Freedom Summer of 1964 and Feminism(s)

This paper focuses on expanding the definition of feminism to include the experiences of African American women SNCC workers during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, a nonviolent effort to integrate Mississippi's segregated political system. As this paper will demonstrate, feminism and the ways in which the women viewed or experienced feminism during the Freedom Summer, meant something different for each woman in SNCC. Many of them did not call themselves feminists or refer to feminism during 1964, though some did so later on in their lives. I argue that analyzing the differing experiences of Black and white women in SNCC during Freedom Summer of 1964 and the following year, through an intersectional lens, reveals how the traditional definition of second-wave feminism can be expanded to include the experiences of African American female SNCC workers who established their voices by leading in a major civil rights organization.