| The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was a grassroots organization that changed the definition of leadership in the civil rights movement. Its ideology of participatory democracy opened the door for youth and women to play leadership roles in the movement in numbers they had not before. African American women activists were integral to the activism and philosophy of SNCC.; The organization's tendency towards study and self-critique in combination with current events led to a Black Power orientation which in turn opened the door for women to realize the double oppression that they faced. The result was the Black Women's Liberation Committee, which became the Third World Women's Alliance, a radical Black feminist organization that eventually reached out to all third world women. Its legacy is found in the philosophy of womanism, and in the activism of African American women today. |
