I have been a volunteer blogger for Planned Parenthood Advocacy of Arizona since last fall. When the group was brainstorming about February, Black History Month was one of the topics given. I asked if I could try to interview Faye Wattleton who was President of PPFA from 1978 to 1992 - the first African American in the position, the first woman since Margaret Sanger, and at 34 the youngest president.
I asked for an interview and after some consideration, and approval of my questions, Ms. Wattleton agreed to a phone interview, which we had on January 7, 2013. When this was transcribed, my editor felt there was so much material, a single Q&A article would not do justice to it all. Instead, the project turned into four 1500 word articles expanding different themes from the interview. They were published each Monday in February.
In writing these articles, I worked closely with the blog editor (our last e-mail exchange before the last article was about a comma!) and after the first article, also with Ms. Wattleton's comments and corrections. This became the most ambitious project I have done, and I'm proud of the results.
However, I do not have permission to republish anywhere else, and so was unable to share the series here and had to content myself with posting the link on facebook and in the messages to the Feminisms etc. group. A few days ago I got a message suggesting I write a short diary and include the links, which seemed like a good idea. So here are links to the articles. I hope you enjoy them and learn a little of all I learned from this wonderful opportunity.
#1 - http://blog.advocatesaz.org/...
#2 - http://blog.advocatesaz.org/...
#3 - http://blog.advocatesaz.org/...
#4 - http://blog.advocatesaz.org/...