In the Press
This section contains interviews with Mary and articles about her life’s work in the field of nonviolence.
- The Washington Post article “The transformative 1960s still have a grip on America” (July 1, 2022) by Michael Bobelian cites “the ‘Sex and Caste’ memo drafted by Mary King and Casey Hayden,” which is a reference to their 1965 document reticently titled “A Kind of Memo.” This document originated from their political organizing with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the civil rights movement, and is among the earliest bids for contemporary U.S. feminism. They first shared it with their sisters in SNCC, then mailed it to 40 women who were working on questions of justice across the nation. Liberation Magazine in April 1966 published it as “Sex and Caste,” broadening its impact. The resulting 1970s consciousness-raising groups became an initial base for the women’s liberation movement. Thus the experiences of women, Black and White, honed in the Southern freedom struggle, spurred them to make claims for equity and rights for women. The document is judged one of the founding documents of feminism and gender studies — foremost major developments of the modern era.
- Ramachandra Guha praises Mary King’s “Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in South India: The 1924-25 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change” as “excellent” in his essay, “Remembering Vaikom satyagraha in the light of Sabarimala [Hindu temple]”. (January 6, 2019)
- “Scholar and Practitioner of Nonviolence: The Life and Work of Mary Elizabeth King,” by Dagmar Wernitznig, Online Journal of Studies on Women’s Memory (2017)
- “Freedom Summer and the unfinished work of the civil rights movement,” by Alice Driver, al Jazeera (Jun. 25, 2014)
- “US Civil Rights-Era Leader Mary King Says Successful Social Movements Expand Space for Other Struggles,” by Alice Driver, Narco News (May 15, 2013)
- “The Quiet American,” by Janine di Giovanni, The New York Times (Sep. 3, 2012)
- “Nasheed’s ouster Maldives’ historical equivalent of Tiananmen Square,” by Daniel Bosley, Minivan News (Jun. 27, 2012)
- Mary King Receives 2009 El-Hibri Peace Education Prize (Oct. 3, 2009)
- “Obama can bring about sweeping change,” by Madhur Tankha, The Hindu (Mar. 15, 2009)
- An Interview with Mary King, Mansfield: The Mansfield College Magazine (Winter 2009)
- “Masters of Peace,” by Dana Micucci, The International Herald Tribune (Oct. 14, 2008)
- An Interview with Mary King (.pdf), RAI News, Newsletter of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford (Hilary Term, 2004)
- “Re-election of Bush Should not be Over-Dramatised,” The Hindu (Nov. 27, 2004)
- “Mary’s Mahatma” (An Interview with Mary King), by Seema Kamdar, Times of India (Nov. 17, 2003)
- “The Power of Nonviolence,” by K Kannan, The Hindu (Jan. 16, 2001)
- “Relevance of Nonviolence,” The Hindu (Jan. 13, 2001)
- President Carter Swears in Mary King, White House Rose Garden (Mar. 11, 1977)
- “Mary King: A Key Carter ‘Brain Truster’ From the Beginning”, by Kandy Stroud Special to The New York Times (Jul. 8, 1976)