Chude Pamela Parker Allen (born 1943) is an American activist of thecivil rights movement andwomen's liberation movement. She was a founder ofNew York Radical Women.
Pamela Parker was born in Pennsylvania in 1943.[1] She grew upEpiscopalian and lived inSolebury, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a nursery school teacher and her father worked as a manager in a rubber goods factory.[2]
Allen attendedCarleton College inNorthfield, Minnesota, where she studied religion. She joined theStudents for a Democratic Society. During the summer of 1963, she was a counselor at theChurch of the Advocate in Philadelphia where she lived withPaul Washington, the church's African-American rector, and his family.[3] In her junior year, she was one of 13 white exchange students at theSpelman College in Spring 1964. There she attended a seminar on nonviolence conducted byStaughton Lynd and became involved with theCommittee on Appeal for Human Rights. She volunteered as aFreedom School teacher inHolly Springs, Mississippi, forFreedom Summer.[4][5] During her time in Mississippi, Allen was romantically involved withRalph Featherstone, a black Freedom Summer organizer.[6]
During her senior year, she was an activist on campus and spoke for theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She married African-American activistRobert L. Allen in 1965.[7] Following her graduation from Carleton, she moved toNew York City, where she worked at an agency that found homes for foster children.[1]
Allen was a key activist in the white women's liberation movement and she advocated for greater attention to be given to racism within the movement.[8] She co-foundedNew York Radical Women in 1967.[9] The group planned theJeannette Rankin Brigade action.[1] Allen later left the group, criticizing their views of motherhood and rejection of traditional roles for women.[10] She worked forThe Guardian in early 1968.[1] She moved toSan Francisco, where she joined the feminist group Sudsofloppen.[11] Based on her experiences with the group, she wrote the influential pamphletFree Space: A Perspective on the Small Group in Women's Liberation, in which she outlined a four-stage method ofconsciousness raising. The work was influenced byhumanistic psychology.
She was editor for the newspaper of the Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (Union WAGE).[12] She was also involved with the Bridal Fair action of 1969, theMiss America protest, andInternational Women's Day.
She changed her name from Pamela Allen to Chude Pamela Allen.
Allen collaborated with her first husband on the 1974 bookReluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States. She also writes poetry and has drafted two plays,The Uprising of the 20,000 andCould We Be Heard.[1]
Allen is featured in the feminist history filmShe's Beautiful When She's Angry.[13][14]
Allen is a member of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. She lives in San Francisco.
New York Radical Women pam.
pam allen feminist.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
