November 6, 1964
At a staff retreat held by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) following Freedom Summer an anonymous paper, “Women in the Movement,” was circulated and generated considerable controversy. The paper drew a parallel between the place of African-Americans in society at large and that of women in the movement, arguing that they had been excluded from leadership positions and assigned to do menial office tasks: “Assumptions of male superiority are as widespread and deep rooted and every much as crippling to the woman as the assumptions of white supremacy are to the Negro.” It is often written that SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael responded by stating publicly that the place of women in the movement is “prone.”
