody's gonna do. But you're like, at least follow your own rules, y'all made the rules, like just follow your rules that you made. So they, so you know, having to adjust, we didn't have any patients that were in the clinic at the time. So we just had to, like, call all our existing appointments. And we had to really quickly change our forms that are go in the chart so that we can make sure that we're documenting cardiac activity, and we had to change the script that folks were giving over the phone. And so that week was a really painful week of just like, devastating people, people who already had been denied care where they live, in some cases, had made arrangements to come to Georgia to be seen. And then we're told actually, Nah, don't come to Georgia, you have to go somewhere else. Um, so again, just for more context, before Dobbs, we were probably averaging between 20 and 30 patients a day. And then during that window 40 to 50. And now it's like 10 to 12. Maybe. So, over the last quarter, you know, it's just been all over the map and gone from the phones ringing off the hook to, you know, very manageable amount of phone calls, because people know they can't come. I will say that more people are coming earlier in pregnancy than ever before. And because Georgia's law does have exceptions. We are still able to support people coming from states where there are no exceptions and able to care for them later in gestation than we would have them, you know, because the law allows for it. So for people who are survivors of rape or people who have medical emergency or medically futile pregnancies, we're still able to see them and care for them. And, you know, abortion is not the only thing that we do. So really, you know, trying to continue to deepen and expand our non abortion, reproductive health care and build out like what the future I mean, this is me going back to this idea of like, being in the future of like, what would it look like for us to really better reflect all of the the tenants of reproductive justice through our clinical care? So how do we more intentionally support pregnancy, birth, parenting, fertility? How do we support people across a larger lifespan? So how do we support young people more? How do we support Peri menopausal and postmenopausal people more? How do we broaden our gender affirming care and make sure gender affirming care is reflected through every component of our services? And then like, again, like how does reproductive justice feel? When you come into a clinic? Like what is it what what does that change? About the environment? About what you what questions we ask on our forms? About like, the physical space? Like what is reproductive justice? Operationalized and like functioning, feel like tangibly, how's it experienced? Like, those are the questions that I'm trying to ask because I'm like, abortion will come back around the law around abortion is going to continue to change. It will never not be a component of our work. But it's not the most important thing, or the only thing that our communities need. And so who do we want to be? In like a truly, like, liberated future, like, who do we want to be? And how can we build some of that now? And because now's the time, obviously. I mean, we've been you know, it's, it's not that we were waiting until Roe fell to make these kinds of decisions. I've been thinking about them and trying to put things in place for a long time, but but now is the real time. If we're going to survive, if we're going to be here for another 50 years. We can't wait to like transform our work to reflect what folks need.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:48:15   I have maybe two more questions. But one thing that you said really stood out to me, and I'm very curious about your perspective. You named during the SCOTUS hearings, they were using a lot of like the landmark cases against racism. And what I also noticed about the protesters outside is they use a lot of language around Black Lives Matter. And they use a lot of like racially charged language around like, how black people have been systemically oppressed as a way to attack abortion. And I'm just very curious about your perspective of of that, because I think that's a very necessary analysis.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:48:56   Yep. It's, it is intentional, and, and it's awful. I mean, the people who have in every almost every other instance, where there have been opportunities to invest in the well being of black communities have either neglected or like intentionally. You know, divested from those opportunities, but will use sort of the facade of caring about black babies in order to make abortion seem harmful. I, the protesters outside the building are constantly asking us Don't you think Black babies matter? Don't you think like Black Lives Matter? Don't you care about Margaret Singer? They love talking about Margaret singer. It's literally their favorite song. Oh, I'm like just throwing it out all the time. Um, but there's zero other evidence that they've done anything to improve the lives of black children black parents, you know, it mean that there's there's there's no congruence. Those people are not protesting the black people who's who are on death row, and petitioning for their lives to be saved, to be valued to be honored to be protected. They're not even invested in the maternal mortality crisis that we find ourselves in. So they're not there's not even a willingness to acknowledge the interventions necessary to protect black pregnancy, black birthing outcomes, to honor people's like birthing experiences and the desires that they have. None of it like it's so it's so it's so shallow, it's like a teaspoon shallow. And I can tell, I continue to assert that, while there certainly are ways that, you know, religious extremism has been a guise for, like, the motivations behind anti abortion, policy and sentiment, I deeply believe that it is capitalist at the core. And white supremacist at the core, like those two components are really the crux of the push for, to eliminate abortion, that the preservation of white population and the preservation of a black labor force are at the core. I mean, it's just they feel so crystal clear that they'd certainly don't want black people to have bodily autonomy, because then they will no longer be easily exploitable tools to build the wealth of the powerful, like, if you have autonomy over your body over yourself over your time over your labor. Like, you know, it's very hard to oppress someone who can control the their destiny. And something none of these tactics I knew, I mean, I honestly, you know, Killing the Black Body [by Dorothy Roberts] is, you know, like, my formative text. It's one of the that's one of the books I didn't bring up earlier in the conversation. But that's one of the books that really like reading that book, and then going to see Dorothy Roberts give a speech at Georgia Tech, Georgia State. Like it's, it's crystal clear, it's crystal clear. And so I you know, I don't discount that there certainly is like patriarchy involved in the control of, of white women is important because, you know, trying to continue to pull white women from the labor force and put them in positions where they will be able to be subservient in the home like those are, those are parts of it. But that's not like the crux of having an easily exploitable long term labor force that you can continue to incarcerate for free labor, like all of those things are like, there. And I don't know that the guy standing at the bottom of the driveway is thinking about it quite that critically. But I bet you, Lindsey Graham is and so and Alec is and the like those the big, you know, machines behind this movement, are absolutely thinking about it that way. I mean, we know that, you know, the the phenomenon of build of planning out prisons based on, you know, fourth grade aptitude tests like it's, it's clear, it's clear, it's not even veiled. So I deeply resent not only the ways that the anti abortion movement continues to like co-op the language of black organizing and black revolution, but I also resent the ways that the reproductive health and rights movement fail to acknowledge and examine the ways that race affects what's happening and just sort of disregard and sort of pretend that this is just about out women's bodies. And not understanding how this lands very differently on people. Depending on the identities that they hold, I'll never forget, there was an organizing call that got zoom bombed that I was a part of. And the folks, the trolls that got into the call, they didn't start by calling people murderers. They didn't start by talking about Jesus or praying, or they didn't start by talking about women, they started by yelling out the word nigger, that's what they did. They disrupted the call, by yelling out the N word after a black woman had had finished speaking. And so that, to me is like, this is not it is impossible for us to do any of this work in any really effective way. Without having a racial analysis. It's just impossible. It's not it's just not possible. And I think that that's one of the ways that our movement has fallen short. It's just like a reluctance to reckon with the white supremacy that exists in the movement and the ways that our opponents are will continue to have that be a core root component of their analysis of their motivation of their strategy.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:56:33   Yeah, and I think, you know, my understanding is capitalism and imperialism, like white supremacy and patriarchy are just an extension of capitalism and imperialism. And so yeah, their bottom line is capital. And it will use whatever tools...\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:56:49    anything... \n\nDartricia Rollins  1:56:50   necessary.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:56:51    Nothing is above sacrifice. If it's going to, if it's going to build wealth, if it's going to maintain power, if it's going to bring in more dollars, literal dollars.\n\nDartricia Rollins  1:57:06   I feel like you've given us a lot of seeds to really, for the last question, because we're almost at time. What does a reproductive liberation look like to you?\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  1:57:20   I think about it all the time. I mean, the first thing that always comes to my mind when I think about, like a liberated future, where reproductive justice is, is felt is ease, like, being able to like exist in the world with ease, with pace, like those things like capitalism, and white supremacy, and patriarchy, and colonialism, like, make it feel so difficult to truly just like, be at be at ease at any moment, not just because you feel like you got to be productive all the time, but because of the stress of existing, prevents ease. So I think about that, like being able to not worry about how you will feed yourself. Where you will rest your head, whether the water you drink is clean, like those things not being a worry, a constant concern that safety feels achievable. Not that you will never take risks, but that safety feels possible. And I feel like for so many of us like it's the idea of safe safety of true safety feels foreign. So those are the things I think about those things a lot. I think about this tension between, like independence, self determination, and connectivity and interdependence. That like to me or reproductive freedom requires us to be connected to one another, that no one that individuality is not the goal. But that the collective is centered and valued and that there's a sense that the decisions I make have impact. I mean, just like just acknowledging that the like the things that I do in the world have impact on others. And that is just true. And that there is a benefit to the to the one when the many are cared like you like that there, we don't feel separated from one another, I just feel like that. But at the same time, there's not sort of like a self sacrificial expectation that someone has to be harmed in order for others to benefit. So being able to be like, simultaneously self determining and community centered, feels like such an important piece of like, what a liberated future would be. I mean, I think those are the main things that I think about, I just think about, like, what would it feel like? For for us to have, like a really developed sense of empathy, and care. That did not feel like we had to shrink ourselves in order to make other people whole, like, we don't have to set ourselves on fire in order to warm up the room.\n\nKwajelyn Jackson  2:01:09   Yeah, you know, that we have time, I mean, that ease, like being able to have time. I mean, I don't know, even being able to, like, reject the concept of time, like where we got to be, where we got to be, you know, you're awake, when you're awake, you're asleep, when you're asleep. You're fed, you're warm. You're nourished, like, those are the I mean, I just, I, I don't think that being able to have something like that, that really is truly divorced from capitalism would stunt our creativity, our innovation, our ability to like build, and make things that are new. But you know, having the space to dream and have ideas and be creative and not feel like, again, like your ability to eat is tied to what you can do what you can make and if you're or whether you're talented or not. I don't know those are the things that I want. \n\nDartricia Rollins  2:02:22   Yes. 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