[NWDigitalProjects] A Day of Women's History 2020, Three Years Ago This Weekend

[MFB]

Three years ago, dozens of Southern Oregon women and women's organizations
planned to celebrate Women's History Month and the Year of the Woman to
commemorate the centennial of suffrage. After months of planning, an Oregon
Heritage grant to document second wave feminism in Southern Oregon and just
days before the Day of Women's History on March 15th, our communities were
locked down to control the spread of Covid-19. It was a fearful time, with
not a lot of information, and everything just stopped. Tangren Alexander
wrote of this moment in Reclaiming.

As all of you did at that time, we pivoted to digital and remote. The Day
of Women's History was streamed through Facebook, just a few participating
face to face. Tangren's poem opened the event. Today as then, we celebrate
Southern Oregon's women - past, present and future and also honor Tangren
who died on March 26, 2021 surrounded by friends and family.

We invite you to listen to oral histories collected as part of the Rogue
Valley Women's Movement, women telling of their lives in the 1960s, 1970s,
1980s and 1990s, times of gratitude, of freedom, of hope. You'll hear
Beth's demand for justice, Tangren's hidden life, Jackson County's women
mayors who forged a way, Tanya who speaks of difference, women who asserted
their right to freedom and taught others to do the same and so many more
voices. Here are their stories, in the Rogue Valley Women's Movement
playlist in the Stories of Southern Oregon collection.
https://www.youtube.com/c/StoriesofSouthernOregon . Maureen.

Reclaiming

By Tangren Alexander

Friday, March 13, 2020



Corona: 1. A rare and glorious sight during full eclipse of the sun,
radiance made visible.

Corona: 2. In the night sky, a constellation, a circle of stars

Corona: 3. All outer events called to a halt, no going to gatherings.
Performances and performings vanish alike.



At 7:30 this morning, I make a grocery run.

The Co-op so quiet, the surprisingly many shoppers not stopping to hug in
the aisles.

We quickly fill our carts.



Back home, groceries unload in the still chilly day.

Hands washed.

Catfood, nut milk, cans for making bone broth-coconut-pumpkin-onion-celery
soup,

and yes, TP, stowed.

Hands washed again.



Now the sun is warm, the sky a vivid blue, the fir trees very forest green,



the day all my own.

_____________________________________

*Maureen Flanagan Battistella, MLS (she, hers)*

*Oregon Heritage Commissioner, 2022-2026*
*Southern Oregon University Sociology/Anthropology*
*Stories of Southern Oregon <http://storiesofsouthernoregon.com> on YouTube
<http://youtube.com/c/storiesofsouthernoregon> in the*
*Southern Oregon Digital Archives at SOU <http://soda.sou.edu> and*

*in the Stories collection in the Internet Archives
<https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Stories+of+Southern+Oregon%22>*
*TA117 541-552-0743*
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