The beginnings of the Free speech movement and the Student Movement itself were a huge controversy at the time. I think that, once the people began to examine the issues that were put forth concerning equality in concern to sex and equality in general, they began to slowly understand the perspective that the African-Americans were coming from.
Im sure there are other things that dealt with racial and gender discrimination but I did not catch them all while reading it the first time. I would have to go back and reread the section to fully understand all of it.
You have made a good beginning here--it's not necessary for you to see all of the elements of discrimination related in the stories of the Freedom Summer volunteers, but that you start to see some of them. One of the reasons why some of the division of labor and responsibilities in the movement according to gender stereotypes sort of hits us in the face is a measure of how far we have come--we don't take it for granted that women with education and ideas should be spending their energy cooking for others, and typing up memos, and serving coffee to the men, just because they are women. And it took recognition by the women themselves for any of them to begin to see that something was wrong and needed to be addressed. This is why scholars like Patricia Hill Collins theorize about interlocking systems of oppression when describing the position of African American women. Within the movement, yes, a committment to ending racial discrimination was the admirable and desired goal. Yet having that as a goal for the movement was no guarantee that everyone in the movement was fully aware of their own biases--racial ones, gender ones, etc. We need to recognize that we are all in a state of constant growth and expanding awareness (or at least, we should be). One thing self-knowledge is not, is static.
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