Hayden, Casey, 1937-2023

Sandra Cason Hayden (October 31, 1937 – January 4, 2023) was an American radical student activist and civil rights worker in the 1960s. Recognized for her defense of direct action in the struggle against racial segregation, in 1960 she was an early recruit to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). With Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi, Hayden was a strategist and organizer for the 1964 Freedom Summer. In the internal discussion that followed its uncertain outcome, she clashed with the SNCC national executive. Casey Hayden was born Sandra Cason (a name she continued to use legally) on October 31, 1937, in Austin, Texas,[1] as a fourth-generation Texan.[2] She was raised in Victoria, Texas In 1957 Cason enrolled as junior at The University of Texas. In the summer of 1961 Cason moved to New York City and lived with Tom Hayden. "Godmother of the SNCC" Ella Baker had hired Cason (now Casey Hayden) for a YWCA special project, travelling to southern campuses to conduct integrated race-relations workshops (secretly in the case of some white schools). She also worked in the SNCC office on, among other projects, preparations for the Freedom Riders who were to challenge non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia (1960). In December, as Freedom Riders themselves, the Haydens were arrested in Albany, Georgia. In 1994 she married her partner Paul Buckwalter (1934–2016), with whom, in Tucson Arizona, she had care of seven stepchildren Hayden died in Arizona on January 4, 2023, at the age of 85