SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC (pronounced snick), began in 1960  as a group of Shaw University students in Raleigh North Carolina, setting out to coordinate sit-ins that had developed in the South.  Sit-ins began as a form of protest on February 1, 1960, when a group of African American students were refused service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and they refused to leave.

Early members of SNCC included congressmen John Lewis, former Washington, D. C. mayor Marion Barry, and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. In 1966, Stokely Carmichael replaced John Lewis as chairman and SNCC grew into a major organization during the Civil Rights Movement.

SNCC joined with the Congress of Racial Equality, CORE, and the NAACP to organize “Freedom Summer”, an effort end the depriving of voting rights to African Americans in the South. The coalition also established 30 Freedom Schools throughout Mississippi. Volunteers taught curriculums that included Black History and the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1967, H. Rap Brown replaced Carmichael and the organization moved into the Black Power Movement. SNCC’s philosophy encouraged a strong identity for African Americans in an independent society.  SNCC ended in 1970.

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