Chude Pam Allen facts for kids

Chude Pamela Parker Allen, born in 1943, is an American activist. She worked for important causes like the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement. She also helped start a group called New York Radical Women.

Early Life and Civil Rights Work

Growing Up and College Years

Pamela Parker was born in Pennsylvania in 1943. She grew up in Solebury, Pennsylvania, and was part of the Episcopal Church. Her mother was a nursery school teacher, and her father managed a factory that made rubber products.

Allen went to Carleton College in Minnesota, where she studied religion. She joined a student group called Students for a Democratic Society. In the summer of 1963, she worked as a counselor at a church in Philadelphia.

Joining the Civil Rights Movement

During her third year of college, Allen was one of 13 white students who studied at Spelman College in Spring 1964. While there, she learned about nonviolence and became involved with the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights.

She volunteered as a teacher for a Freedom School in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. This was a big effort to help African Americans register to vote and get an education.

In her final year of college, Allen was an activist on campus. She spoke for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a key civil rights group. After graduating in 1965, she moved to New York City. There, she worked for an agency that found homes for children in foster care. In 1965, she married Robert L. Allen, who was also an activist.

Women's Rights Activism

Starting New York Radical Women

Chude Pamela Parker Allen was a very important activist in the women's liberation movement. She believed it was important for the movement to pay more attention to racism. In 1967, she helped create New York Radical Women. This group planned a protest called the Jeannette Rankin Brigade action.

Allen later left the group because she disagreed with some of their ideas about motherhood and traditional roles for women. In early 1968, she worked for The Guardian newspaper.

Writing and Continued Activism

Allen moved to San Francisco and joined a 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, which is a way for people to share experiences and understand social issues better. Her ideas were influenced by humanistic psychology.

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

She later changed her name from Pamela Allen to Chude Pamela Allen.

Books and Creative Works

In 1974, Allen worked with her first husband, Robert L. Allen, 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, Chude Pamela Parker Allen is a member of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. She lives in San Francisco.

See also

In Spanish: Chude Pam Allen para niños