A Joy of Resistane Women's History Month Special: The Civil Rights Movement and the Roots of Women's Liberation.

An hour-long version of JOR's 77 minute classic CD, in which seven women–Black and white–who worked within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)--tell the little known story of how the Second Wave of Feminism was birthed from within SNCC! There is no other radio treatment of this historic material! 

This investigation was begun by Joy of Resistance' Executive producer Fran Luck in 2005 and developed over a period of years; it is essential feminist history. The 55 minute-long version you will hear is slightly condensed and consists of five interviews with SNCC women workers. 

The five women  you will hear interviewed are: 

Dottie Zellner, who tells the story of her journey from Manhattan, NYC, to the deep South to join the lunch counter sit-ins for integration never stopped fighting for social justice, becoming a Palestinian rights activist in her later years (as a result of Stokely Carmichael having told white people to "organize your own communities".

Mary King worked with Julian Bond in the communications wing of SNCC and later went on to become Director of the Peace Corps and an official in the Carter Administration. In 1964, along with Casey Hayden, she wrote the famous 'memo' that criticized the treatment of women within SNCC. This came out of a SNCC retreat, at which all were encouraged to submit papers on any issue of concen. It was submitted anonymously and sparked both controversy and support within SNCCt. It was later sent to 10 women's groups around the country and became a catalyst in the nascent women's movement. 

Muriel Tillinnghast offers her observations on SNCC as a cauldron of intellectual ferment, which led to the writing of the paper on women. 

Gwendolyn "Zoharah" Simmons tells how she defied her parents to join SNCC and wound up running her own very dangerous project registering Black people to vote in Mississippi. She experienced a sexual assault by a fellow SNCC worker and fought to have sexual assault and harassment taken seriously within the organization. She tells that story.

Frances Beal talks about forming the Third World Women's Alliance--a women's organization within SNCC that outlasted SNCC. She criticizes the "backward" ideas about the place of women in the Afro-centric movement that were coming to the fore in the Black Power movement and how her organization took a stance on these--as well as developing a feminism that was anti-colonial (later to become the Third World Women's Resource Center.

This program is accompanied by the glorious music of the Civil Rights Movement.