Sex and Caste at 50

A Kind of Memo as Message for the Movement

Toward the end of A Kind of Memo, Hayden amplified what she hinted at from the start, that open dialogue and community support were the best organizing strategy.   Just as the Memo began with a reference to women's talking to one another privately and separately from men, these "chance conversations" now needed to be expanded to "open up dialogue." While the “basic human problems” in the Memo revolved around the Sex Caste system, society’s failure to address its “deepest problems” was indicative of the need for radical approaches.   Only by pursuing the “radicalizing question” of why society has failed to address the issues raised in the Memo could the movement reach “new alternatives … [for] personal and institutional change."

Hayden addressed the Memo to women because she saw them as more capable of guiding the movement back to its original ideals.  In a sense, because the sex caste system forced them "to work around or outside hierarchical structures of power," women were closer to the founding vision of SNCC. At that second SNCC conference, which Hayden attended as one of two delegates from Texas,a system of rotating chairmanships was adopted, along with recognition that "All members of the committee shall have equal status."  

By 1965 these views on leadership placed Hayden in one faction of an increasingly divided SNCC.

Notes
[1]Recommendations passed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. October 11-14, 1960. Civil Rights Movement Veterans. web,

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