the Iconocast: Chude Allen, part 1 (episode 71)

The Iconocast

Chude Pam Allen is a member of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. She coordinates speakers for schools and community groups and has spoken widely about her own experiences. Her writings can be found on their website, www.crmvet.org, which is considered by many veterans to be the best source for information on the Southern Freedom Movement.

In 1964 Chude participated in the student movement in Atlanta, Georgia while a white exchange student at Spelman, a historically black college. That summer she was a freedom school teacher in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She is featured in Doug McAdam’s book, Freedom Summer and in the award winning film, Freedom on My Mind.

After leaving the South, Chude was an organizer of the Women’s Liberation Movement, first in New York City and then in San Francisco. She taught anti-racism workshops for both women’s liberation groups and the YWCA. She is author of the 1970 classic, Free Space, A Perspective on the Small Group in Women’s Liberation and wrote the chapter on woman suffrage for the book, Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States. In the mid-seventies she joined Union Women’s Alliance to Gain Equality and became editor of their newspaper, UNION WAGE. She is featured in the film, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.