From Charleston History To Modern Advocacy Wins w/ Jennet Robinson Alterman

A single sentence can flip your whole career. Jennet Robinson Alterman heard it in a TV newsroom: “I’m never going to give you a raise. You’re just going to get married.” She quit without another job and kept moving forward, eventually building a decades-long record of women’s rights advocacy that ties together Charleston history, South Carolina politics, and real, measurable policy wins.

We start local with a story every Charlestonian should know: the Pollitzer sisters raising $3,000 to help make the College of Charleston coeducational in 1918, pushing back on the idea that women didn’t belong in serious academic spaces. From there, Jennet shares how theater training shaped her public speaking, how being one of ten women at Davidson College exposed hidden barriers, and how discrimination becomes impossible to ignore when it shows up in your paycheck.

Then the lens widens. Jennet talks about joining the Peace Corps and landing in Afghanistan, working with midwives and witnessing how a society’s rules around women ripple into health, safety, and opportunity. Back in South Carolina, she breaks down the Equal Rights Amendment fight, the long shadow of misinformation, and why organized advocacy still matters right now. We also dig into the Charleston Commission on Women, paid family leave, the legacy of the Center for Women, and the work of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network (WREN), including how to get involved at scren.org and details on the October 23 summit in Charleston.

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Committee:
Kathleen Herrmann | Host | MPCC Past President | Mount Pleasant Towne Centre
Mike Compton | Co-host | Podcast Committee | RMBO.co
Rebecca Imholz | Co-host | MPCC Executive Director 
Amanda Bunting Comen | Co-host | MPCC Marketing & Communications
Benjamin Nesvold | Co-host | MPCC President | Edward Jones

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Welcome to the Building Business Podcast, powered by the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. We're here at the Charleston Media Solutions Studios. My name is Mike Compton with Roombo.co. We do strategy and branding and content production. And I'm here with Amanda Bunting Coman, the ABC Socials. Say hello, Amanda.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Hi, I'm also the new uh marketing and communications person for commerce. So making my role official.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Officially the marketing director? Is that what you're what is the what is the official title?

SPEAKER_04 1:46

For right now, I'm just um I have the role of the marketing and communications director.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

And guess what? You don't need a marketing committee now. How about that?

SPEAKER_04 1:53

I I think that's where we're headed.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Hey, we have a very special guest in the house, Amanda. Who who is this woman? This woman of mystery.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

My my mentor, my my first work colleague. Um, we worked together for 12 years. She really doesn't need an introduction, in my opinion, but Janet

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Robinson Alterman is a nonprofit consultant and um uh woman's right activity's right activist, uh advocate and has been a long history in Charleston. Her family noted lots of things and what do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:36

What what do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:37

What do you what what how is Well um you can start with that. Tell them about the College of Charleston and how that came about. How do you get it Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I want an honorary honorary degree.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

What well I was delighted. Uh it was in 2008 and it was at the College of Charleston, which was the 90th anniversary of coeducation at the College of Charleston. No kidding. Even though it had been around since 17 something, uh it was all male. And if you think about what was happening in 1918 in America, that was World War I. And so when we got into World War One, it became obvious that this all-male institution was gonna lose a lot of students. So uh a group of ladies, they were the Pollitzer sisters, one of whom had uh been trying to get the college to go co-ed, went over and talked to the president of the college and said, you know, what are you gonna do? Your enrollment's going down. Now is the time to include women on this campus. And it was Dr. Randolph, for whom Randolph Hall is named. And

The $3,000 That Changed Coeducation

SPEAKER_00 3:49

he basically said, and you could say this in 1918, that he didn't believe that women had the intellect to be able to succeed at the College of Charleston as students. And she said, Well, I need something a little more concrete than that. So he said to her, Well, we can't afford to put in a separate restroom facility for women, which would have to be staffed. So Carrie Pollitzer, who was there trying to convince him to let the College of Charleston become co-ed, said, Well, what would something like that cost? And he sort of threw a number out there. And a lot of this I'm sort of, you know, I am embellishing a bit, but the basics uh are are correct. He said it would cost $3,000. Well, this conversation happened in in 1917 in the summer, and she went out and raised $3,000. And in the fall of 20 of 1918, uh the College of Charleston went co-ed.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

That's an amazing story. I didn't see that one coming, though. Yeah, you didn't, did you?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And then he had to do it. And of course, you know, it's now the College of Charleston, I think, is over 60% female. Yeah. But that's a that's a trend, I think, nationwide, you know, that more women are in college situations than men, and I won't even begin to try to address that.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Okay, so then maybe you can help me. I've been in search for the person to tell me why there are so many strong-minded badass women in Charleston. I feel like there's a lot of women who have gone up and above you know the typical, right? Like just like just almost superhuman type of women that live here in Charleston.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

It's a combination of things. Okay. Um one is this is interestingly enough, a very traditional southern culture. Yeah. Uh and I grew up in this culture. So you were from here, your family? I was born and raised here. Generations deep. I'll back down. First generation. First generation. First generation. I'm very proud of that. My parents were Pat and Emmett Robinson, who are noted for their long uh community service in uh community theater. Oh. Uh they were dad was the director of the Footlight Players, and they performed in the Doc Street Theater. Cool. And so growing up, I had this role model for community service in both of my parents. My mother was a playwright and an actress. And so I grew up in what can only be described as a fantasy world, and then not a fantasy world, if you know what I mean. And um I loved it. I I love theater from the beginning, and I still do, and I am delighted that portraits of my parents hang in the lobby of the Doc Street Theater.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I love to see them there. Yeah. Um, and

Theater Roots And Fearless Speaking

SPEAKER_00 6:44

very frankly, having an acting background really helped me when I went into a professional capacity, because um I wasn't afraid of public speaking. Sure. Because I'd been on a stage with, you know, an audience, and for me that was natural. And later I got into TV and as a news reporter, and I felt that same comfort in front of a television camera because what my father gave me great advice. He said, don't look in the camera and say, Oh, there are all these thousands of people watching me. Think of it as a family. You're talking to two parents and a couple of kids. So keep your syntax in such a way that everybody can understand what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

I'm using that. You like that? I'm using that because I'm doing disrupt HR next Wednesday and I'm a little freaked out about it. She gave you some good advice. That's great advice. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

We can talk more.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Love that. That's what Brenna Lawrence. I was just mentioning. If you knew her, she's going to help me coach. She's coaching me up a little bit too. Okay. She's done that. She's done TEDx. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to be in public speaking next Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Oh, that's excellent.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

First time doing it. Oh, you can do it. Like prepared speech type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So you have to follow it. Are you is it like a TED talk? Do you have to oh you have to say exactly what you trained? My husband. My husband did a TED talk and he was wonderful. But I watched what he went through and I said, I don't think I'm going to do a TED talk.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I did the same thing about the TED Talk last week. Uh-huh. And it's on it in person, and I'm like, uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, no, I can't follow that set script. I've got to be able to be spontaneous. I'm a little nervous.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Anyways, more about you. Oh dear. Um, so what college did you go to?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Oh, that story. Well, I I went to I have to preface this. I went to an all-girls high school, Ashley Hall.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Very lucky that my parents were able to send me there. And uh my mother in 1969, when I was looking at colleges, said I could not go north of the Mason-Dixon line. And she was from Pittsburgh, so I was going, what? But she knew what was going on in this country in the late 60s. And of course, none of that trickled down to Charleston in terms of protests and things like that. So I started my college career at Mary Baldwin College in Stanton, Virginia. And then I found out about an exchange program uh between four women's colleges and four men's colleges where I could take a year or a semester at any of these other men's schools. So I chose to apply to Davidson College, which is outside of Charlotte, and it's really considered the Princeton of the South in many ways. It's a very, very good uh liberal arts college. So

Ten Women On A Men’s Campus

SPEAKER_00 9:30

um I took a chance and I went to Davidson for a year. I was one of ten women on campus. We were there as guinea pigs to determine if women, and I have to put this in quotation marks, if women could handle the academic load before they decided to go co-ed, just like the college at Charleston, right? I mean, there's a theme here. I just realized that. I have a theme. Um, and so I went with these nine other women, none of us made below a bee the first semester, and I discovered this amazing work ethic among the Davidson students. Basically, it was if you didn't get to the library by 6:30 on a Sunday night or any night during the week, you wouldn't find a carol to sit at, a desk.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I mean, it was a everybody studied hard and everybody partied hard. But it was a wonderful experience. I have to say that. It was a really and unfortunately we had to go back to our original school.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

So how big is Davidson?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Davidson at the time was a about a thousand students. It was a thousand men and ten women. Yeah. But I have to tell you, there was no pushback from the students. The pushback was from the professors who many of whom at the time I thought were ancient, found out later, most of them were in their forties and fifties. Isn't that wild? And um and I understood why they didn't want women in a way. Yeah. Um, and I think they were scared of it.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

You know, so anyway, it was a great year, and as a result of it, um, I went to summer school that summer, and then I did one year at Mary Baldwin and basically graduated in three years, and I had a double major. I finished my history major at Davidson, and then I did a theater major at Mary Baldwin. So graduated in three years with two majors, and then had to stare at the job market.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Right. And wow. Um what was next then? Like, and then w I I gotta get to the women activate, you know, advocate part sooner than later, but the Peace Corps is in here too.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Let me tell you, no, let me tell you how I got into women's advocacy. Will you please because it's a real it's a it's a genuine story.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

It sounds like you were already doing it in college. Like you were already. So you were kind of born to do this.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I I realized what it was like. I realized what the reality was. Because I'd never been, you know, presented with any kind of discrimination. Um but I worked at a local television station. I worked as a uh I was uh the 11 o'clock anchor. I was a full-time news reporter, and I started at the same time as two men, Warren Pepper and Bill Sharp, for people who remember back that far. All three of us started at the same time. We all had the same credentials, which were liberal arts degrees. And I found out after I'd been there for two and a half years that Warren and Bill were making twice what I was. And basically we had the same job description. We were all on the air, we were all doing reporting. So I decided to um go to the manager of the station, and I went to the

The Pay Gap That Made Her Quit

SPEAKER_00 12:43

sales department and found out what they were charging for the ads in the 11 o'clock report, which I anchored, and they were actually charging more than the ones in the six o'clock report, which was sort of the main one. Okay. So I went in and made what I thought was an economic argument for why I should get a raise. And the response was, I'm never gonna give you a raise. You're just gonna get married and your husband's gonna take care of you. You could say things like that in 1975, okay? But not to you, but not to me, yeah. But I did something that really terrified me. I quit. I quit without another job, which was hard for my father to digest, but I felt that strongly about it. And and and I left. Yeah. But I really appreciated the experience that I got in television.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

And it hadn't really changed.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

You know, except that they can, you know, PowerPoint your or you know, photoshop your face and make you look poreless and things like that. And but anyway, no. No, it was a great, uh, great um uh challenge for me to do that. And to this day, I run into him, the manager, who claims uh responsibility for my success.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, that's why I'm not naming names.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

One way this market is so small, everybody knows everybody.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

I know, you're absolutely right. But back then it was just three stations and ETV.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

That's awesome. Yeah, we had Rob Fowler on here. Oh, did you really?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah, yeah, Rob Fowler's mustache. Um so so you did that. You're like, okay, I can't work here anymore. Sorry about these terrible things. That's all right. We'll get we'll get some new ones soon. Um so you so you make this, you stand like, I cannot work here. What do you mean? You're not gonna give me a raise. This is garbage. Yeah. Okay, sorry, dad, I quit. Yeah. This is my new path.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I moved to California.

unknown 14:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Where I had a great aunt who lived in Berkeley, California. Sure. And um, I worked there briefly, and then um I joined the Peace Corps. And originally I was supposed to go to Fiji, so I had visions of mangoes and papaya and you know, sarongs and beautiful white sand beaches. And two weeks before I was supposed to leave, I got a call saying there'd been a coup d'etat in Fiji. So they were pulling Peace Corps out of the country and that they would find something for me in about six months. Well, at this point, I'd sold my car, given up you know, my rental uh uh apartment and everything else, and I I was really torn, and I thought, who can I call? And I had a friend who worked for Senator Hollings, and I'd never done this, okay? But I called him and I said, I'm in a real bind. I've been told I have to wait six months to get an assignment, and that's not going to work for me. I mean, I've given up my job, my home, everything else. Um, and two days later I got a call from Peace

Peace Corps Afghanistan And Women’s Reality

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Corps saying that we have an opening in Afghanistan and we'd like you to apply for it. Afghanistan is not papayas and mangoes and sarongs and and white sand beaches. It's not. It is it is a very rugged country, completely landlocked, mountains, an extremely conservative Muslim culture, and I don't think a papaya or mango had ever been seen in Afghanistan. But I said, okay, great. So I went. And part of it was I was excited to see the world. Okay, and that was a lot of my motivation, to be honest, to go into Peace Corps. But when I got to Afghanistan and I was assigned to the Ministry of Health to work with midwives who were being trained in Kabul and then sent out to help in these rural clinics where primarily traditional midwives had been uh the ones to deliver babies in these rural areas. And they did the best they could, but but basic hygiene was not part of the of the the drill. And so I was tasked with going out with these trained midwives, and we they would interview one of these traditional midwives, and I would videotape the whole thing. And then we take it back to the midwifery school where the students could see just the level of of competence of these traditional midwives who were extremely competent, uh, but just didn't have a lot of the knowledge and the health education. So quickly it became not about seeing the world, but understanding that this was a culture that completely disvalued women. Women were second-class citizens. Men were allowed to have up to four wives at the same time. There was no health education outside of the urban areas, very rugged countryside. So you could have a clinic 10 miles away, but if you had to go over one pass over another in the mountains to get there, you weren't going to see a lot of people make use of that. So I watched 12-year-olds have babies. Oh, basically, what happened in Afghanistan at the time, and unfortunately, I think they're back at the same thing, once you went through puberty, a woman, a girl was allowed to marry. And usually someone that she didn't know who was much older. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. And Amanda will tell you I have this copy of the National Geographic cover of the young girl in Afghanistan with the haunted eyes. Came out in like 1985. And I've kept that with me to keep me honest about what I'm doing. So during the course of that whole time, I realized just how bad it was for women in Afghanistan. I spent time in Pakistan. I spent time in Nepal. I spent time in India. A lot of the same things were happening. So that really kickstarted my women's advocacy passion.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

And then you came home.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

I came home after there was a coup d'etat in Afghanistan. Oh, yeah. And I'm telling everybody, if you haven't been through a coup d'etat, you haven't lived.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

And I'm sorry, how old were you at the time?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

I was 24. Oh my gosh. All this life lived at 24? Yeah, I know. Well, it was it was serendipity too, because then I realized just how authoritarian a government could be and how quickly that authoritarian government could be overthrown, which is what happened, and they were overthrown by the Russians. And that began the whole Russia-Afghan war, which went on for 20 years. The Russians figured out they weren't gonna win, they left, and the last group standing of the rebel group was the Muya, I mean the Taliban. And the Taliban had been successful because they brought about law and order. And so when it got right down to it, the Taliban ended up on top running the country because the other groups were so disorganized. And it went on from there. And I've followed this for you know the 50 years since I've been there.

unknown 20:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

What's going on? And if you look at it now, it's even worse than when I was there. And I will say that when the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan so quickly, uh it it broke my heart. It really did. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Now remind me, uh Janet, uh, when you worked for Nancy Stevenson. Was that before or after Peace Corps?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

After Peace Corps. I came back to Charleston and uh a friend of the family whose name was Nancy Stevenson had been elected lieutenant governor. She was the first woman elected statewide in South Carolina. That's awesome. And I'd come back from Afghanistan and I knew her because she and my mother wrote murder mysteries together. And Nancy called me from Columbia and asked me to come up and be her press secretary, which I was a little reluctant to do because I didn't have really a whole lot of knowledge about Columbia. But again, my father stepped in and said, Oh, you're it's a great experience. You've got the military, you've got the legislature, you've got the universities. It'll

Coming Home To Politics In Columbia

SPEAKER_00 21:09

be a great experience. So I took the job. And Nancy did not have an easy time of it. Even though all the Democrats were in charge, you had a Democratic governor, a Democratic legislature. It was still nobody had seen a woman in that level of a position. So it was hard for particularly a lot of the older male legislators to accept that. And it was it was tough. I mean, it was uphill, you know, the whole time. But but we got through it and we wanted to show the world and the legislature uh that women can contribute very positively to the discourse around uh legislation that can affect people all over the state.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Press the secretary at twenty-seven maybe.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

You're good at your math. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

You're not going to keep up that math. No. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

But I'm just saying there's that's a lot that it's soon, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:03

How long did you was that the full term? It was well, I came in a year into her term and I did that until she till her term ended. And because the current governor at the time, Dick Riley, had gotten a referendum passed that um amended the state constitution to allow the governor to serve two terms. At the time it was only one. Okay. And Nancy actually was gonna run for governor because it was a one-term at the time. And he grandfathered himself into the new policy to allow governors to serve two terms so he was able to run again. Which basically cut Nancy out of it. And she didn't want to wait around for another four years. So she ended up running for Congress. Uh that didn't go well. And um basically, you know, we really didn't see her in the political arena much much after that.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Bummer. Yeah, um as press secretary. Terry. Uh I can see and tell me if I'm wrong here. You and Nancy in a team, probably of women, maybe a couple dudes in there, maybe uh going over your game plan on how to fight this monstrosity that you're fighting right now, this this unequal nonsense that's going out there in the world. Like, what does that look like in the room? Like, I want to be in the room with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Well, I'll give you an example, and it was really just three of us. Okay. Uh myself, Nancy, and Melissa Burnett, who is an awesome lawyer. Okay. Uh, equal rights lawyer in Colombia. And really the parts that we had to be uh on our on our feet for was when legislation was introduced that would not be uh particularly supportive of women. And I'll give you a great example, Phyllis Schlafley.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Phyllis Schlafley was this amazing woman who created a career out of fighting the Equal Rights Amendment. She was a very conservative Republican, and she literally made a career for herself going around the country. Every legislature that was asked to approve the amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, to create equal rights for women. Uh, she went to every legislature as they were debating it. She came to the South Carolina legislature, and I'll never forget it. She brought cookies, warm cookies, and

Fighting The ERA In South Carolina

SPEAKER_00 24:36

handed them out to all the members of the South Carolina House at the time. And they didn't agree to amend the Constitution to allow them equal rights. So, I mean, that you know, that was a that was a hard pill to swallow. Yeah, but that worked for Phyllis, you know, and she also would say things like if you pass the Equal Rights Amendment, your women your daughters will go in into combat, and that uh boys and girls will share the same bathrooms. And those two things which were wrong, okay, correct, uh really sort of carried over, gave the anti-equal rights people uh an argument.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Until Mike and Matthew where the ERA stands right now in South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Nowhere. Um, ERA for me, please. The Equal Rights Amendment. And the Equal Rights Amendment basically would add just a couple of words to the state to the U.S. Constitution instead of all men are created equal, all men and women are created equal. And you you have to go back on the history with this, which was after the Civil War, uh formerly enslaved men were given the right to vote, but women weren't. And so it took until and again it basically passed Congress in 1920. And think about it, the same argument was used for the to give women the right to vote that we used to get the College of Charleston to go co-ed, which was we're at war.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

You know, American men are being sent overseas to fight this war. Who's going to do the jobs while they're gone?

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

And that helped put the equal, I mean the voting rights amendment over the hump. But the equal rights amendment has never passed.

SPEAKER_04 26:29

Because it needs to be ratified by every state. Every state.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And South Carolina has not. South Carolina didn't ratify the voting rights amendment until the 60s.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

It's just amazing. Um, I'm neck deep in the demon of unrest by Eric Larkson right now. Oh. I am fascinated by the whole history and how it all started and the chivalry and all the culture that's here in South Carolina back then. Like the the audacity, the the tenation, you know, like they were like, no, this is our root, this is what we believe in. Enough to start a civil war. I'm at the point right now where they haven't started the war yet in this in this in the story. I don't know if you've read the book.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I haven't, but I wasn't. Oh, it's a good one. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you want to uh jump ahead to what was going on in Charleston at the time that the voting rights amendment was being debated, you know, all over the country, you had a group of women here that were very outspoken. They had one thing in common. None of them were married. And one of the reasons for that was at the time, if you were married, your husband could access your bank account.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Or anything that you owned. Okay. And so these single women, like Susan Pringle Frost, who started the Preservation Society, Mary Vardrine McAbee, who founded Ashley Hall, you know, some of these women were the ones here to really push for that voting rights amendment.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

And it worked.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

Why don't you tell them about the um another one of my favorite stories, the other Pollitzer sister?

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Oh, I will tell that one because it is my favorite story. And again, I do embellish, but I admit it. Okay. I admit it. The just I mean the basics are are the truth. Um there were three sisters, the Pollitzer Sisters, and they lived downtown on um Smith Street. And all three of them went off to Columbia College in New York because at the time that they were uh college age, there was no college locally. College of Charleston wasn't co-ed, so they went off to Columbia College, which is now Columbia University. And Anita, the youngest daughter, uh, was one of them. And while she was at Columbia University, she met Georgia O'Keefe, the great painter. She also met Alfred Stieglitz, who was a great photographer, and she could have uh rested on the laurels of introducing Georgia O'Keefe to Alfred Stieglitz. They had this wonderful, long-standing affair and produced amazing art as a result. Um, but Anita decided to get involved with Alice Paul and the women's rights movement in Washington. They were working to get this voting rights amendment passed, and so Anita got brought into it, and Anita was a petite little woman, dark hair and beautiful, absolutely beautiful. So Alice Paul, who was the Quaker leader of the women's movement at that time, would send Anita out to the different state legislatures as they were debating the voting rights amendment and send Anita out to give all the reasons why this amendment should be passed. So flash forward to August of 2021, right? Am I right? 19. I mean 19, sorry. Oh, please edit that. Yeah, name forward. Yeah, to be really long. I have to keep my century straight, right? You know, since I lived in both of them. Um it got down to the point where uh they needed 36 states to ratify this amendment, and they had 35. And the next state to take up the amendment was going to be Tennessee. And they sent Anita to Tennessee to lobby the Tennessee legislature, which of course was all men, all white men, on the importance of passing or ratifying the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote. And she met with them, she tried to convince them. They then realized that in the Tennessee State Senate, which was the body which would consider this, there was one that they thought hold out, and his name was Harry. And Harry was very young, I think he was 23 or 24. And um Anita had dinner with Harry like two days before the vote, and she could not move him. So come the day of the vote, the Tennessee State Senate,

The Tennessee Telegram That Won Votes

SPEAKER_00 31:13

they're there, they all march in, there are about 40 of them, 20 go to one side and 20 go to the other as in supporting and and being opposed to it. And Harry was in the group opposed, and just before the vote, a Western Union messenger boy came in, and this is back in the day where you would send a paper telegram to people to get in touch with them. And the the Western Union Messenger boy came into the Senate and walked over to Harry and handed him an envelope, a telegram. And Harry opened the envelope, read the telegram, and he folded it and he put it in his pocket, and he walked across the room and took his vote to the pro side. And Harry was the defining vote because Tennessee then ratified the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

The telegram was from his mother. And when Anita couldn't make any headway with Harry, she contacted his mother. And his is that brilliant or what? Yeah. His mother sent a telegram basically saying, uh, Sonny boy, you need to vote for this. I would like to vote before I die.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Impeccable timing there.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Exactly. And Anita Pollitzer thinking outside of the box, very much so. We love that story. Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

And there's a plaque. Um for the Pollitzer Sisters on Pitt and Street.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

On Pitt Street, yeah, that we put up um in honor of the three of them. Yeah. And um I will tell you a funny story about that. We put it up, and the next day, two days later, that we were gonna have a big unveiling and the press were coming, and we had all sorts of dignitaries. And so the city put it up, and the next morning the person whose house it was in front of, the pilots or former pilot, called me and said, uh, the marker's gone. I went, What? I forgot about that. Oh, you don't remember. Oh, I don't remember now. I had a heart attack. He she said, the plat, and I I lived right near there, so I ran over there, just a hole in the ground, and I thought, what am I gonna do? So I remember coming to the office and telling Amanda that. And and basically I thought, all right, what can I do? I contacted the three female anchors at the the three main stations, and I said, Would you lead with this? That somebody has stolen this plaque, and we would love to have it back.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

Not just a plaque, it was an act, it was an official historical model.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

It was on a poll and everything. I mean, yeah. Yeah, we went through all the hoops, and then we had to raise the money to pay for it. So anyway, um, and then that afternoon, you'll love this. The the president of the College of Charleston at the time, because this house was right in the middle of the College of Charleston, called me and said, if you don't have it back by tomorrow, I personally will pay to replace it.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Next morning, person at the house called me. Guess what? The pl the the pell plaque is back.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

And it was back. It was lying on its side. Oh. But whoever had taken it had returned it. And, you know, so we got two extra days of PR to do, you know, to get them people who didn't wouldn't have cared or known got to know about it and thought it was a great story.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Did you make it? Did you pull that stunt?

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Is that a no, but we did find out later that it was a couple of college guys who had taken it and the the word got out around the campus, and I think that there was a certain amount of peer pressure exhibited to get it brought back.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

So when does the the Charleston Commission of Women come into play?

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Actually, that was, and I'm real bad on remembering years, um, when John Tecklinberg was first elected mayor. Um I had by then uh left the center and I was running my own consulting business. He resuscitated the Charleston Commission on Women, which had been effect in the early or mid-70s, and Joe Riley, for whatever reason, didn't continue it. So John decided to bring back the Charleston Commission on Women, and he asked me if I would share it, and I said I'd be delighted. We had women apply, we had about 15 women on there, you were on it. Thank god goodness Amanda was was part of that group, and we met and uh we talked about you know what were the what were the issues really facing city employees, particularly women city employees. And one of the things that was a big issue and continues to be a big issue was paid family leave.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Think about that. You know, you have maybe two weeks of annual

Paid Family Leave Through City Policy

SPEAKER_00 36:06

leave and two weeks of sick leave, but if you're pregnant and you need to say go on bed rest or you have a family member that you're providing care for, you know, is there some way that you can take extra leave and be paid for it? Paid family leave. And it had been discussed a lot, particularly on the national level as well as the state level, and a lot of countries already had it. I'm sure. Oh, it's just sort of standard. Yeah. So we discussed this as a commission and decided to take it on. And we made the recommendation to Charleston City Council that they adopt a paid family leave policy, which we wrote up, and the director of HR at the time for the city supported it, and City Council approved it right before COVID. Now there is a policy in place, and I have made sure of that. It's not quite the the one that we had asked for. We wanted a 12-week policy, uh, and that got cut back to four, basically to be in line with what the state had passed, and the state used our Charleston Commission on Women's Strategy to work with the legislature on that.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah, I was really proud of that.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

That's that's impact.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Well, and it it's that's community impact.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

It is community impact, and it says to your employees, because it's not just women employees, you know, if you're a male employee and your mother's in a nursing home and she needs you to come and take care of things for you deserve to be able to take paid leave for that. And the sandwich generation, you know, dealing with small children and dealing with aging parents.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

That's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

There you are?

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Yeah. Yeah, I got two. You get paid family leave and my parents aren't aging, though. Don't tell my mom that.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

Um You get paid family leave in your own company? No. No, we need to adopt that, though. We need to adopt that. Yes, I can help you with that.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

I'm sure. Well, how can we help the Center for Women? And can you talk about that, please?

SPEAKER_04 38:05

The Center for Women doesn't exist anymore, so that's that's a sad story. It's five years after I left.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So the beginning of that though.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

You were every day we talk about it. Every day people come up to us and say there needs to be a center for women. We miss it.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

I assume there is a center for women. How can there not be a center for women?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Well, it was when we when Amanda and I came in in 2001, um, the center had been through a variety of transitions. And, you know, having done the kind of work I did um prior to that, which was traveling a lot to third world countries and working with women in development, I had a pretty good idea of what was needed here. Sure. Um, particularly around empowerment. Yeah, you've been doing a support. Yeah, and empowerment, encouraging women to start their own businesses, giving them the support they need to start their own businesses. Um, and we had a really strong program going for that. And um unfortunately,

The Center For Women And What’s Missing

SPEAKER_00 39:05

you know, it didn't continue. And um, I think there's still a great need, and that might be something that the Mount Pleasant Chamber wants to look at.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

We have a women in business program as Rise and inspire, support, oh wow. You had something to do with that. That was before me, but I had to help promote it. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Oh good, oh good. No, but it it's true, and and a lot of what women need when it comes to starting their businesses is not just the basic business skills, but what are called, and I hate this, soft skills, which are uh the ability to handle difficult people.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

How do you negotiate effectively? You know, uh what how do you handle disciplinary measures? You know, things like that. That very frankly, any woman who becomes an entrepreneur who has been a mother already knows how to do all those things.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Right? They just haven't thought of it. And just having a support system. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what we created was a huge network of women business owners who were doing well and willing to help each other. There you go. And that's huge.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

That's really at our peak, we had a thousand members. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Oh my gosh, we were the largest women's membership organization in the state. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

I'm baffled that there uh that's another podcast story, I I guess, um, on what happened to the Center of Women, like how it's all right. Well, um, talk about the Elpra Angel Network Grant. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Amanda made Amanda made it happen.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Of course she did.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

She did. She absolutely it was a a group effort.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

Okay. What is it?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

What is it?

SPEAKER_04 40:49

Well, we were one of the only nonprofits at the time that had an active uh website.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

A broad one. You know, m some of the others had real basic stuff. Here's what here where we are, here's how to come to the city. Yeah, this was two thousand years. But Amanda was updating the website every day. Yeah. I mean, it was a working fab fabulous.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

Because she Oprah's people, she was coming to town on her Live Your Best Life tour, and they were searching for organizations to get back to. Yeah. And they found us because of our web presence. Yeah. Among the others were like my sister's house, which is still around. Yep. Um Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts, the foreign side of the home. Yeah. Um, and so they reached they called Jenet and reached out to her and um asked her to apply for the Oprah

Oprah’s Grant And The Power Of PR

SPEAKER_04 41:42

Angel Network grant, which was like the largest thing that we've ever done in my life still to this day.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

It was a grant application on a par with the federal government.

SPEAKER_04 41:52

It was like Oh my. And you had less than a week to do that. Oh, we had two days.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

We had two days. Uh I got the call on Tuesday and they said they had to have a completed grant application by Friday morning. And so Amanda and Leanne, our other colleague, we just shut down and put it together, sent it off. And then again, Amanda saved the day because she called the Oprah Angel Network liaison and said, Did you get it? She called Friday. No. Amanda called the mailroom at Oprah's Angel Network and found it and had it delivered to the first. You know, you just have to work through things the best way. So here, and here's another funny part. So that was a Friday on that Monday, and Oprah was coming that weekend. I got a call from the Angel Network people, and they said, Well, we got your grant, we really love it, but we've got a problem. This is my bureaucratic story. Um your uh 501c3 letter from the IRS giving you nonprofit status is made out to the Center for Women in Transition. But your last tax statement, your 990, is for the Center for Women. We changed our name. Just drop two words, okay? Yeah and and they're saying, we have a problem with that. And I said, in a flash, I don't know how it came to me, I said, look at the tax ID numbers on both documents.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

They're the same. Right. Oh, well then it is the same organization.

unknown 43:24

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

We're gonna give you $10,000 on Saturday, and we're gonna give you 10 tickets to come to Oprah's uh program out in North Charleston, and we want you to bring yourself and people that you've helped. And we did.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

And we went out there, and in the time between the my conversation on that Monday and that Saturday, the grant went up to $25,000.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

So we're sitting in the audience out at the North Charleston Art Center, and Oprah's up there talking about us. You know, I t she basically said, all the things I'm telling you, you can make happen because there's an organization here in Charleston called the Center for Women. And all of us were like, oh my God. Yeah. Here we are, we can die now. You know, it's okay. You know, if I'm run over by a truck, it'll be fine. Yeah, and she did. And that was huge. Yeah. I mean, that was huge because it also she was able to reach a demographic that we hadn't been able to, which were a lot of working women who didn't know what we had, didn't know what we were offering, who were able to avail themselves of our resources.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

And we met her backstage for like five seconds. Yeah, and had our picture taken with you. And I have it over my desk at home. Oh, do you really? Yeah. And I had the bag that I use is from that event. Oh, I love it. You still use it.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

It's not falling apart. It's not falling apart. But you know, and and you have to remember, and this was 2008, you know, Oprah was a big deal. Now she still is. But back then she was on, she still had her top show. She had her own channel.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At the same time?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Super fun. Wow. That's a big deal, Amanda. Never say anything about that. I look at it every day. So past president of the Women's Rights and Empowerment Network? The list goes on.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Well, that's the one I'd really like to talk about because that's current. That's happening now. Ten years ago, I was serving on the board of the New Morning Foundation, which had been doing a lot of work around teen pregnancy in South Carolina, which is still an issue. And they uh tasked me with uh chairing an ad hoc committee to create an organization that would continue their work because they were going to sunset, but really get out there and provide support to the girls and women and their families in South Carolina. So we had our committee had almost two years to design it. And we designed the Women's Rights and Empowerment Network, also known as Wren. And of course, the South Carolina Wren is the state bird. So did not? Yep, Ren.org. Check it out, scren.org.

How WREN Wins Laws And Trains Advocates

SPEAKER_00 46:21

And we have been able to, in the last 10 years, if you can believe it, build up a network within South Carolina between 30 and 40,000 subscribers to our newsletter. Unbelievable. Who, when we go about trying to pass legislation, will support that by sending emails, making phone calls, showing up at the at the state legislature. And there hadn't been a group in South Carolina who had approached it in that organized way. So Wren has gotten things done like a pregnancy accommodation act was passed. And you would think this would be common sense that you wouldn't ask a woman in her last trimester to lift large, heavy objects. We had to legislate that a pregnant woman on the job uh would not be asked to lift more than 20 pounds and not have a note from her doctor. And I asked my own OBGYN, do you write a lot of notes for that? She said, I write them every day. Okay. The other thing, being able to have a water bottle at your workstation, being able to have an extra break in the morning and the afternoon, being able to, when you come back and you want to pump your breast milk, that you not be relegated to the women's room, which was usually, you know, the restrooms are dirty places. And that's usually where these women were sent to pump. So you'd think you wouldn't have to legislate things like that, but we did, and we got it passed. We also got passed uh legislation that at the time women inmates who were pregnant, when it came time for them to give birth, they were shackled. What? You heard Wow. We got legislation passed that said you cannot shackle. When are you getting the pregnant women what years are this? Um I well, this was in the last ten years. In the last ten years. In the last ten years. And you know, I don't know many women who in the middle of labor could get up and run out. But that was the thought of of they didn't want those shackles. Yeah. Other things we've done have been paid leave for state employees. You know, we led the we led the the charge on that. We also uh worked to get a bill passed that where kids in schools were given different meals when their parents hadn't paid up on the lunch bill that they get the same meal. So you wouldn't have what was called lunchroom shaming. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was obvious when kids' parents hadn't hadn't paid the bills. Wow. So we looked at things like that that are really sort of picking away, you know, at the at the mortar between the bricks of the wall, and instead tried to create a better environment for women and girls. And I will say that we have been in the forefront of fighting back on the really horribly restrictive abortion bans that have been passed in this state. And there's currently uh legislation that would ban abortion uh at the moment of conception, which is the first heartbeat, which is not necessarily a heartbeat. I won't go into all the science on that. Um, and that there would be no exceptions. If there was incest, no exception, if it was rape, no exception. And even in the life of the mother or a fetal anomaly, there would not they would not allow an abortion. But if the mother's health was immediately affected, then it could be used. But that's very hard to prove. Yeah. And we're we're fighting that back right now.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

I was gonna say, what are you what are we doing about that?

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Well, it the legislature only has about another eight or nine days, and we don't think it will be brought to the floor of either body to debate. And that in and of itself is a victory for us.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

So if someone wants to get involved with that, yeah. Well, you already mentioned the website. Yeah, scren.org. Get on their email list. Get on the yeah, they're very good about sending emails when there's something happening and they need to do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

All sorts of things you can sign up for here, too. Yeah. Um, one of the things that that hasn't happened in this state is there's not been a lot of training around advocacy. You know, how do you lobby a state legislature?

SPEAKER_02 50:50

You have a toolkit right here. I'm looking at it.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Yeah, there you go. We have one. We do trainings all over the state with women's groups on how to advocate, take away the fear factor.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

So this is free on your website right here.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

A whole toolkit of anything you could possibly imagine.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Exactly. So cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

Okay. Um, man, I need to get to work.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

And we've been we've been recognized nationally for the work that we do because there is no other organization like ours, certainly anywhere else in the South.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Which is a great place to be considering South Carolina's like last in everything else. I know.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

So you've got a lot of work ahead of you. You've already done a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

It's never ended.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

But you can't quit. You can't quit, you know. I mean, Amanda and I were sort of shocked when all this started coming up again. I mean, didn't we? I mean, I fought these battles in the 60s and 70s. Why are they coming back in the 2020s?

SPEAKER_02 51:50

It's out of control, but it's what's happening and what we're dealing with. And and thankfully you're here uh to have our back, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

I'll do my best. Well, Ren and the whole staff and the board will do that. And all of our supporters.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

Talk more about so so Ren.org, scren.org, and they can sign up here, join the newsletter. Amanda, did you do the newsletter?

SPEAKER_04 52:11

Oh no. I do the newsletter. I'm I signed up for the newsletter a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

But a lot of what our committee recommended to do was things like the newsletter that Amanda had uh had championed early on at the center. Right, which are still well now you can do text messages too. Yeah? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

So I I'm looking at this, but you you do have a conference.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah, Ren does a uh summit every year. Okay. Um October 23rd. You got it. Right here in Charleston. Right here in Charleston. So where's it gonna be? Do you know? It's gonna be at the Gillyard. And if you will let me see the the speaker.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

Oh, I was just there.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Okay, go there and let me talk a little bit about who we're bringing in. Um, it's so small. Should be under the the summit. Oh, there it is. Meet us at the Gileard. Okay, there it is. And uh go back up. Oh, there she is. Um Jotaka Edy is gonna be you're aware of Jotaka. Uh she's a nationally recognized strategist. She's a movement architect and the founder of Full Circle Strategies. And we're having her as our keynote speaker for our 10th anniversary summit. And she's actually known as the Olivia Pope of Silicon Valley.

SPEAKER_04 53:35

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Yeah. And she's

How To Get Involved And Summit Details

SPEAKER_00 53:37

been doing a lot around civil rights, and she also is from South Carolina. That's that. Yeah, she was a student at the University of South Carolina, and she made history as the first black woman ever elected student body president. Wow. Not just at USC, but at any college or university in the state. Come on. Okay. She also helped lead the student-driven fight for the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House dome. Okay. Proving early on what she continues to embody today, which is courageous leadership rooted in justice and community. And I can't wait for her to come and speak. Wow. That sounds like a pretty amazing event.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

Yeah. And so again, that's uh in October.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

In October, go to the website again, sign up for it. October 23rd, it's our 10-year anniversary summit. We'll have breakout sessions on a variety of issues, and uh, I think there'll be something for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Lovely. That I mean, you're doing great work. So, so kind of wrapping up our conversation. I mean, because we could talk all day. I'm sure you could share so many stories, and and what you're doing is so important to everybody, not just to women, um, but to society in a whole, right? So thank you for all that. And Amanda, thank you for bringing her to the show.

SPEAKER_04 55:03

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

She neglected to say not only were we peers, but we're friends. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Yeah, you can tell definitely tell that. Um, so what we do is we kind of end the set each each one of our segments with some fun questions.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Yeah. And you can answer them if you want. If you're not, you can just tell me to go go places. Uh if you weren't doing this work, what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_04 55:30

Is there something you haven't done that you've always wanted to do? I think I'd be a lawyer.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

And I'd be a I'd be an equal rights lawyer. You know, I mean, uh, thank you. That's very kind of you. Um, I thought about it, and at the time I was just anxious to get through college and and sort of get out in the world, and then I got into the TV thing. Um or even an actress.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

You've been on stage a few times. I have, yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Uh what's something people would be surprised to learn about you?

SPEAKER_00 56:05

That I can build a pit latrine.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

Okay. Can you explain to the audience what a pit latrine is?

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Uh, pit latrine is when you do not have um uh restroom facilities inside. You build

Surprising Skills And Who Inspires Her

SPEAKER_00 56:18

a uh a little uh structure. You've seen pictures of it. And inside you build a pit latrine that is completely natural. In other words, you dig a hole in the ground too. You dig a hole in the ground, but you want to put a little structure around it so that you're not just out there. But you know, a lot of people a lot of places that I worked with Peace Corps, you know, that was it. You know, people did not have running water. And what do you do? You know, you create an alternative.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Lovely. Love that is something that it does surprise me that you know how to do. You're right. What's something bringing you joy right now, besides sitting next to me?

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Ah well, sitting next to Amanda.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

Ah. And Matt.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Uh and Matt. But you know, I I have to say that uh what brings me joy right now is seeing my nieces and other young women really paying attention to what's going on. They finally, you know, they figured out, and I think this is an important message for all women to understand, which is when you ban abortion, you also end up banning a lot of forms of contraceptives. And you can't do both. You cannot not allow contraceptives and have an abortion ban.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

And this is something, I like I say, that young women are starting to realize. I mean, if you've had access to easy birth control for most of your your adult life and suddenly it goes away, you're gonna you're gonna feel it. And so that's what brings me joy is every time I talk to a young woman, I all it usually takes is, are you on birth control? Well, yeah. Well, what if that went away? Oh, that's not going away. I said, Well, you know, it could. Yeah. And you need to know how to stop that from happening.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 58:14

So good. I want to your marketing team has got to be pretty awesome. Like, no.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Oh, for Ren, are you kidding? Oh my goodness, it's top notch. Yeah, yeah. Top notch.

SPEAKER_02 58:25

I'd like to be in a uh the fly on the wall there listening to the you get you know the strategy that goes on with Ren.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

And and all of that, those stories that you have to tell. Like that's a small story that you have to tell on a on a mass scale. Uh what's who who inspires you today? And you're pretty inspiring.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Amanda.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

And what she's been able to do, and I've watched every sept of it. You should blush, but because I mean it. I mean it. You have you have beat all the odds. You you got out there and you said, This is what I'm gonna do, and she's done it, and she's been very successful. And I'm delighted that the Mount Pleasant Chamber has seen that. Um, and I'm sure others, your clients are happy. Um Lucy, Jack, no, I think that when it gets right down to it, the the people that inspire me today are single mothers who somehow make it, who somehow are able to uh provide child care, who are able to have a job that puts food on the table, that work against the most amazing odds and still succeed.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:48

We know lots of them. Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

I'm sure what's your best advice for enjoying the journey a little more? And this is our our last question for the Mell Pleasant Chamber.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

Oh I guess I didn't see that question.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

What's the best advice for enjoying the journey a little more?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Um don't get your knickers in a knot. Here they come. Um and uh this comes with a little vignette. Um when I was in at the end of my time in Afghanistan, I mentioned that the Russians overthrew the Afghans and there were MIGs flying over my house, and there were tanks in the streets, and um I had a whole group of volunteers because I had a house that had a little yard, so everybody came to me. And I went up on the roof of my little literally mud house and watched this and thought to myself this is redefining what the world over what the word overwhelming tells me. This is overwhelming, because life and limb might be at risk. But anything where life and limb are not at risk are merely whelming.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

Lovely, yes. Yeah, profound, profound, says Matthew.

A Coup And The “Whelming” Rule

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Oh my gosh. Oh, okay, that's amazing. We're gonna stop right there. Thank you very much for your time.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

You're very welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Amanda, will you um don't we have some sponsors to have anything to talk about with uh yeah? We've got the Viking merger and acquisitions, they're sponsors. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

We need to thank them. Yeah, um that's that's fine, we'll get to that. But it's always I'm always and enjoy Janet's company anytime I'm around her. Um all these years, no matter what whether we're working together or 25 years of knowing each other.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:47

Well, before we all start crying, yeah. No, no, it's we don't cry. We don't cry. I do. Okay. Uh thank you again for everything you do. Thank you for your time. Uh can't wait to keep in touch with you and see what you're doing in the future and all the all the change. My gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Like I said, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about things that I consider really important. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

Good. Glad.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

They're still important. People need to, yeah. Yes. Even now more than ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Right. That's right. Thank you to the Viking Mergers and Acquisitions for Underwriting. Thank you to the Charleston Media Solutions and and Mr. Matt, the engineer. Yep. Appreciate you. Uh, you're very welming.

unknown 1:02:33

I'm glad I could be well.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

Yes, yes. If anyone's interested in sponsorship, please reach out to me or just go to mountpleasantchamber.org.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

Yep, yep. And don't forget to go to scren.org for more information on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Thank you. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

All right. Love you, Mount Pleasant. Mean it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Till next time.