The Story of Mary King and Casey Hayden
The Contribution of Two Forgotten Feminist Leaders
Oct 2, 2008
Lost now are the voices of many important civil rights activists from the 1950s and 60s. Among those voices few recognize now are Casey Hayden and Mary King. These civil rights activists worked tirelessly with various organizations before writing Sex and Caste, a memo that launched the modern feminist movement.
Casey Hayden and Early Activism
Casey Hayden (nee Sandra Cason) was a left-wing activist during the civil rights era. Having grown up in Texas, Hayden was familiar with the U.S. South and became radicalized to racism during her college years. Hayden’s work began with the YMCA, which at the time was a heavily political organization, and she later was involved in SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and SDS, Students
for a Democratic Society. Hayden traveled the country working at odd jobs to help stop racism.
Working with Mary King
Along the way with SNCC, Hayden met Mary King. Both women worked within the movement and made connections with other women who shared their political passion. The two women committed themselves heavily to the cause of civil rights, working into the wee hours most nights copying pamphlets and educating others about civil rights. In 1964, Mary King, tired of being tied to desk work in the civil rights movement when she was a committed volunteer, wrote a paper to deliver at the annual SNCC conference. Hayden signed on to indicate she agreed with King’s position. When King delivered the speech, few people agreed with her position, and many ridiculed it. Men in particular did not believe the paper’s contents were solid or serious enough for open discussion at the SNCC conference.
Sex and Caste Memo
The two women, not deterred from working to end racism or the belief that women workers were being mistreated in the civil rights movement, wrote Sex and Caste the next summer. Hayden and King sent this 2-page document to about 40 women who were involved in the struggle against racism. In the memo, the women argued that women workers were not respected and that they were relegated to menial labor, such as mimeographing documents and cleaning up after meetings. The two women wanted to open a dialogue with other women in the civil rights movement about their experiences.
How Hayden and King Launched the Modern Feminist Movement
King and Hayden did not know it at the time, but they hit on problems women throughout various left-wing movements at the time were experiencing. Women began to respond well to the document, agreeing and forming discussion groups to share their thoughts on it. Many modern scholars consider Sex and Caste to be the founding document of the modern feminist movement. Because the feminist movement of the 1960s is largely considered to have started as a “piggyback” to the civil rights movement, Hayden and King’s memo became a rallying cry for future feminist activists. This memo launched the modern feminist movement by speaking to a problem dozens of women within the movement faced. King and Hayden's work went out to women with experience in organizing, and these women were able to turn their work as civil rights activists into work aso feminist activists.
 |
