Discuss The Insights You Acquire From Casey Hayden Account About Her Participation In The Civil Right Movement.

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Response on Casey Hayden account about her participation in the civil right movement

Casey Hayden was born in October 31, 1937 in Austin, Texas. She lived with her separated mother, mother’s sister and maternal grandmother; mainly in the female environment. Her mother always taught her not to compromise on human rights and not to indulge in any discriminatory practice against sex, race, religion and socioeconomic status. This parenting became the crux of her life as a civil rights activist. She took active participation in the Civil Rights Movement and stood against her own community to show integrity for black people. At that time, she was a student at University of Texas, Austin where she soon got involved with numerous activist organizations including Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Student Democratic Society (SDS). Despite being White, she stood up for the rights of his fellows and delivered a groundbreaking speech in the United States National Student Association (USNSA) Congress in 1960 that led to the development of insight on the part of students about democratic society (UGP, 2002).

With the credible technological advancements, human mind has become diversified and conductive to only valid and reliable scientific knowledge. We tend to believe anything that is rational, logical and evidence- based in nature. This is why science has replaced irrational belief systems in each and every walk of life including alterations at micro levels such as our thinking patterns, perceptions, attitudes, orientations, preferences and outlooks for future. However, there are some areas that are still far from scientific notions and interestingly, despite any scientific evidence, people tend to believe them and are inclined to draw holistic frameworks based on such irrational beliefs. If you are wondering about examples; sexism is the one. Sexism is the phenomenon in which some set of beliefs, responsibilities and obligations are erroneously associated with the individuals belonging to different biological sexes; men and women (Jones et. al., 2005). For example, women are thought to be homemakers therefore their approach is not valued and embraced much in organizational and institutional level. When women attempt to make their ways in workplace; their presence is disregarded immensely and indirectly. The term indirect means that they are made to feel inferior through trivial and apparently minute verbal and gestural cues such as not giving the opportunities in important decision- making, disregarding their efforts, discouraging them through destructive criticism and lacking recognition. Such practices are not only limited to smaller organizations but also perpetuate within the national institutions ironically.

Casey Hayden’s case is not much different from other working women. She reported sexism in the associated organizations participating in the most groundbreaking Civil Rights Movement during mid nineties. Despite working day and nights, disregarding her personal and familial life, performing super- colossal duties even without any expectation of reward, rejuvenating the Civil Rights Movement through delivering excellent speeches and striking student’s interest, acting as a role model for other Whites to protect rights of the Blacks as humans, standing hard on the ebbs and flows of life, travelling through the hard paths, disregarding personal favors and maintaining self discipline for the sacred goals; she found nothing! What was her aim? Undoubtedly, to stay with her team and work harder until the accomplishment of journey that she vented out for. She was disregarded and eventually left her place with the heavy heart because she was a woman after all. After being segregated, she started working for the equality of women both black and white because it was an equally problematic issue for her as racial discrimination was. This was the turning point in women’s history that led to the development and reinvigoration of feminism (Faith et. al., 2010).

Works Cited

“Liberation Movement. In Turner, Elizabeth Hayes; Cole, Stephanie; Sharpless, Rebecca (eds.). Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives.” University of Georgia Press. pp. 295–318. 2002

Faith Holsaert, S.; Noonan, Martha Prescod Norman; Richardson, Judy; Robinson, Betty Garman; Young, Jean Smith; Zellner, Dorothy M.. “Hands on the freedom plow: personal accounts by women in SNCC.” Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2010

Jones, Leslie E. Cudd, Ann E. et. al.. "Sexism". A Companion to Applied Ethics. London: Blackwell. Notes that "'Sexism' refers to a historically and globally pervasive form of oppression against women." 2005.