Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee collection

Biography/Profile

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed by African-American students in April 1960 on the campus of Shaw University. Led by John Lewis and inspired by the famous lunch-counter sit-in by African-American college students at Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960, SNCC sought to coordinate other sit-ins to protest segregated services throughout the United States. Relatively small in number with only 200 students, the SNCC nonetheless had a deep impact on race relations in the Deep South. The group formed alliances with other civil rights organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to conduct freedom rides in 1961 and was later active in voter registration drives.

The Freedom Summer of 1964 organized by the SNCC drew around 600 students of diverse backgrounds to Mississippi to register minority voters. The SNCC helped to establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as an alternative to the official Democratic Party then dominated by white racists. The group organized local clergy, teachers, and other community leaders as part of their political effort to combat racism in the Deep South. SNCC was at the forefront of many of the more difficult and dangerous Civil Rights efforts, e.g., three civil rights activists: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner were slain in Mississippi in the summer of 1964.

SNCC took a more radical turn in 1965 and 1966. The group began to clash with Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). Some SNCC leaders were dubious of King's nonviolent approach and many believed that King was too quick to take credit for the success of activities conducted by SNCC. Stokely Carmichael, a proponent of "black separatism," took over leadership of the group in May 1966 and ejected white members. The group then stressed "Black Power" and the need for racial dignity, self-reliance, and the use of violence when necessary. Close cooperation with the Black Panthers in the late 1960s drew increasingly negative attention from law enforcement agencies and the SNCC was essentially defunct by 1970. Some of the leaders of SNCC from its early integrationist phase became prominent office holders such as U.S. Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and the former Mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry.