Chude Pam Allen facts for kids

Chude Pamela Parker Allen, also known as Pamela Parker or Pam Allen (born in 1943), is an American activist. She played an important role in both the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement. She also helped start a group called New York Radical Women.

Early Life and Activism

Pamela Parker was born in Pennsylvania in 1943. She grew up in Solebury, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a nursery school teacher, and her father worked in a factory.

Allen went to Carleton College in Minnesota, where she studied religion. She joined a student group called Students for a Democratic Society. In 1963, she worked as a counselor in Philadelphia. The next year, she was one of 13 white students who studied at Spelman College, a historically Black college. There, she learned about nonviolence and got involved with the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights.

She volunteered as a teacher for a Freedom School in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. This project aimed to help Black Americans register to vote and get an education.

After graduating from Carleton in 1965, she moved to New York City. She worked at an agency that helped find homes for foster children.

Women's Rights Work

Allen was a key activist in the women's liberation movement. She believed the movement needed to pay more attention to issues of racism. In 1967, she helped create New York Radical Women. This group organized important protests, like the Jeannette Rankin Brigade action.

Later, Allen left the group because she disagreed with some of their ideas about motherhood and women's traditional roles. She moved to San Francisco and joined another feminist group called Sudsofloppen. Based on her experiences, she wrote an important booklet called Free Space: A Perspective on the Small Group in Women's Liberation. In this booklet, she described a four-step method for "consciousness raising." This is a way for people to share their experiences and understand how society affects their lives.

She also worked as an editor for a newspaper called the Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (Union WAGE). She was involved in other protests, including the Miss America protest in 1969 and International Women's Day events.

Around this time, she changed her name from Pamela Allen to Chude Pamela Allen.

Writing and Legacy

In 1974, Allen worked with her first husband on a book called Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States. She also writes poetry and has written two plays: The Uprising of the 20,000 and Could We Be Heard.

Allen is featured in a film about feminist history called She's Beautiful When She's Angry.

Today, Allen is a member of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. She lives in San Francisco.