NIU student and political activist

Name: Julia Droste Stege

Birthplace: Pennsylvania. I grew up in Connecticut.

Birthdate: March 6, ?

Current NIU organizational involvement: Feminist Front, and the Forum for Marxist-Humanist Thought.

Years in current political involvement: four and a half.

Education: Undergraduate degree: Syracuse University.

Working on master’s degree at NIU in intermedia arts

Car driven: 190 VW rust-colored (it’s really tan) diesel Rabbit

Favorite food: Coffee

Favorite TV show: The series “Eyes on the Prize,”about the history of Civil Rights movements worldwide.

Favorite movie: The Milagro Bean Field War. It’s about Mexicans who are fighting capitalist interest and it’s lead by a woman who organizes it.

Favorite music: Barbra Streisand and Bob Marley.

Favorite book: Selma, Lord, Selma. It’s the story of an eight-year-old black girl in Selma, Alabama who convinces her parents to be in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Favorite vacation spot: Anywhere warm – the mountains.

Most likely to be found at: The Coffeehouse or at a meeting somewhere.

Hobbies: I do a lot of stuff but nothing I consider as a hobby.

Favorite childhood memory: Running around when I was four saying “you’re not the big boss of me” to everyone. It was my little act of defiance.

What I like the most about being a political activist: When a woman that comes to one of our groups says that she’s so glad to finally find somebody that thinks like she does.

What I like the least about being a political activist: When people—Star reporters, columnists, and people who write letters to the editor—are so insensitive to the fact that we are human beings with feelings.

Most memorable NIU experience: The march down Lincoln Highway for the second Day of Action. It was 400 of us working together to try to make things work better.

Role models: If I could think like Raya Dunayevskaya (founder of Marxist-Humanism) and sing like Barbra Streisand I’d have it made.

Best advice ever given: When my friend Alison asked me to move to DeKalb from New York. This is the place where my ideas have been heard the most.

Behind my back people say: Nothing I haven’t heard.