Interview with Roberta Jackel

Interview with Roberta Jackel

Social justice

Women's rights

Women's March on Washington

Washington, D.C.

An oral history with Roberta Jackel, an employee of Auburn University, concerning her participation in the Women's March on Washington that occurred on January 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Jackel offers compelling commentary about growing up in Atlanta, GA during the Civil Rights Movement and her witness to the rise of Women's Liberation. She details her internship and later seasonal employment at an abortion clinic in downtown Atlanta in the 1970s, which helped to shape her values on women's reproductive rights. Jackel's oral history offers a lens through which to view the tenuousness of the rights bestowed upon Americans in the 1960s and 1970s as she expounds on her recent efforts to remain involved in local and national activism, fearing the restriction or retraction of those rights.

Her testimony includes a comical anecdote about Jane Fonda napping in her (future) husband's bed after an anti-war protest in Atlanta.

Roberta Jackel

Special Collections and Archives

Auburn University Libraries

February 12, 2017

Heather M. Haley, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, Auburn University, in cooperation with the University Archives and Special Collections

All files are the property of the Auburn University Libraries and are intended for non-commercial use. Users of these materials are asked to acknowledge the Auburn University Libraries. For information about obtaining high-resolution copies of this and other items in this collection, please contact Auburn University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Department at archives@auburn.edu or (334) 844-1732.

Digital Audio File
Transcription PDF

English

MP3 Audio File
Transcription PDF

01:44:24

Heather M. Haley

Roberta Jackel

Bond Library, Thach Hall, Auburn University (Auburn, AL)

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:03:03 - Segregated public school education in Atlanta, GA
00:06:38 - Growing up in an immigrant Jewish family
00:13:04 - Employment at a crisis center and involvement in women's consciousness-raising
00:16:22 - Law school at the University of Georgia and engagement with Women Law Students Association
00:23:13 - Ideological beliefs in women's reproductive choice
00:26:41 - Anti-war protests and Atlanta International Pop Festival
00:32:24 - Jackel Family's political and ideological leanings
00:36:44 - Internship at an abortion clinic in Atlanta, GA and sex education in the 1970s
00:47:48 - Election Day, November 8, 2016
00:57:47 - Morning after the election
00:53:47 - Travel to Baltimore, MD and Donald Trump's inauguration
01:03:43 - Women's March (in Washington, D.C.)
01:25:58 - Return to Alabama
01:29:57 - Maintaining the momentum
01:37:18 - Roberta's final thoughts