Impact on Alums

Many alumni left Swarthmore to pursue successful careers inspired by their student activism and political engagement on campus. After leaving SNCC, Judy Richardson '66 went on to produce award-winning documentaries including the renowned PBS series, Eyes on the Prize. Richardson also helped established Drum & Spear Bookstore in Washington, D.C., the largest African American bookstore in the country. Richardson teamed up with fellow SNCC members to publish a collection of testimonies from women involved in the Modern Civil Rights Movement called Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.

Carl Wittman '64, a member of SPAC, joined the national council of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Wittman later left SDS and became an important figure in the gay rights movement. He published an important and widely read document called “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto” in 1970. Mimi Feingold '63 became involved in advocacy for women’s rights before taking a teaching position at a high school in San Francisco with a predominantly Russian-Jewish immigrant student body. These three alumni careers represent a small sample of the many paths Swarthmore’s student activists took after leaving campus. Many alumni pursued careers outside of the arena of social justice and activism work, allowing their experience with student activism to shape their adult lives more indirectly.