Heather Booth had gone to Mississippi in 1964 to register voters in the face of KKK terrorism. After helping found the CWLU she helped organize the Action Committee for Decent Childcare (ACDC) to challenge the powerful Richard J. Daley political machine's indifference to childcare.
Vivian Rothstein had traveled to North Viet Nam in 1967 at the height of the war to see the extent of the destruction for herself. Her experiences with the women's organizations in Viet Nam inspired her to emulate their example here in the US. Long before there was anything like Women's Studies, Vivian Rothstein conceived of a Liberation School where women could learn how to free themselves from their oppression.
Naomi Weisstein, a brilliant research scientist, had written "
sychology Constructs the Female" which demolished generations of male supremacist pseudo-science. She then helped organize the Chicago Women's Liberation Rock Band to shake up the sexist world of pop music.Ruth Surgal came out of the anti-war movement and joined Jody Parsons to help build an underground abortion service that performed over 11,000 safe, inexpensive and illegal abortions.
Marie "Micki" Leaner, from a Southside steelworker family, joined Prison Project, which organized for improvements in women's prisons while working directly with inmates at Dwight Prison in Illinois.
Estelle Carol, a young University of Chicago art student, decided that art had been done all wrong by men and helped found the Chicago Women's Graphics Collective to decorate the walls of America with colorful messages of women's revolution.
Suzanne Davenport and Jenny Rohrer did not let their media inexperience stand in the way of creating the Chicago Maternity Center, a powerful documentary film exposing the deep and pervasive sexism within the medical establishment.
These individuals were among the hundreds of women who participated in the CWLU. The CWLU was very open to new ideas and if a woman or group of women had a cool idea that would help the struggle, a workgroup would form and they could try it out.
In much of the women's movement of the time, the emphasis was on personal transformation through conscious raising groups. Small circles of women would meet to help each other overcome the psychological and social effects of sexism. The CWLU did not ignore personal transformation, but was more focused on organizing women for revolutionary change.
This may be seen in the many workgroups, chapters and projects that made up the actual day to day work of the organization. A few examples:
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