The Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) (1942–1981) was an organization that sought to promote

social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

, and

electoral reform Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems that alters how public desires, usually expressed by cast votes, produce election results. Description Reforms can include changes to: * Voting systems, such as adoption of proportional represen ...

in the American South, particularly for

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

. The organization began as the Education Fund of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), before becoming an independent successor organization after the SCHW was disbanded in 1948.

History

During 1948, the SCHW split over its support for presidential candidate: some members supported Progressive Party candidate

Henry A. Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd vice president of the United States, serving from 1941 to 1945, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He served as the 11th U.S. secretary of agriculture and the 10th U.S ...

, others the Democratic Party's incumbent US President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

. SCHW officers met in November 1948 and voted to end the floundering organization. On November 20, 1948, SCHW leaders met at

Monticello, Virginia Monticello ( ) was the primary residence and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States. Jefferson began designing Monticello after inheriting la ...

, and passed a resolution to reformulate the organizations's last remaining group, the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), "committed solely to the ending of segregation in the south." The next day, November 21, 1948, SCHW leaders voted to disband. In 1969, while serving as a staff member of SCEF, the civil rights activist and feminist Dorothy Zellner wrote a memo critiquing feminist

consciousness-raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

groups as "therapy" and for being insufficiently "political". In response, fellow SCEF member

Carol Hanisch Carol Hanisch (born 1942) is an American radical feminist activist. She was an important member of New York Radical Women and Redstockings. She is best known for popularizing the phrase " the personal is political" in a 1970 essay of the same ...

addressed an essay to the women's caucus of the SCEF in February 1969. Originally titled "Some Thoughts in Response to Dottie's Thoughts on a Women's Liberation Movement", the article was republished in 1970 in the book ''Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation'' under the title "

The Personal is Political ''The personal is political'', also termed ''The private is political'', is a political argument used as a rallying slogan by student activist movements and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. In the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970 ...

". The essay has since become widely circulated in feminist circles. Due to financial problems, the organization disbanded in 1981.

Works

* ''Southern Patriot'' (SCEF newspaper)

References

History

Works

See also

References