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Object Description
Interview no. | G-0164 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | G.2.3. Southern Women: Special Focus: Women's Leadership and Grassroots Activism |
Project description | Interviews, 1993-1998, concentrating on the experiences of women leaders and attempting to redefine leadership to encompass women's efforts in grassroots movements, especially in environmental movements, community development, and self-help organizations. Many interviews were done by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students; five were conducted by Holloway Sparks with three North Carolina lesbian activists for a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill dissertation on the role of political courage in enabling activism and dissent; and there is also one interview by Pam Grundy with North Carolina State University women's basketball coach Kay Yow. |
Date | 7 March 1995 |
Interviewee | Gurry, Jane T. |
Interviewee occupation | Religious leaders |
Interviewee DOB | 1932 |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Asby, Micah D. |
Abstract | Reverend Jane T. Gurry grew up in a small Mississippi town where school, home, and church were a central part of her life. She attended a Methodist Church that was very spiritually- and socially-centered, and she felt valued there. She attended the University of Mississippi, noting that Joe Elmore and Will Campbell were very influential in her life. She was so inspired by these two men that she decided to apply to Yale Divinity School. She never thought that she would be ordained, but she wanted to be involved in full time Christian service. Due to her views about women's roles, however, she instead decided to go to Greenville, Mississippi to teach. She later moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and she received her master's degree in guidance and counseling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Gurry discusses the task of finding a church in Charlotte, NC with a strong educational program for her daughters. Her family finally decided on Myer’s Park Methodist Church, where she took a job as the Sunday school teacher. Later she took a job at the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Her husband went back to school and she continued to work, and she reflects on the change in gender roles her family faced. She wanted to find out if she was called for priesthood, but she was not sure if she was called in a dramatic sense or because she was tired of being treated like a second class citizen. She goes on to talk about the changes in Episcopal views of women being ordained and the controversy around it. Gurry then decided to attend Duke Divinity School and commuted from Charlotte to Durham, North Carolina, which was a great struggle for her. As of the date of this interview, Gurry was the minister of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. She did not see herself as a revolutionary and believes that everyone has a gift that should be honored. She finishes the interview by talking about the church as a place for revolutionary change, and the challenges she faced from her congregation as a female minister. |
Citation | Interview with Jane T. Gurry by Micah D. Asby, 7 March 1995 G-0164, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | G0164_Audio_1 |