9.2: Casey Hayden and Mary King: “Sex and Caste” (1965)

Paired Sources from U.S. History, 1877-present
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Abstract

Casey Hayden and Mary King were two of many women working in the civil rights movement for African Americans in the South during the early 1960s. Over time, they became dissatisfied by how they were treated, and by how the overwhelmingly male leadership of that movement treated women in general, relegating them to support roles and preventing them from becoming involved in making important decisions. Their memo “Sex and Caste” is not only a key document of that effort, it is perhaps the best illustration possible of how one social movement for civil rights—the campaign on behalf of African Americans—led directly to another—the feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

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