Women & Gender

Learning Toolkit Resources

Organizing Tradition Toolkit

Freedom Songs

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around

SNCC Freedom Singers

Ella’s Song

Resistance Revival Chorus

Engage with the Sources: Hear From and About Ella Baker

Ella Baker’s speech, “Black Women in the Civil Rights Struggle” (1969)

Ella Baker Oral History: “Ella Baker Organizes for Civil Rights” by Ellen Cantarow and Susan Gushee O’Malley

Ella Baker Oral History: “Developing Community Leadership,” taped interview with Gerda Lerner, December 1970

Reflect on the following questions:

  • What did Baker’s friends and allies emphasize about her and her work?
  • What does Baker focus on in her own speech and oral history?
  • How does learning more about Baker help you understand SNCC’s willingness to embrace women’s participation and participation more broadly, regardless of background?

Engage with the Sources: “‘I Just Had a Fire!’ An Interview with Dorie Ladner” excerpt

Consider these questions:

  • What inspired Dorie Ladner to join the Movement?
  • What does she emphasize about her experiences

Engage with the Sources: SNCC Position Paper: “Women in the Movement” & “A Kind of Memo” by Mary King and Casey Hayden

SNCC Position Paper: “Women in the Movement,” November 1964

“A Kind of Memo,” Reprinted as “Sex and Case in Liberation, 1966

Reflect on these questions:

  • What kinds of issues do Mary and Casey raise in the two pieces?
  • How does their portrait of SNCC compare with what you can learn from other sources?

Engage with the Sources: “SNCC Women and the Stirrings of Feminism” excerpts

Consider these questions:

  • What do King and Hayden say about why they wrote the two papers?
  • What do all of the women emphasize about their experiences with SNCC?

Activist Insights Across Generations

Hands on the Freedom Plow Discussion

Conversation with Judy Richardson, Rachel Gilmer, and D’atra Jackson

Bibliography