GSU Library Research Guides: Feminist Action Alliance History Project: C

Crockett, Delores

Interviewee: Delores Crockett
Interviewer: Janet Paulk
Date of interview: November 7, 2007

Interviewee: Delores Crockett
Interviewer: Tiffany Gray
Date of interview: October 26, 2023

Biography:
Delores Loraine "Raine" Crockett is a retired civil servant who spent twenty-seven years working for the U.S. Women's Bureau before retiring in 2006. Born in Daytona Beach, FL , she grew up in public housing, and was raised in a close family that included a single mother, three grandparents, and godparents. Valedictorian of her high school class, Crockett left Florida in 1965 to attend Atlanta's Spelman College, where she majored in psychology and graduated at age twenty-one (1969). Subsequently, she married, gave birth to a daughter, and earned a graduate degree in Counseling (1972), and divorced. After working for a nonprofit and later for Avon products, she joined the Women's Bureau, part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Over the years, she held several positions, at one point overseeing an eight-state region, and at another time, living in Washington, D.C. while serving as Deputy Director. She returned to Atlanta in 2001 and ended her career as Field Operations Manager in charge of all the Bureau's regional offices.

Crockett is a Leadership Atlanta alum (1977), and past board member, and she has served on a number of boards and commissions, including the American Red Cross, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Georgia Commission on the Status of Women, and Georgia’s Employment and Training Council. She was also a member of Georgia’s delegation to the 1977 International Women’s Year Conference.

Abstract, November 7, 2007:
Crockett discusses her youth in Daytona Beach, Florida as part of a large extended family. She reminisces about her college years at Spelman, including student marches, the Black Power movement, and the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. In jobs she held with the nonprofit Minority Women's Empowerment Project and the for-profit Avon products, she recalls her work on economic issues facing women in the 1970s: job training, interview-writing, and preparation for job interviews, also the challenges involving childcare and elder care, issues that were also important during her years with the U.S. Women's Bureau. Crockett discusses the speeches she gave across the country advocating for women's employment in nontraditional jobs and the importance of retirement security. She reviewed legislation that became the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The Women's Bureau endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment and Crockett recalls her attendance at the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977 and her appointment to the Georgia Commission on the Status of Women by Governor George Busbee. She analyzes the reasons for the ERA's defeat.