While in D.C., Sheila became involved with SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

She answered phones and did organizing work in SNCC’s Washington office, which introduced her to a number of influential civil rights activists, including Stokely Carmichael, Marion Barry, and Julian Bond.

She had nice things to say about working with Stokely Carmichael at SNCC, although when they met at a conference in Baghdad decades later, she was disappointed by his political thinking about the Middle East.

(Less pleasantly, she also reported an incident in which Marion Barry made unwanted advances towards her, but she was able to fend him off by running to the other side of the office.)