as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), mounted an effective appeal to rid the country of what bell hooks (1994) has called color caste systems that impose de facto colonialism on African-Americans and other people of color. Similarly, NOW has sought to put an end to sexism as sexism has been institutionalized in the United Sates in the form of barriers to the advancement of women in education and in the workplace (Freeman, 2004). What this suggests to me is that there are very natural synergies between the overarching goals and objectives between SNCC and NOW which should be far more compelling than some of the tensions and conflicts that others have observed when these two groups are compared.
These tensions have been addressed in part by Carla Freccero (1999), who argued that some black liberation movements have given scant attention to sexism in their emphasis on the very real injustices suffered by blacks as a group and, in particular, by black men who have been the victims of violence and brutality at the hands of mainstream white society. Freeman (2004) makes it clear that NOW also stands in staunch opposition to any brutality meted out against individuals on the basis of skin color.
Bell hooks (1994) made the case that many of the black liberation movements have marginalized women and their contributions in their efforts to improve the quality of life enjoyed by black men. Hooks (1994) went even farther and suggested that there are tensions and hostilities within black culture that pit men against women and which may by extension, make it difficult for groups such as SNCC to participate with groups such as NOW in advancing civil rights to include issues of gender and sexism as well as racism.
What this creates is what Hardisty (1999) called a kitchen table backlash. Many groups in the United States, including Stop ERA, have worked against NOW and to prevent the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. These o...