1973: Rebellious Teen from Madison County

Me at age 14, September 1973

This post was submitted by Ann, one of our docents here at the Special Collections Building. It is part of our ongoing A Look Back at 1973 series, crowd sourced from readers of the blog. If you have a story to tell, read more about this project HERE.

In 1973...I entered the rebellious stage of puberty as social unrest and protest movements swept the nation.  I was half way through the eighth grade and my Madison county [Georgia] girlfriends were boy crazy and mad for the new blue mascara from Maybelline, but I was obsessed with the war in Vietnam and feared that my little brother and my best guy friends would be drafted into battle where they would be maimed or killed like my KIA cousin. We debated the ERA in school and wondered if its passage would subject girls to the draft.  Would we be sent to 'Nam as well?

Wounded Knee II and the American Indian Movement informed my youthful poetry and I wrote my ninth grade term paper on the Yippee Revolution.  I organized protests against excessive library fines (ten cents), the middle school lunch program, and even my local city hall where my best friend and I marched with homemade banners reading "Make Love, Not War, " and "Down with the Draft."  I persuaded my buddies to join me in a letter-writing campaign to Senators Talmadge and Nunn concerning the problems encountered by migrant farm workers.  I played my old Bob Dylan LPs until the grooves wore out.  This young teen believed in the power of the people.

A Look Back at 1973

In May we opened our latest feature exhibit here at the Russell Library, Now and Then: 1973. The exhibit looks back at a pivotal year in modern American history and considers the impact of events that filled the public mind for a moment in time.

1973 was the year of the Roe v. Wade decision and the return of POWs from the war in Vietnam. It was the year President Richard Nixon proclaimed he was not a crook, even as the Watergate scandal unfolded on national television. It was the year of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab oil embargo, the launch of Skylab, and passage of the Endangered Species Act. Forty years later, history reveals 1973 to be a pivotal year in American history with a lasting legacy.
  
In crafting the exhibit, our outreach staff got into the habit of asking everyone who crossed our paths what they recalled about 1973. And we'd like to take this opportunity to ask you, our blog readers, the same question: How do you remember 1973? 

We're interested to know where you were and what were you doing in 1973. Tell us a story about your life in that year in 2-3 paragraphs, paired with a picture that you don't mind us posting to the blog site (http://www.rbrl.blogspot.com). We'll accept submissions through the end of October 2013.

If you're interested in this opportunity, send an email to russlib@uga.edu and a member of our staff will respond with further information. We look forward to hearing from you!

Dean Rusk Oral History Transcripts Now Available Online

The Russell Media and Oral History Unit is delighted to announce that researchers may now access 172 transcripts from interviews with Dean Rusk  and his colleagues between 1984-1989 online at http://tinyurl.com/Rusktranscripts. The interviews document Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s. 

The interviews are an important part of a larger collection of materials related to Rusk available for research onsite at the Russell Library. You can check out the finding aid HERE.

Special thanks to Callie Holmes and Mayowa Pius (pictured above next to a Dean Rusk bust) for their hard work on this project!