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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Kathrine Robinson Everett, January 21, 1986. Interview C-0006. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Education trains Everett for women's movement

Everett's college education, which seems to have been at the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNC Greensboro), trained her for the women's movement, she believes, and shaped her belief that qualified women should not be excluded from the workplace because of their sex.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Kathrine Robinson Everett, January 21, 1986. Interview C-0006. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

PAMELA DEAN:
Tell me a little about your training for suffrage.
KATHRINE ROBINSON EVERETT:
You ask a little bit about my training for suffrage. I had gotten very good training in woman's suffrage at the college, the woman's college. We had had debates and we had had mock conventions. I remember, several of us represented one of the candidates. It happened that I drew Debs, so my part was to try and argue for Debs, who I didn't believe in nevertheless.
PAMELA DEAN:
This was Eugene Debs?
KATHRINE ROBINSON EVERETT:
So the woman's college was excellent training for women in politics. Gladys Tillett was in the class just after mine. She was a sophomore when I was a freshman. Gladys was quite active in North Carolina and, you remember, was given a national position because of her work for the Democratic party. There were a number of women, I think all of us tried to work out. I do feel this-probably which may not be entirely in line with what many women say-I don't believe that a woman ought to be given a job just because she is a woman. I feel unless she is qualified she doesn't help the cause a bit in taking a position that she isn't qualified to hold. This means in a choice between an able man and a woman who is just trying to get the job because she is a woman. I don't think she ought to be given the job because I think there are plenty of capable women that could do it. But I do feel like there is no reason either in law or in common sense in disqualifying a capable woman. That she should have an equal chance. That is my position. I worked for them.
PAMELA DEAN:
For the suffrage?
KATHRINE ROBINSON EVERETT:
For woman suffrage and for the capable woman being chosen.