Maria Varela: Difference between revisions

Varela worked as an organizer, educator, writer, and photographer as a [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) staff member from 1963 to 1967, working first in Selma, Alabama, and then across the Black Belt South. Raised Catholic by her Mexican father and Irish mother, Varela first got involved in the Catholic social justice movement by joining the Young Christian Students (YCS) in high school and then again in college. After graduating from [http://www.alverno.edu [Alverno College]], Varela was recruited in 1961 to serve as a college campus organizer for the YCS National Office. She traveled across the country, urging Catholic students to support the Civil Rights Movement and especially the sit-ins.

Through this work, Varela met Casey Hayden, who recruited her in early 1963 to work for SNCC in the Atlanta Office. This changed when [[Bernard Lafayette]] and Frank Smith, who had recently had worked in Selma, asked that Varela be assigned to work, instead, in Selma to support one of Selma's civil rights leaders, Father Maurice Ouellet, the pastor of the Black Catholic Parish. Ouellet was a strong supporter of the Movement and had opened his buildings to classes and meetings. He also made repeated requests for a literacy project to assist with voter registration. Worth Long, SNCC Alabama coordinator Worth Long had also requested literacy programming and welcomed assistance from Varela.