Tillmon, Johnnie (audio interview #2 of 5)

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Welfare Mothers, Welfare Rights

Tillmon, Johnnie (audio interview #2 of 5)

Tillmon, Johnnie (b. 4/10/1926 - d. 11/22/1995); Berger Gluck, Sherna, interviewer

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/224243

Date: 2022-09-30

Abstract:

INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the second of five interviews with Johnnie Tillmon, conducted some seven years after the first, and is the first in her full oral history. Like the subsequent interviews in this 1991 oral history, the interview was conducted in her home in the Watts/Willowbrook neighborhood of south Los Angeles. Tillmon was warm and friendly and rapport was easily established with her. Aware of her historical importance, she viewed the oral history recordings as something might help her write her own book. Electrical interference in the house created problems in the audio quality of the interview, resulting in feedback and background static particularly in the first two tapes sides. Periodically, the static cuts off the audio for short intervals of time. The audio quality improves during the third tape and there are very few problems with the fourth tape. n.d.

Description:

SUBJECT BIO - Johnnie Tillmon began her work as a leading activist for poor women in 1963, when she helped to found ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts, the first grass roots welfare mothers organization in the country. She played key roles in the later formation of both the California Welfare Rights Organization (CRWO) and the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and eventually became executive director of NWRO. The eldest of three children, Tillmon was born in Scott, Arkansas. Her family were sharecroppers and she recalls picking cotton when she was only seven years old. She moved in with her aunt in Little Rock in order to attend high school, and during the war worked the night shift in a local munitions factory and attended school by day. At war's end, she quit high school and went to work in a laundry, where she engaged in her first organizing experience. Tillmon continued to work in that non-segregated laundry for fifteen years until moving to California, by which time she was the single parent of six children. Trying to deal with her daughter's truancy, she decided to remain at home to supervise her children and applied for public assistance. She mobilized other women in the Nickerson Gardens Housing Project and after an initial meeting, they organized the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Several years later, she was elected to the newly formed LA County Welfare Rights Organization and then to the presidency of the CWRO. In 1967, she was elected to the NWRO. In 1971, Tillmon moved to Washington, DC to become Associate Director of NWRO and following George Wiley's resignation in 1972 , she became Executive Director. This is also the year that she published her now famous article in Ms, "Welfare is a Woman's Issue." When NWRO closed its doors in 1974, Tillmon returned to Los Angeles, were she resumed her local community organizing. She remained active in the Watts community and continued to respond to phone queries from welfare recipients until 1991, when diabetes caused her health to fail. Although we had every intention of completing her oral history after the interviewer's return from Palestine in the summer of 1991, Tillmon's health problem resulted in continued postponements. Ultimately, it became clear that we would not be able to complete the oral history. As a result, the coverage of Tillmon's post-1972 life and activities is barely covered. [Note: the Tillmon entry in the Notable American Women v.5 includes a bibliography related to Tillmon and NWRO.] TOPICS - family background; childhood; career aspirations; household chores; family history; rural living; and schooling; [Note: the audio quality of this interview is poor due to static and feedback in the recording; There are short periods when static cuts out the audio;]family history; family background; schooling; rural living; family life; quilting bees; community and neighborhoods; household chores; segregation; racism; and childhood; [Note: the audio quality of this interview is poor due to static and feedback in the recording; There are also short intervals during which static make the audio inaudible;]menstruation; schooling; family history; domestic service work; defense work; earnings; career aspirations; laundry work; working conditions; husband; and children; [Note: although the audio quality is better on this side of the tape, there are feedback problems in the later interview segments;]economic status; living conditions; children; household responsibilities and household management; social activities; family life; laundry work; earnings; family history; segregation and racism in Little Rock, Arkansas; school desegregation; race relations; union activities; working conditions; and workplace organizing efforts;

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