S1, Ep 3: Lifting the Veil with Linda Ketner

In this episode of What IFF?, we are kicking off LGBTQ+ Pride Month with a revered Carolina activist, Linda Ketner, to learn from her many years of experience being an influential change-maker.  With housing inequity and LGBTQ+ rights at the forefront of her activist thought, Linda is committed to righting the wrongs she sees in her community and building up the next generation of activists.

Music by Ketsa

Transcript

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(00:01)

LK: You know, I think I was born like this, to tell you the truth. You know, like some people can play the violin or speak languages fluently, I was born to be an activist. I really was, I think. 

[introduction music]

(00:23)

MH: Welcome to another episode of What IFF? from the Women’s and Gender Studies program and The College of Charleston. This is a show where we explore the many faces of social justice activism in our college community and how together we can look towards creating Intersectional Feminist Futures (IFF). In today’s episode, I sit down with special guest and revered local activist, Linda Ketner. Among countless other distinctions, Linda is a donor activist in the area and has served as president of many local organizations including the Alliance for Full Acceptance, South Carolina’s Equality Coalition, and South Carolina Housing Crisis Ministries, now named One80 Place. For years, Linda has devoted her efforts to righting housing inequities in the low country as chair of the South Carolina Housing Trust Fund, and today I have the honor of picking her brain a bit about the process behind becoming the esteemed activist that she is.

(01:18)

MH: First off, I just want to thank you so much for making the time to join me today. From everything I have learned about you, I am just so impressed with your tenacity and your huge heart, so it is truly such an honor to have this opportunity to talk with you like this

LK: I’m glad to be here, and I’ve listened to your two previous ones, and they’re magnificent, so I am especially happy to be here. 

MH: That means the world, truly, so thank you. I know that your experience and your contribution to the fight for equal rights nationally and specifically in the south are so commendable, so i’m excited to learn a little bit more about your journey to activism, the trials and triumphs that you’ve had and what I can learn from you and what our listeners can learn from you. 

(02:01)

MH: So, first I want to talk about that path to activism. For many feminists, feminism is something that they’ve lived before it was something that they identified with. So, I’m interested in how or when feminism and feminist activism found you? And were these terms that you’ve always understood? I’m assuming not considering, I think, how young you started your activism. 

(02:25)

LK: [laughs] Yeah. My grandmother used to say to me, because I would come to her asking all kinds of questions about inequity including my own inequity as a little girl. I didn't have any toys, you know the action toys. I had a cousin that had a go-cart. I couldn’t have one. I had another cousin that had a horse. I couldn’t have one. You know, it just really blistered me. And then, when I got into school and I found that, you know, Agnus, one of my first grade classmates, came to school in a really cold North Carolina winter in plastic sandals and without a sweater, it didn't make any other sense to me to do anything than to take my coat off and give it to her. It didn’t make any sense to me in any other way than to go home and say, ‘we need to help.’ 

(03:14)

LK: Anyway, things like that kept happening to me, so from the time I was very little it was obvious. And then with each and every day that passes, women understand, if they’re looking, that the rules are really different and the possibilities are really different. And my grandmother used to say to me, ‘Linda, you were born without a veil over your eyes, and that will be your blessing and your curse.’ And at four or five years old, you know, I don’t even know what that means. ‘Ma, what do you mean?’ And she goes, ‘you see things other people don’t see, and then you feel you have to act.’ 

(03:52)

LK: And that is to me, the definition of an activist. You see what needs to be changed. You believe in it. You are responsible for making change when you see something that isn’t right. And ‘right’ is the right word. There’s a righteousness, and you have to be careful not to get snooty with it, but it comes from a morality that you have that says, ‘wait a minute, I’m looking at the world and there’s something I see here and that is: we all have enough. Individuals might not.’ 

(04:28) 

LK: So, it’s the ‘I’ vs. the ‘we.’ If you really believe that the planet has enough, we just have to see each other as a ‘we’ instead of ‘me and mine,’ it needs to be a ‘we.’ So, it starts early, I think, for a lot of us, and it certainly did start early with me. It started with the feeling of, I didn’t define it as obligation, but it was. It was something that I felt obligated to pursue when I saw injustice. It didn't matter whether it was poverty or race or ‘boy privilege’ when I was a little kid. It didn't matter what it was. The inequity of it all was something that I was really aware of very very young which called me to action. 

MH: Wow. 

LK: So, you know, I think I was born like this, to tell you the truth. You know, like some people can play the violin or speak languages fluently, I was born to be an activist. I really was, I think.

(05:28)

MH: Wow, that’s awesome. I love this imagery that your grandmother gave you of the veil being lifted because she’s right. Your gift is rare because a lot of people have to manually rip that veil off, you know, but I’d argue that most people are both without the veil, but you know, many have one forced onto them before they even understand that it’s happened. It’s an oxymoron, but a lot of these ignorances that we face are taught. It’s like, no one is born a racist- that type of thought process.

(06:00)

MH: But, I love that you were able to learn this lesson about your gift and foster it from such a young age and contextualize its meaning much later. It’s very impressive and super telling. And clearly, your grandmother was right to believe in that gift of yours because since then, you’ve initiated so much positive change in the south and beyond. You’ve deservingly won all these awards for your activism including The National Salute to Citizenship, South Carolina Woman of Valor, and the South Carolina Housing Achievement Award. All of which just scratch the surface of your achievements. So, I’m interested to know, in reflecting on many decades of this activist work, which of your achievements has been the most meaningful to you personally?

(06:45)

LK: You know, if I had to put one thing on my tombstone, it would be the Housing Trust Fund Bill that we got passed because homelessness has been a huge concern of mine for years. I was blessed enough to lead a group that got a housing trust fund bill passed here in South Carolina in I think it was ‘92. Now 100,000 people here in South Carolina have safe housing now that didn’t thanks to the Housing Trust Fund Bill.

(07:05)

MH: That is such an incredible accomplishment and such a great example of this social activism that you’re all about. So, tell me, what were some of the steps to getting the Housing Trust Fund bill passed. What does it take to get this kind of thing off the ground?

LK: It required us to spend an inordinate amount of times at the State House. And that’s the thing about activism. First of all, you have to believe in the possibility of change, and then you have to be willing to act. And that’s uncomfortable if you’re not part of the norm. As a lesbian, you know, it was very uncomfortable to me. Even as a person who had a lot in common with the people at the state legislature, because I didn’t believe what they believed, I was seen as the enemy. 

(07:50) 

LK: We went up there for the four months it was in sessions every day, every single day talking to legislatures. We built coalition groups for most of the college campuses. We would get thousands of students enrolled and impassioned about homeslessness in the state of South Carolina. That included driving, and it was a lot of work. And that’s my point. Activism that makes a difference is a boatload of work, and you’ve got to be willing to do it. Going to a march and holding up a sign is fine because people need to know that there are people out there that feel this way.

(08:25)

LK: But making change is a tremendous amount of grueling work. And you have to be willing to do that. You have to get people registered to vote if you want to make a political change. You have to knock on doors and talk to people individually about your issues. It’s not easy. It’s tedious, and if you really want to make a change it is absolutely, irreversibly something that you must be willing to do.

(08:52) 

MH: Yeah, wow. It’s really interesting to think about how much dirty work goes into creating social change. It’s a shame that there seems to be so many barriers to trying to create something positive in our society. So what other kinds of barriers did you have to face while trying to get this through the house in Columbia? Were there legislators that you had to confront or otherwise members of the community making it harder to get this thing off the ground?

(09:22)

LK: We had a very republican, resistant, bootstrap kind of legislature then and were able to get it through and get it signed by Carroll Campbell who, after we had gotten it through the house and the senate, had sent a note that he wasn’t going to sign it to me, and that is, uh, when I sort of threatened him. By the way, I don’t recommend threatening, but sometimes it gets down to that. Would you like to hear that story? I don’t know whether or not you’d want to use it. 

MH: [laughs] Um, yes. I would love to hear that story. I’m sure that there is a learning lesson in there somewhere, so let’s hear it. 

(09:55)

LK: This kind of was [laughs] definitely an example of that. First of all, because of my work with Crisis Ministry which is now One80Place, I knew what homelessness looked like. And because I was working with every housing group in town, I had been in the homes that had, you know… no toilet, no running water, holes in the wall in the deep winter. Kids, little kids, with three coats on, freezing, and trying to study in the fourth grade. Or going into the room that was the room that was the ‘bathroom’ but there was a big green bucket there. That’s all  people that got water from their creek. I knew what it was. 

(10:35)

LK: So, we had just worked our buns off to get it through the house and the senate. We had organized 4 thousand people across the state to send watermelon colored postcards to legislators so that they would notice them, and they wouldn’t just be piled up and not looking like anything else. We had had hundreds of people come to the state house for the first time, and we got it through the house and the senate, and we were so happy. Then, I got a call from Governor Campbell’s assistant who said the governor wasn’t going to sign it. Actually, I got a call from someone who had gotten that message to give to me because they didn’t call me directly. 

(11:09)

LK: So, I called that person, Mark. I said, ‘I understand that the governor’s not willing to sign this, and would you give him a message for me please.’ And he said, ‘yeah, I’ll give him a message.’ I said, ‘would you please tell him that I’d planned to move and build a new house, and what I’m going to do instead is I’m going to take that money, and I’m gonna buy time, because I only have to buy basically four stations in South Carolina to cover the whole state, and I’m gonna just do a series of commercials on every news program there is that asks why Governor Campbell doesn’t want people to have decent affordable housing, and I’m going to show them the houses of the people that he has decided to leave behind.’ And he went, ‘are you threatening the governor?’ And I said, ‘no, oh I would never do anything like that, sir. No, I’m pretty much promising the governor, not threatening, that that’s what I’m going to do.’ So, he hung up. He was not happy, and I got a call back that said, ‘the governor would like to see you Wednesday at 2. Can you make it?’ And I said, ‘yes, I’d be glad to come.’ 

(12:25)

LK: So, I went to the statehouse and was directed to this big boardroom. I mean, it was gigantic, and I was sitting down at the end of the table by myself in this big ol’ boardroom and he didn’t come and he didn’t come and he didn’t come. Finally, Mark comes in, he sits down, and he says, ‘the governor has been detained. He’s not going to be able to meet with you. Sorry you drove all the way up from Charleston.’ I said, ‘Well, I understand that he’s a very busy governor, and please make sure that he does get my message because I am serious as a heart attack that that is what I’m going to do with the money I was going to build a house with. He said, ‘oh, I will make sure that he gets that message.’ Long story short, we didn’t know if he was going to sign it at all until the day before when I got a call from Mark that the governor was going to sign the bill into law and would I come to the signing little ceremony 

MH: Wow!

(13:20)

LK: So, work and chutzpah is sometimes necessary if you’re trying to make change.  

MH: Absolutely. What an incredible story. I mean, in this case I see no morality issue. He made a decision to ignore the issues of the people that he’s supposed to represent, so threatening to uncover his apathy is just being honest. The people have a right to know what our politicians actually prioritize. Now, you have plenty of experience at the state house fighting for equal housing and equal rights, and some people might not know that you ran for congress in the first congressional district of South Carolina in 2008 and almost won with 48% of the vote. But one thing I want our listeners to know about you is that you’ve had a huge part in reinforcing LGBTQ+ visibility in the lowcountry. Before you ran for congress in South Carolina as an openly lesbian woman, you cofounded the Alliance for Full Acceptance, right? So, in celebration of LGBTQ+ pride month which is right around the corner in June, can you explain what brought you to breathe AFFA into existence? And what were the results? 

(14:18)

LK: First of all, one of the reasons that I started AFFA was that I wasn’t living in integrity, and that really bothered me because I was in the closet. My partner at the time insisted that we stay in the closet, and because it affected her life so much, I went along with it. When we broke up, I lived the rest of my life pretty much, and not everyone does totally, but I lived in integrity and it was just really gnawing at me that I wasn’t out. So, I determined that I was going to come out. And I determined that when I did, because I had been political about everything in my life as an activist and everything in my life, it felt natural that I was going to move in that direction.

(15:03)

LK: I wanted to see real change for LGBTQ people here particularly in the south because there were a lot more people out in the north and the east than here. So, because I was so much in the closet, I had to ask, ‘who’s LGBTQ and interested in activism?’ I got some names, and God was good, I had the most incredible group of initiators: six people. We got together, we started it. The first meeting we had, there were about 30 people there. The last meeting, when I gave up the presidency after 6 years, we had 250, and we had 2,000 people on our list that were supporters. What we did was, again, the same theory behind the consciousness raising groups from the 70s, our thing was: we are your neighbors and we are gay.

(15:58)

LK: We did ads on TV that showed how mundane we were just like they were and what we looked like so that now there were faces with it: real human beings. We spoke to every civic organization that would let us. We sent out direct mail with pictures of us and sent some facts and interesting stuff like that. We lobbied at the statehouse because they had the anti-marriage amendment then. It’s a matter of just saying, ‘look, we all have so much more in common than we have differences and could we look at our community and one another as a ‘we’ instead of ‘me,’ ‘you,’ and want to fight?’ I think any time you put a picture on anybody that’s not infringing on somebody else’s rights, that people will open up to you. That’s my theory anyway. It’s worked well for me so far. 

(17:00) 

MH: So, when it was time to run for office in 2008, what was it like running as an openly queer person in South Carolina?

LK: We had been working at AFFA for months to simply let people know that there were LGBTQ people in their neighborhood. Our thing was: we are your neighbors and we are gay. And we had been doing television advertisements. We had done television shows because it was such a secret. It was such a big secret that people were gay and lesbian. You know, before I came out, I couldn’t tell you how many people said to me, ‘you know, I don’t even know any gay and lesbian people.’ You know? Because it was that covered up back then. 

(17:45)

LK: So, again, I’d always been interested in politics. I’ve been to Girl’s State, Girl’s Nation, the whole bit. I’d really been interested in politics and too afraid to run because I was a lesbian, so I decided this was going to be good for me individually. And I’d already been on TV and commercials for AFFA saying that I was gay, so I said this will be good for me because they will see that it’s possible to run as an openly lesbian candidate for congress. It’s what I wanted to do and would also be a teachable moment. 

(18:19)

MH: And were you met with open arms? Or what kind of challenges did you face? 

LK: I mean, I had a lot of death threats, a lot of obscene things thrown at me during it, and I also had a tremendous amount of support from people that said, ‘you know it’s never really mattered to me. I don’t get what the big deal is about.’ But again, it was normalizing the unfamiliar, the unspoken. And saying, ‘look, I care about the same things you do. I want to make a difference. We’re not different in the things we want to see differently in the United States. Vote for me.’ And, over 48% of the people agreed with that. So, you know, it’s taking a chance. It’s working hard, taking a chance, and you have to come from a moral high ground. 

(19:09)

MH: Well, and now in thinking about the higher court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, those in public office no longer represent, or have arguably never represented, the majority. And this is becoming more and more obvious to people, I think. So, with your experience running for office and studying politics, what do you think is the importance of the public’s involvement in political and governing affairs? And do you know or can you help me understand how we seem to be going back in time politically?

(19:37)

LK: Actually, I think I probably do know. They are much more organized than we are. They are much more focused than we have been. You know, we have to do the work, and that’s what I was saying earlier. Nothing changes unless you’re willing to do the work. And the work in this instance is something that they figured out a long time ago: register voters, make sure they get to the polls, make sure they’re voting. And we haven’t been doing that. We haven’t been showing up to do the work. It’s gnarly, difficult, boring work, but we’ve got to vote. 

(20:18)

LK: One of the things that makes me totally insane is how many activists at colleges across the United States are great activists, but they don’t go home to vote. And they don’t try to get their friends to vote. And it’s like: your voice is interesting, but your vote is what counts. Okay? It’s just that hard and that easy. You need to knock on doors, and make sure that people understand that they’ve gotta vote because if 60% of the American public says that we have a right to our bodies, somebody ain’t voting. Or all the people that are ruining it for us wouldn’t be winning. If you don’t believe in voting you might as well go ahead and move now because the vote is what determines who rules the roost. And people don’t take it seriously enough, and they don’t take it seriously enough to knock on doors, explain issues to people, sit down with them in their home, talk it over. They don’t understand to get up vans to go to all the different places in South Carolina so that students can go back to their hometowns and vote. It’s not fun. It’s hard. It’s doable. It should be done, and we’ll find out in November whether it will be done. 

(21:24)

MH: I agree with you, you know, but I do understand the perspective of a lot people from my generation that have just a genuine distrust in our government and have been given every reason to doubt politicians when they make empty promises. So, on one hand, we have a valid disbelief in the systems that we are being forced to interact within, but there is also an aspect of togetherness that I think we’re missing. Like, yeah, maybe my one vote doesn’t ‘matter,’ but all of ours together would, right?  

(21:59)

LK: Absolutely. That’s how they’ve been able to beat us. It’s to make the younger generation think, ‘my vote doesn’t matter, whatever.’ But they are voting. Okay? They are voting, and they are winning. And it’s like you’re playing a different game. But, they’re playing the game that produces results, so, you know, if you study what’s happening- the Coke brothers cooked this up 18 years ago, something like that, if you read, um, I can’t remember the name of the woman from the New York Times who wrote that whole exposé on how all of this happened and how it was all very planful. And it even involved implementing business schools in major universities and taking money from the Coke brothers to teach business in a different way. They were strategic, and they kept their nose to the grindstone, and they did the work, and it paid off. And now, we’re going to lose our democracy unless people really get that it doesn’t matter whether you’re disillusioned, okay? There’s too much at stake for you to be disillusioned, seriously.

(23:06)

LK: It doesn’t matter if you don’t like government. There’s too much at stake for you to not like government. Get yourself to the poll, vote, make sure you’re registered, and then get ten other people who are like minded to vote as well. That’s how you win. It’s like playing poker without any cards. ‘Well, I don’t like to play poker with cards.’ Too bad. That’s how you play poker. It’s the same damn thing. 

MH: Right, and we can’t change the game of poker unless we can start playing poker. 

LK: You win enough money, and they’ll let you decide some rule changes. 

(23:43)

MH: I did not know that about the Coke brothers, so that is a really interesting thing to know about their influence on education and the negative effects that it’s had. I know that you and I must think similarly on the issue and power of education in change making. Obviously your affiliation with The College of Charleston is how I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know you. At CofC, you’ve served on an extensive list of advisory boards and diversity committees, and you even started a scholarship program in 1990 for student activists to have some financial support and mentorship during their journey at The College. And, having humbly been a recipient of the award, I am really interested to hear from you directly about what your goal was when creating the Ketner Emerging Leaders Scholarship. 

(24:29)

LK: Exactly what you’re talking about: if the Coke brothers can infiltrate the organization, I certainly was going to try. [laughs]

MH: [laughs] That’s what I thought!

LK: No, it was originally established for women only, and it has always been my passion to enable young women who are activists to have help with their education and to be fed. Initially, I had to rewrite the rules of the road of the scholarship: who was to get it, how they were to keep it because I kept getting volunteers, but volunteers are not activists. God love volunteers. Everyone loves volunteers. They’re not activists, okay? They don’t irritate anybody. 

(25:10)

LK: So, finally, with the Women’s and Gender Studies program, with Allison, and now our wonderful, current leader, Kris De Welde is awesome and so gets it: what I’ve been looking for. It’d been in the honors school, and Jill did a wonderful job with it, but we moved it over to the Women’s and Gender Studies program because they really get it. Activism is a core of what it’s about over there, so now that they’ve had it, I’ve really gotten women activists, young women activists who, yes I want to support them, yes I want them not to have to worry completely about their tuition and for them to be able to see and dream and support what they’re doing. 

MH: Well, I really appreciate that. You know, people don’t like to talk about it sometimes, and I know that money isn’t everything but it can be hard to look past when it feels like such a huge barrier.  

LK: When you don’t have it, it’s real difficult to look past it. 

(26:10)

MH: Exactly, and for me personally, the scholarship has done what you aimed for it to do. It kept the door to higher education open for me all while fostering my potential for growth and social change, and that’s what it’s all about. 

LK: And, you’re what it’s all about, you know? 

MH: Thank you. That’s sweet, thank you so much. I have loved learning so much about you and from you. I remember the first time we interacted it was over a Zoom call in 2020, and you told me this incredible story about how you found activism on the little league field when you were just 7 years old. And I just remember thinking how endearing and badass it was. You said that you were the best one of the field, but that you weren’t allowed to play in games for no other reason other than your gender. Didn’t you say that you started, um, a petition- 

(27:00)

LK: -a petition. Yeah, I didn’t know what a petition was, but I wrote the president of the United States that I didn’t think that was fair and it was obviously an oversight and would he please take care of it by Wednesday. Because when I was growing up, people don’t even know what I’m talking about now, but you couldn’t play little league if you were a girl, and I was definitely the best pitcher in town, and not just with the presbyterians, okay? 

MH: Right! Yes!

(27:22)

LK: So, yeah. I wrote the president, and I showed it to my dad, and he said, ‘yeah it’s a good letter. Why don’t you send it?’ I said that I don’t know his address. He said, ‘I’ll get you the address.’ And then before I mailed it, I thought, ‘you know what? I’m gonna take this around Frank B. John Elementary and have everybody sign it because it may be one thing if I put my name on it, but if I have a whole bunch of people’s names on it, I’ll bet he’ll take it more seriously. I didn’t know what a petition was, it just made sense. So, you know, I went around school for about the rest of the week and I got some signatures on that lined paper, and I sent it off to the president. That was my first petition, I guess. I didn’t know what one was.  

(27:57)

MH: Aw. That’s amazing. It was such an endearing story, and to learn about the real grassroots version of all of your activism was really inspiring, and I relate to that. I remember being a little girl and, you know, when the teacher would be like, ‘I need some strong boys to help me move these chairs and tables.’

LK: [laughs] Yeah!

MH: You would find little 7 year old me carrying way too many chairs just for activism sake. And just to prove a point.

LK: Yes! Exactly. That is activism. 

MH: That’s where it starts.

LK: Yeah, that’s activism! It is.  

(28:30)

MH: I love it. That’s so awesome. So, before we wrap things up, our listeners can clearly learn so much from your established activist journey, so what is your advice to anyone listening that says, I wanna do that, and I don’t know if I can. 

LK: Well, first of all, you can do it. And if your life is full of other things, which I understand for a number of reasons, people have other things, but the one thing I want to say is, I did not grow up with money, I’ve been lucky enough to have some now, okay? So, I can do things with money, but long before I had any money at all, this was in me, and I did it. If it’s in you, do it, but do it smartly. Do it willing to do the work that is really required to make change. Don’t just think, ‘make noise.’ Make change. And that means looking at a structure of how things work and how you can impact them. Whatever you’re working on. How does it work and how do I impact them. And be willing to go to jail. [laughs] No, I’m kidding about the last part.

(29:35)

MH: [laughs] 

LK: Not really. Not really. 

MH: That’s truly inspirational. That’s gonna be the title of the podcast. 

LK: Be willing to go to jail!

MH: ‘Willing To Go to Jail with Linda Ketner’

LK: [laughs] I love it! I love it. I got drug in once at a march, and I really wanted that under my belt, but they let me go. 

MH: Ah, that’s the worst. 

LK: Hey! I ain’t dead yet, I could still get arrested. 

(30:04) 

MH: Yeah! There’s still time. So, in the spirit of Brené Brown and her podcast, I love to do kind of a speed round type question. 

LK: Oh right, I’m ready. 

MH: Yeah, they just are a little bit to help get to know you on a level past our work. So, these are just no stress, but just whatever comes to mind. 

LK: Gotcha.

MH: First, if I asked you where you get your daily inspiration, where would you say from?

(30:32)

LK: The first thing that came to mind is my dog. [laughs] And I could not at all explain to you why that came to mind, but there you have it. I get my daily inspiration from my dog. 

MH: Well, because you have to wake up to feed your dog, you have to get up to walk your dog. I think that’s valid. 

LK: I’ll tell you really, truly. The inspiration comes to me- I am blessed enough to have a place that looks at Bohicket Creek at a very wide point. Beautiful water view of the marsh, and I sit there every evening at sunset, and it just touches me to my core. And, also, some good ideas have come out of that. My dog and sunset at Bohicket. 

MH: You know what’s funny? My next question is: sunrise or sunset? 

LK: I haven’t seen that many sunrises. I’m not a morning person, and if I get up at sunrise, I don’t remember it. So, yeah, not a morning person. 

(31:32)

MH: Okay. Salty or sweet? 

LK: Put them together, and I’m out of my mind. Yeah. Totally. 

MH: Yes! I’m the same way. That’s so funny. 

LK: Put some ice cream with it. 

MH: What’s your favorite flower? 

LK: Well, I think, a peony is my favorite. I love gardenias and peonies and magnolias. I love the ones that grow- peonies don’t grow around here, but they did in North Carolina, so those are my favorites. 

(32:06)

MH: Lovely. Lastly, finish this phrase: the way to my heart is ___. 

LK: Wow. If you want in there, you’re welcome. I think my heart’s big enough, your heart’s big enough, everybody’s heart’s big enough to really open it up and let anybody in that wants to.

MH: You’re a dream. This has been amazing, thank you. This has been really great. 

LK: It’s been great to get to know you better. Okay, so let’s get together in real life soon. 

[outro music begins]

MH: I would love that.

LK: Take care!

MH: I appreciate you so much. 

LK: You too, thanks. 

(32:49)

MH: This has been another episode of What IFF? at CofC. I hope you’ve enjoyed following along as we’ve been learning from some incredible local activists about what the future holds for intersectional feminism. To learn more about Linda’s legacy, you can visit One80Place.org for housing resources, or go to AFFA-sc.org for LGBTQ+ resources. 

(33:13)

MH: I also want to wish a happy pride month to anyone listening who has ever questioned or doubted their value and power because of the opinions of someone who doesn’t understand what a blessing it is to be queer. Love always wins, and I hope you feel the love and support you deserve this month and everyday thereafter. Have a happy and healthy summer, and don’t forget to check back in with us in the fall for all new episodes. You can continue to support the WGS program and our podcast by visiting WGS Connect at blogs.cofc.edu/wgsconnect and our Instagram @cofcwgs. Or check out The College’s official news site, The College Today at today.cofc.edu. Stay safe out there, and stay feminist y’all.