Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee

Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power

1966

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power

Source of text:

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SNCC_black_power.html

The myth that the Negro is somehow incapable of liberating himself, is lazy, etc., came out of

the American experience. In the books that children read, whites are always "good" (good

symbols are white), blacks are "evil" or seen as savages in movies, their language is referred to

as a "dialect," and black people in this country are supposedly descended from savages.

Any white person who comes into the movement has the concepts in his mind about black

people, if only subconsciously. He cannot escape them because the whole society has geared his

subconscious in that direction.

Miss America coming from Mississippi has a chance to represent all of America, but a black

person from either Mississippi or New York will never represent America. Thus the white people

coming into the movement cannot relate to the black experience, cannot relate to the word

"black," cannot relate to the "nitty gritty," cannot relate to the experience that brought such a

word into existence, cannot relate to chitterlings, hog's head cheese, pig feet, ham hocks, and

cannot relate to slavery, because these things are not a part of their experience. They also cannot

relate to the black religious experience, nor to the black church, unless, of course, this church has

taken on white manifestations.

White Power

Negroes in this country have never been allowed to organize themselves because of white

interference. As a result of this, the stereotype has been reinforced that blacks cannot organize

themselves. The white psychology that blacks have to be watched, also reinforces this stereotype.

Blacks, in fact, feel intimidated by the presence of whites, because of their knowledge of the

power that whites have over their lives. One white person can come into a meeting of black

people and change the complexion of that meeting, where a meeting unless he was an obvious

Uncle Tom. People would immediately start talking about "brotherhood," "love," etc.; race

would not be discussed.

If people must express themselves freely, there has to be a climate in which they can do this. If

blacks feel intimidated by whites, then they are not liable to vent the rage that they feel about

whites in the presence of whites--especially not the black people whom we are trying to

organize, i.e., the broad masses of black people. A climate has to be created whereby blacks can

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

express themselves. The reasons that whites must be excluded is not that one is anti-white, but

because the effects that one is trying to achieve cannot succeed because whites have an

intimidating effect. Ofttimes, the intimidating effect is in direct proportion to the amount of

degradation that black people have suffered at the hands of white people.

Roles of Whites and Blacks

It must be offered that white people who desire change in this country should go where that

problem (racism) is most manifest. The problem is not in the black community. The white people

should go into white communities where the whites have created power for the express purpose

of denying blacks human dignity and self-determination. Whites who come into the black

community with ideas of change seem to want to absolve the power structure of its responsibility

for what it is doing, and saying that change can only come through black unity, which is the

worst kind of paternalism. This is not to say that whites have not had an important role in the

movement. In the case of Mississippi, their role was very key in that they helped give blacks the

right to organize, but that role is now over, and it should be.

People now have the right to picket, the right to give out leaflets, the right to vote, the right to

demonstrate, the right to print.

These things which revolve around the right to organize have been accomplished mainly because

of the entrance of white people into Mississippi, in the summer of 1964. Since these goals have

now been accomplished, whites' role in the movement has now ended. What does it mean if

black people, once having the right to organize, are not allowed to organize themselves? It means

that blacks' ideas about inferiority are being reinforced. Shouldn't people be able to organize

themselves? Blacks should be given this right. Further, white participation means in the eyes of

the black community that whites are the "brains" behind the movement, and that blacks cannot

function without whites. This only serves to perpetuate existing attitudes within the existing

society, i.e., blacks are "dumb," "unable to take care of business," etc. Whites are "smart," the

"brains" behind the whole thing.

How do blacks relate to other blacks as such? How do we react to Willie Mays as against Mickey

Mantle? What is our response to Mays hitting a home run against Mantel performing the same

deed? One has to come to the conclusion that it is because of black participation in baseball.

Negroes still identify with the Dodgers because of Jackie Robinson's efforts with the Dodgers.

Negroes would instinctively champion all-black teams if they opposed all white or

predominantly white teams. The same principle operates for the movement as it does for

baseball: a mystique must be created whereby Negroes can identify with the movement.

Thus an all-black project is needed in order for the people to free themselves. This has to exist

from the beginning. This relates to what can be called "coalition politics." There is no doubt in

our minds that some whites are just as disgusted with this system as we are. But it is meaningless

to talk about coalition if there is no one to align ourselves with, because of the lack of

organization in the white communities. There can be no talk of "hooking up" unless black people

organize blacks and white people organize whites. If these conditions are met, then perhaps at

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

some later date--and if we are going in the same direction--talks about exchange of personnel,

coalition, and other meaningful alliances can be discussed.

In the beginning of the movement, we had fallen into a trap whereby we thought that our

problems revolved around the right to eat at certain lunch counters or the right to vote, or to

organize our communities. We have seen, however, that the problem is much deeper. The

problem of this country, as we had seen it, concerned all blacks and all whites and therefore if

decisions were left to the young people, then solutions would be arrived at. But this negates the

history of black people and whites. We have dealt stringently with the problem of "Uncle Tom,"

but we have not yet gotten around to Simon Legree. We must ask ourselves, who is the real

villain--Uncle Tom or Simon Legree? Everybody knows Uncle Tom, but who knows Simon

Legree? So what we have now in SNCC is a closed society, a clique. Black people cannot relate

to SNCC because of its unrealistic, nonracial atmosphere; denying their experience of America

as a racist society. In contrast, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Martin Luther

King, Jr., has a staff that at least maintains a black facade. The front office is virtually all black,

but nobody accuses SCLC of being racist.

If we are to proceed toward true liberation, we must cut ourselves off from white people. We

must form our own institutions, credit unions, co-ops, political parties, write our own histories.

To proceed further, let us make some comparisons between the Black Movement of the early

1900s and the movement of the 1960s--i.e., compare the National Association for the

advancement of Colored People with SNCC. Whites subverted the Niagara movement (the

forerunner of the NAACP) which, at the outset, was an all-black movement. The name of the

new organization was also very revealing, in that it presupposed blacks have to advanced to the

level of whites. We are now aware that the NAACP has grown reactionary, is controlled by the

black power structure itself, and stands as one of the main roadblocks to black freedom. SNCC,

by allowing the whites to remain in the organization, can have its efforts subverted in much the

same manner, i.e., through having them play important roles such as community organizers, etc.

Indigenous leadership cannot be built with whites in the positions they now hold.

These facts do not mean that whites cannot help. They can participate on a voluntary basis. We

can contract work out to them, but in no way can they participate on a policy-making level.

Black Self-Determination

The charge may be made that we are "racists," but whites who are sensitive to our problems will

realize that we must determine our own destiny.

In an attempt to find a solution to our dilemma, we propose that our organization (SNCC) should

be black-staffed, black-controlled, and black-financed. We do not want to fall into a similar

dilemma that other civil rights organizations have fallen into. If we continue to rely upon white

financial support we will find ourselves entwined in the tentacles of the white power complex

that controls this country. It is also important that a black organization (devoid of cultism) be

projected to our people so that it can be demonstrated that such organizations are viable.

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

More and more we see black people in this country being used as a tool of the white liberal

establishment. Liberal whites have not begun to address themselves to the real problem of black

people in this country--witness their bewilderment, fear, and anxiety when nationalism is

mentioned concerning black people. An analysis of the white liberal's reaction to the word

"nationalism" alone reveals a very meaningful attitude of whites of an ideological persuasion

toward blacks in this country. It means previous solutions to black problems in this country have

been made in the interests of those whites dealing with these problems and not in the best

interests of black people in the country. Whites can only subvert our true search and struggles for

self-determination, self-identification, and liberation in this country. Reevaluation of the white

and black roles must now take place so that white no longer designate roles that black people

play but rather black people define white people's roles.

Too long have we allowed white people to interpret the importance and meaning of the cultural

aspects of our society. We have allowed them to tell us what was good about our Afro-American

music, art, and literature. How many black critics do we have on the "jazz" scene? How can a

white person who is not part of the black psyche (except in the oppressor's role) interpret the

meaning of the blues to us who are manifestations of the song themselves?

It must be pointed out that on whatever level of contact blacks and whites come together, that

meeting or confrontation is not on the level of the blacks but always on the level of the whites.

This only means that our everyday contact with whites is a reinforcement of the myth of white

supremacy. Whites are the ones who must try to raise themselves to our humanistic level. We are

not, after all, the ones who are responsible for a genocidal war in Vietnam; we are not the ones

who are responsible for neocolonialism in Africa and Latin America; we are not the ones who

held a people in animalistic bondage over 400 years. We reject the American dream as defined

by white people and must work to construct an American reality defined by Afro-Americans.

White Radicals

One of the criticisms of white militants and radicals is that when we view the masses of white

people we view the overall reality of America, we view the racism, the bigotry, and the distortion

of personality, we view man's inhumanity to man; we view in reality 180 million racists. The

sensitive white intellectual and radical who is fighting to bring about change is conscious of this

fact, but does not have the courage to admit this. When he admits this reality, then he must also

admit his involvement because he is a part of the collective white America. It is only to the

extent that he recognizes this that he will be able to change this reality.

Another common concern is, how does the white radical view the black community, and how

does he view the poor white community, in terms of organizing? So far, we have found that most

white radicals have sought to escape the horrible reality of America by going into the black

community and attempting to organize black people while neglecting the organization of their

own people's racist communities. How can one clean up someone else's yard when one's own

yard is untidy? Again we feel that SNCC and the civil rights movement in general is in many

aspects similar to the anticolonial situations in the African and Asian countries. We have the

whites in the movement corresponding to the white civil servants and missionaries in the colonial

countries who have worked with the colonial people for a long period of time and have

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

developed a paternalistic attitude toward them. The reality of the colonial people taking over

their own lives and controlling their own destiny must be faced. Having to move aside and

letting the natural process of growth and development take place must be faced.

These views should not be equated with outside influence or outside agitation but should be

viewed as the natural process of growth and development within a movement; so that the move

by the black militants and SNCC in this direction should be viewed as a turn toward self-

determination.

It is very ironic and curious that aware whites in the country can champion anticolonialism in

other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but when black people move toward similar

goals of self-determination in this country they are viewed as racists and anti-white by these

same progressive whites. In proceeding further, it can be said that this attitude derives from the

overall point of view of the white psyche as it concerns the black people. This attitude stems

from the era of the slave revolts when every white man was a potential deputy or sheriff or

guardian of the state. Because when black people get together among themselves to workout

their problems, it becomes a threat to white people, because such meetings were potential slave

revolts.

It can be maintained that this attitude or way of thinking has perpetuated itself to this current

period and that it is part of the psyche of white people in this country whatever their political

persuasion might be. It is part of the white fear-guilt complex resulting from the slave revolts.

There have been examples of whites who stated that they can deal with black fellows on an

individual basis but become threatened or menaced by the presence of groups of blacks. It can be

maintained that this attitude is held by the majority of progressive whites in this country.

Black Identity

A thorough re-examination must be made by black people concerning the contributions that we

have made in shaping this country. If this re-examination and re-evaluation is not made, and

black people are not given their proper due and respect, then the antagonisms and contradictions

are going to become more and more glaring, more and more intense, until a national explosion

may result.

When people attempt to move from these conclusions it would be faulty reasoning to say they

are ordered by racism, because, in this country and in the West, racism has functioned as a type

of white nationalism when dealing with black people. We all know the habit that this has created

throughout the world and particularly among nonwhite people in this country.

Therefore any re-evaluation that we must make will, for the most part, deal with identification.

Who are black people, what are black people, what is their relationship to America and the

world?

It must be repeated that the whole myth of "Negro citizenship," perpetuated by the white elite,

has confused the thinking of radical and progressive blacks and whites in this country. The broad

masses of black people react to American society in the same manner as colonial peoples react to

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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper:

The Basis of Black Power (1966)

the West in Africa and Latin America, and had the same relationship--that of the colonized

toward the colonizer.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

African American topics

Category · Portal

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (  /ˈsnɪk/) was one of the organizations of theAmerican Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker heldat Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with manysupporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCCworkers to have a $10 per week salary. Many unpaid volunteers also worked with SNCC on projects in Mississippi,Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Maryland.SNCC played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington,Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the next few years. SNCC'smajor contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially inGeorgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners inphysical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary womenand men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.—Julian Bond[1]

In the later 1960s, led by fiery leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, SNCC focused on "black power", and thenprotesting against the Vietnam War. As early as 1965, James Forman said he didn’t know “how much longer we canstay nonviolent” and in 1969, SNCC officially changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committeeto reflect the broadening of its strategies. It passed out of existence in the 1970s.

Founding and early yearsInspired by the Greensboro sit-ins, independent student-led groups began direct-action protests against segregation indozens of southern communities. The most common action of these groups was organizing sit-ins at raciallysegregated lunch counters to protest the pervasiveness of Jim Crow and other forms of racism. In addition to sittingin at lunch counters, the groups also organized and carried out protests at segregated public libraries, public parks,and public swimming pools. At that time, all those amish facilities financed by taxes were closed to blacks. Thewhite response was often to close the facility, rather than integrate it.The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, as an organization, began with an $800.00 grant from theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) for a conference where attended by 126 student delegates from58 sit-in centers in 12 states, along with delegates from 19 northern colleges, the SCLC, Congress of Racial Equality(CORE), Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), National Student Association (NSA), and Students for a DemocraticSociety (SDS). Out of this conference the SNCC (SNCC) was formed.[2][3]

Ella Baker, who organized the Shaw conference, had been the SCLC director before helping to form SNCC, but SNCC was not a branch of SCLC. Instead of being closely tied to SCLC or the NAACP as a "youth division", SNCC sought to stand on its own. Among important SNCC leaders attending the conference were Stokely Carmichael from Howard University; Charles F. McDew, who led student protests at South Carolina State University; J. Charles Jones, who organized 200 students to participate in sit-ins at department stores throughout Charlotte, North Carolina;

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 2

Julian Bond from Atlanta, Diane Nash; James Lawson; John Lewis; Bernard Lafayette; James Bevel; and MarionBarry from the Nashville Student Movement.SNCC's first chairman was Marion Barry, who later became the mayor of Washington DC. Barry served as chairmanfor one year. The second chairman was Charles F. McDew, who served as the chairman from 1961 to 1963, when hewas succeeded by John Lewis.[4] SNCC's executive secretary, James Forman, played a major role in running theorganization.In the years that followed, SNCC members were referred to as “shock troops of the revolution."[5] SNCC took ongreater risks in 1961, after a mob of Ku Klux Klan members and other whites attacked integrated groups of buspassengers who defied local segregation laws as part of the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of RacialEquality (CORE). Rather than allowing mob violence to stop them, CORE and SNCC "Freedom Riders," includingDiane Nash, James Bevel, Marion Barry, Angeline Butler, and John Lewis, put themselves at great personal risk bytraveling in racially-integrated groups through the deep South. At least 436 people took part in these Freedom Ridesduring the spring and summer of 1961.[6]

Robert Parris Moses (also known as Robert Parris or Bob Moses) played a central role in transforming SNCC from acoordinating committee of student protest groups to an organization of organizers dedicated to buildingcommunity-based political organizations of the rural poor. The voter registration project he initiated in McComb,Mississippi in 1961 became the seed for most of SNCC's activities from 1962-1966.After the Freedom Rides, SNCC worked primarily on voter registration, along with local protests about segregatedpublic facilities. Registering to vote was extremely difficult and dangerous, as blacks who attempted to register oftenlost their jobs and their homes. SNCC workers lived with local families and often the homes providing suchhospitality were firebombed.The actions of SNCC, CORE, and SCLC forced the Kennedy Administration to briefly provide federal protection totemporarily abate mob violence. Local FBI offices were usually staffed by Southern whites (there were no black FBIagents at that time) who refused to intervene to protect civil rights workers or local blacks who were attempting toregister to vote.One of the ways in which SNCC was unusual among civil rights groups was the way in which decisions were made.Instead of "top down" control, as was the case with most organizations at that time, decisions in SNCC were madeby consensus. Group meetings would be convened in which every participant could speak for as long as they wantedand the meeting would continue until everyone was in agreement with the decision. Because activities were oftenvery dangerous and could lead to prison or death, SNCC wanted all participants to support each activity.

By 1965, SNCC fielded the largest staff of any civil rights organization in the South. It had organizednonviolent direct action against segregated facilities, as well as voter-registration projects, in Alabama,Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, Louisiana, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, North and South Carolina,Georgia, and Mississippi; built two independent political parties and organized labor unions and agriculturalcooperatives; and given the movement for women's liberation new energy. It inspired and trained the activistswho began the "New Left." It helped expand the limits of political debate within black America, andbroadened the focus of the civil rights movement. Unlike mainstream civil rights groups, which merely soughtintegration of blacks into the existing order, SNCC sought structural changes in American society itself.—Julian Bond[1]

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 3

March on WashingtonSNCC played a signal role in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. While many speakersapplauded the Kennedy Administration for the efforts it had made toward obtaining new, more effective civil rightslegislation protecting the right to vote and outlawing segregation, John Lewis took the administration to task for howlittle it had done to protect Southern blacks and civil rights workers under attack in the Deep South. Although he wasforced to tone down his speech under pressure from the representatives of other civil rights organizations on themarch organization committee, his words still stung. The version of the speech leaked to the press went as follows:

"We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of ourbrothers are not here — for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvationwages...or no wages at all. In good conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights bill.This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses when engaging inpeaceful demonstrations. This bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia who must live in constantfear in a police state. This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on trumped-upcharges like those in Americus, Georgia, where four young men are in jail, facing a death penalty, forengaging in peaceful protest.I want to know, which side is the federal government on? The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy istrying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy, the black massesare on the march for jobs and for freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won't be a 'cooling-offperiod.'"[7]

However, under pressure from the representatives of other groups many changes were made to the speech as it wasdelivered that day.[8] According to James Forman, the most important of these was the change of "we cannotsupport" the Kennedy Civil Rights Bill to "we support with reservations". Forman wrote of the following explanationof this:

"Somewhere along the line, the church and labor people had been told that this was a march to support theadministration's Civil Rights Bill, which was passed in 1964, after Kennedy's death. Who did this and how ithappened, I do not know. But people all over the country thought they were marching for jobs and freedomwhen in actuality the sellout leadership of the March on Washington was playing patsy with the Kennedyadministration as part of the whole liberal-labor politics of Rustin, Wilkins, Randolph, Reuther, King, theCatholic and Protestant hierarchy. If people had known they had come to Washington to aid the Kennedyadministration, they would not have come in the numbers they did."[9]

Forman's and SNCC's anger came in part from the failure of the federal government, FBI and Justice Department toprotect SNCC civil rights workers in the South at this time. Indeed, the federal government at that time wasinstrumental in indicting SNCC workers and other civil rights activists.[10]

Voting rightsIn 1961 SNCC began expanding its activities from direct-action protests against segregation into other forms oforganizing, most notably voter registration. Under the leadership of Bob Moses, SNCC's first voter-registrationproject was in McComb, Mississippi, an effort suppressed with arrests and savage white violence, resulting in themurder of local activist Herbert Lee. With funding from the Voter Education Project, SNCC expanded its voterregistration efforts into the Mississippi Delta around Greenwood, Southwest Georgia around Albany, and theAlabama Black Belt around Selma. All of these projects endured police harassment and arrests; KKK violenceincluding shootings, bombings, and assassinations; and economic terrorism against those blacks who dared to try toregister.[11]

In the fall of 1963, SNCC conducted the Freedom Ballot, a parallel election in which black Mississippians came out to show their willingness to vote — a right they had been denied for decades, despite the provisions of the Fifteenth

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 4

Amendment to the United States Constitution, due to a combination of state laws and constitutional provisions,economic reprisals and violence by white authorities and private citizens.SNCC followed up on the Freedom Ballot with the Mississippi Summer Project, also known as Freedom Summer,which focused on voter registration and Freedom Schools. The Summer Project brought hundreds of white Northernstudents to the South where they volunteered as teachers and organizers. Their presence brought national pressattention to SNCC's work in the south. SNCC organized black Mississippians to register to vote, almost alwayswithout success. White authorities either rejected their applications on any pretexts available or, failing that, simplyrefused to accept their applications.Mississippi Summer got national attention when three civil rights workers involved in the project, James Chaney,Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were lynched after having been released from police custody. Theirbodies were eventually found after a reluctant J. Edgar Hoover directed the FBI to search for them. In the process theFBI also found corpses of several other missing black Mississippians, whose disappearances had not attracted publicattention outside the Delta.SNCC also established Freedom Schools to teach children to read and to educate them to stand up for their rights. Asin the struggle to desegregate public accommodations led by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama theyear before, the bolder attitudes of the children helped shake their parents out of the fear that had paralyzed many ofthem.The goal of the Mississippi Summer Project was to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), anintegrated party, to win seats at the 1964 Democratic National Convention for a slate of delegates elected bydisfranchised black Mississippians and white sympathizers. The MFDP was, however, tremendously inconvenientfor the Johnson Administration. It had wanted to minimize the inroads that Barry Goldwater’s campaign was makinginto what had previously been the Democratic stronghold of the “Solid South” and the support that George Wallacereceived during the Democratic primaries in the North.When the MFDP started to organize a fight over credentials, Johnson originally would not budge. When Fannie LouHamer, the leader of the MFDP, was in the midst of testifying about the police beatings of her and others forattempting to exercise their right to vote, Johnson preempted television coverage of the credentials fight. Even so,her testimony created enough uproar that Johnson offered the MFDP a "compromise": they would receive twonon-voting seats, while the delegation sent by the official Democratic Party would take its seats.Johnson used all of his resources, mobilizing Walter Reuther, one of his key supporters within the liberal wing of theDemocratic Party, and his Vice-Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey, to pressure King and other mainstream civilrights leaders to bring the MFDP around, while directing Hoover to put the delegation under surveillance. TheMFDP rejected both the compromise and the pressure to accept it, and walked out.That experience destroyed what little faith SNCC activists had in the federal government, even though Johnson hadobtained a broad Civil Rights Act barring discrimination in public accommodations, employment and privateeducation in 1964 and would go on to obtain an equally broad Voting Rights Act in 1965. It also estranged SNCCleaders from many of the mainstream leaders of the civil rights movement.Those differences carried over into the voting rights struggle that centered on Selma, Alabama in 1965. SNCC hadbegun organizing black citizens to register to vote in Selma in 1963,[12] but made little headway against the adamantresistance of Sheriff Jim Clark and the White Citizens' Council. In early 1965, local Selma activists asked theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference for help, and the two organizations formed an uneasy alliance. Theydisagreed over tactical and strategic issues, including the SCLC's decision not to attempt to cross the Edmund PettusBridge a second time after county sheriffs and state troopers attacked them on "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965.The civil rights activists crossed the bridge on the third attempt, with the aid of a federal court order barring authorities from interfering with the march. It was part of a five-day march to Montgomery, Alabama that helped dramatize the need for a Voting Rights Act. During this period, SNCC activists became more and more disenchanted

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with nonviolence, integration as a strategic goal, and cooperation with white liberals or the Federal government.

Change in strategy and dissolutionMany within the organization had grown skeptical about the tactics of nonviolence. After the Democratic conventionof 1964, the group began to split into two factions  – one favoring a continuation of nonviolent, integration-orientedredress of grievances within the existing political system, and the other moving towards Black Power andrevolutionary ideologies. In 1965 the white members were expelled. These differences continued to grow during theSelma Voting Rights campaign.After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, some SNCC members sought to break their ties with the mainstreamcivil rights movement and the liberal organizations that supported it. They argued instead that blacks needed to buildpower of their own rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place. Eventually, the leader of themilitant branch, Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), replaced John Lewis as head of SNCC in May 1966.Carmichael first argued that blacks should be free to use violence in self-defense; later he advocated revolutionaryviolence to overthrow oppression. Carmichael rejected the civil-rights legislation (that the movement had fought sohard to achieve) as mere palliatives. The Department of Defense stated in 1967:

SNCC can no longer be considered a civil rights group. It has become a racist organization with blacksupremacy ideals and an expressed hatred for whites. It employs violent and militant measures whichmay be defined as extreme when compared with those of more moderate groups.[13]

Carmichael raised the banner of Black Power in a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi in June 1966. As themainstream civil-rights movement distanced itself from SNCC, SNCC expelled white staff and volunteers, anddenounced the whites who had supported it in the past. By early 1967, SNCC was approaching bankruptcy and closeto disappearing.Carmichael left SNCC in June 1967 to join the Black Panther Party. H. Rap Brown, later known as Jamil AbdullahAl-Amin, replaced him as the head of SNCC. Brown renamed the group the Student National CoordinatingCommittee and supported violence, which he described "as American as cherry pie". He resigned from SNCC in1968, after being indicted for inciting to riot in Cambridge, Maryland in 1967. Brown then became Minister ofJustice of the Black Panther Party.Brown also proposed violence against violence if the power structure in the US did not change its racist actionsagainst Blacks. The FBI targeted him and incarcerated him without legal representation during 1968-1969. Thegovernment indicted Brown to make an example of him, despite a lack of proper evidence.By then, SNCC was no longer an effective organization. It largely disappeared in the early 1970s, although chaptersin communities such as San Antonio, Texas continued for several more years. Mario Marcel Salas, field secretary ofthe SNCC chapter in San Antonio, operated until 1976. The San Antonio SNCC chapter was part Black PantherParty and part SNCC. Dr. Charles Jones of Atlanta State University termed it a "hybrid organization" because it hadpanther-style survival programs. Salas also worked closely with La Raza Unida Party, running for political officeand organizing demonstrations to expose discrimination against Blacks and Latinos. Salas later helped the NewJewel Movement in the liberation of the island of Grenada from the dictator Eric Gairy in 1979, and became thechairman of the Free Nelson Mandela Movement in San Antonio Texas.

SNCC and feminismSNCC activist Bernice Johnson Reagon described the Civil Rights Movement as the "borning movement" of the 1960s.[14] The Women's' Liberation Movement was one of the many movements born out of and inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. SNCC consisted of mostly college-age activists, and therefore provided opportunities for young women. Participation in organizations such as SNCC essentially marked the beginning of second-wave feminism in the US, which focused on changing social inequalities as opposed to the previous focus on legal issues

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 6

in first-wave feminism. The influence of the Civil Rights movement also introduced mass protests and awarenesscampaigns as the main methods to obtain sexual equality.Many black women held prominent positions in the movement as a result of their participation in SNCC. Some ofthese women include Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, Donna Richards, Fay Bellamy, Gwen Patton, CynthiaWashington, Jean Wiley, Muriel Tillinghast, Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Pearl Avery, Diane Nash, Ella Baker,Victoria Gray, Unita Blackwell, Bettie Mae Fikes, Joyce Ladner, Dorie Ladner, Gloria Richardson, Bernice Reagon,Prathia Hall, Gwendolyn Delores Robinson/Zoharah Simmons [15], Judy Richardson, Martha Prescod NormanNoonan, Ruby Sales, Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Anne Moody.Anne Moody published her autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, in 1970, detailing her decision toparticipate in SNCC and later CORE, and her experience as a woman in the movement. She described thewidespread trend of black women to become involved with SNCC at their educational institutions. As young collegestudents or teachers, these black women were often heavily involved in grassroots campaign by teaching FreedomSchools and promoting voter registration.[16]

Young white women also became very involved with SNCC, particularly after the Freedom Summer of 1964. Manynorthern white women were inspired by the ideology of racial equality. The book Deep in Our Hearts details theexperiences of nine white women in SNCC. Some white women, such as Mary King, Constance W. Curry, andCasey Hayden, and Latino women such as Mary Varela and Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez, were able to obtainstatus and leadership within SNCC.[17][18]

Through organizations like SNCC, women of both races were becoming more politically active than at any time inAmerican history since the Women's suffrage movement. A group of women in SNCC who were later identified asMary King and Casey Hayden openly challenged the way women were treated when they issued the “SNCC PositionPaper (Women in the Movement).”[19] The paper was published anonymously, helping King and Hayden to avoidunwanted attention.[17] The paper listed 11 events in which women were treated as subordinate to men. According tothe paper, women in SNCC did not have a chance to become the face of the organization, the top leaders, becausethey were assigned to clerical and housekeeping duties, whereas men were involved in decision-making. The degreeand significance of male-domination and women's subordination was hotly debated within SNCC; many of SNCC'sblack women disputed the premise that women were denied leadership roles.[20]

When Stokely Carmichael took over the leadership of SNCC from John Lewis, he essentially reoriented the path ofSNCC towards Black Power. He famously said in a speech, “it is a call for black people to define their own goals, tolead their own organizations.”[21] Thus, white women lost their influence and power in SNCC; Mary King and CaseyHayden left SNCC to become active in pursuing equality for women. They co-authored Sex and Caste: A Kind ofMemo, which later became an influential piece in feminism.[22] As SNCC turned its focus to Black Power, blackwomen also lost their voice and became subject to the already-existing patriarchal structure of the organization. Thelimited opportunities for women from the original community-building ideology were erased by the usurping BlackPower movement, in which power was more centralized in the hands of the male-dominated top leadership.Former SNCC member Kathleen Cleaver played a key role in the central committee of the Black Panther Party ascommunications secretary (1968). Her position in this "male dominated" leadership was both effective andinfluential to Brown, Red and Yellow Power groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s.In 2010 the Atlanta City Council renamed Raymond Street "SNCC Way".[23]

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 7

Fiftieth Anniversary ConferenceA conference marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of SNCC was held at Shaw University on 15–18 April2010.[24]

References[1] Bond, Julian (October 2000). "SNCC: What We Did" (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_m1132/ is_5_52/ ai_66937932/

print?tag=artBody;col1). Monthly Review: p. "legacy".[2][2] Clayborne Carson, In Struggle, SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s: Harvard University Press, 1981[3] Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founded (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ tim/ timhis60. htm#1960sncc) ~ Civil Rights Movement

Veterans[4] Lewis, John (1998). Walking With the Wind. Simon & Schuster.[5][5] Bruce J. Dierenfield, The Civil Rights Movement, Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2004.[6] Freedom Rides (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ tim/ timhis61. htm#1961frides) ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans[7] March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ tim/ tim63b. htm#1963mow) ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans.

[N.B. this text must be from a different source; at least three versions of the speech were written, and this is the earliest of those three, before"we cannot support" was changed to "we cannot wholeheartedly support" and then later "we support with reservations". See James Forman,The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1971; 1997), pp.334-337.]

[8][8] The version of the speech that was delivered by Lewis to the march can be found in Forman's autobiographical history of SNCC, The Makingof Black Revolutionaries (1971), pp.336-337.

[9][9] James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1971; 1997), p.335[10][10] James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (1971; 1997), p.341[11] History & Timeline (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ tim/ timhome. htm) ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans[12] Selma – Cracking the Wall of Fear (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ tim/ timhis63. htm1963selma1) ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans[13] Stokely Carmichael and SNCC - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (http:/ / www. aavw. org/ protest/

carmichael_sncc_abstract06_full. html)[14] Payne, Charles (1995). I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. University of

California Press.[15] http:/ / www. pbs. org/ thisfarbyfaith/ witnesses/ zohara_simmons. html[16][16] Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody[17][17] Personal Politics, Sara Evans[18] Curry et al., Constance (2002). Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement. University of Georgia Press.[19] SNCC position paper: Women in the Movement, Anonymous (http:/ / www2. iath. virginia. edu/ sixties/ HTML_docs/ Resources/ Primary/

Manifestos/ SNCC_women. html)[20] Women & Men in the Freedom Movement (http:/ / www. crmvet. org/ disc/ women1. htm) ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans[21][21] Stokely Carmichael, 1967[22] Mary King, Casey Hayden, Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo (http:/ / www. feministezine. com/ feminist/ modern/ Sex-and-Caste. html)[23] http:/ / citycouncil. atlantaga. gov/ 2010/ images/ proposed/ 10O0135. pdf[24] SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference - Program (http:/ / www. sncc50thanniversary. org/ program. html)

External links• SNCC 1960 - 1966: Six years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (http:/ / www. ibiblio. org/

sncc/ index. html). Retrieved 2 May 2005.• Civil Rights Movement Veterans (http:/ / www. crmvet. org)• Stokely Carmichael - Leader of SNCC's militant branch (http:/ / stokely-carmichael. com)

Further readingArchives

• Ellin (Joseph and Nancy) Freedom Summer Collection (http:/ / www. lib. usm. edu/ ~archives/ m323. htm).Collection Number: M323. Dates: 1963 - 1988. Volume: 1.7 ft³ (48 L) The University of Southern MississippiLibraries Special Collections (http:/ / www. lib. usm. edu/ ~spcol/ index. php). Retrieved 2 May 2005.

Books

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 8

• Carmichael, Stokely, et al. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture).Scribner. 2005. 848 pages. ISBN 0-684-85004-4

• Carson, Claybourne. In Struggle, SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge Massachusetts:Harvard University Press. 1981. ISBN 0-674-44727-1

• Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries, 1985 and 1997, Open Hand Publishing, Washington D.C.ISBN 0-295-97659-4 and ISBN 0-940880-10-5

• Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn, ed. A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. Rutgers University Press. 1998. 274 pages.ISBN 0-8135-2477-6

• Halberstam, David. The Children, Ballantine Books. 1999. ISBN 0-449-00439-2•• Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, Univ of Georgia Press, 2002. ISBN

0-8203-2419-1• Holsaert, Faith (and 5 others) Hands on the Freedom Plow Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (http:/ / www.

press. uillinois. edu/ books/ catalog/ 54yed3wd9780252035579. html). University of Illinois Press, 2010. ISBN978-0-252-03557-9.

• Hogan, Wesley C. How democracy travels: SNCC, Swarthmore students, and the growth of the student movementin the North, 1961-1964.

• Hogan, Wesley C. Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America, University of North CarolinaPress. 2007.

• Holsaert et al. Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. University of Illinois Press.2010.

•• King, Mary. "Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement". 1987.• Lewis, John. Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1998.• Pardun, Robert. Prairie Radical: A Journey Through the Sixties. California: Shire Press. 2001. 376 pages. ISBN

0-918828-20-1• Salas, Mario Marcel. Masters Thesis: "Patterns of Persistence: Paternal Colonialist Structures and the Radical

Opposition in the African American Community in San Antonio, Texas,1937–2001, by Mario Marcel Salas,University of Texas at San Antonio, John Peace Library 6900 Loop 1604, San Antonio, Texas, 2002. OtherSNCC material located in historical records at the Institute of Texan Cultures, University of Texas at San Antonioas part of the Mario Marcel Salas historical record.

• Sellers, Cleveland and Robert Terrell. The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and theLife and Death of SNCC. University Press of Mississippi; Reprint edition. 1990. 289 pages. ISBN 0-87805-474-X

• Zinn, Howard. SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Boston: Beacon Press. 1964. ISBN 0-89608-679-8Video

• SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference (http:/ / newsreel. org/ video/ SNCC-50TH-ANNIVERSARY) 38 DVDcollection documenting the formal addresses, panel discussions and programs that took place at the 50thanniversary conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Interviews

• Transcript: An Oral History with Terri Shaw (http:/ / www. lib. usm. edu/ ~spcol/ crda/ oh/ shaw. htm). SNCCmember and Freedom Summer participant. The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries Special Collections(http:/ / www. lib. usm. edu/ ~spcol/ index. php). Retrieved 2 May 2005.

• Interviews with civil rights workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). StanfordUniversity Project South oral history collection. Microfilming Corp. of America. 1975. ISBN 0-88455-990-4.

SNCC publications and documents

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founding Statement (http:/ / lists. village. virginia. edu/ sixties/HTML_docs/ Resources/ Primary/ Manifestos/ SNCC_founding. html).

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 9

• Memorandum: on the SNCC Mississippi Summer Project Transcript (http:/ / anna. lib. usm. edu/ ~spcol/ crda/ellin/ ellin062. html). Oxford, Ohio: General Materials (ca. June 1964). Retrieved 2 May 2005.

Article Sources and Contributors 10

Article Sources and ContributorsStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=487082604  Contributors: AEMoreira042281, Accurizer, Afrolezfemcentric, Apeloverage,Arjun01, Barrie415, Bart133, Bdorman, Becritical, Bigtimepeace, Bobblewik, Brucehartford, Bry9000, CardinalDan, Cgingold, China321, Chris01720, Christopher Parham, Chubbles,ChudeAllen, Closedmouth, Computerjoe, D99figge, DBigXray, DJ Silverfish, DanKeshet, Darklilac, Ddd42, Deflective, Discospinster, DocteurCosmos, Dwalls, Edgar181, ElationAviation, Eru,Euchiasmus, Evrik, Flyguy649, Fratrep, Freechild, Fylbecatulous, Gaius Cornelius, Gatta, Giemmevi, Goramon, Havivi, Highground79, Hmains, HowardMorland, Howcheng, Hu12, Hyacinth,Hydrogen Iodide, II MusLiM HyBRiD II, Iridescent, Italo Svevo, J.delanoy, JK the unwise, JNW, Jacksinterweb, Jandalhandler, Jengod, Jeremyb, JerseyJoe2, Jgrant9nc, Jkshrews, Jonathan71,Jrtayloriv, Jswba, Jwy, KMeyer, Kaihsu, Keizers, Klilidiplomus, Kumioko, Lankyspotamus, Lawcenter, LegCircus, Lmvt, LordNader, Martindo, Mboverload, Mdmcginn, MelbourneStar,Michael Snow, MishaPan, Montanean, MovementLessRestricted, N. Wang, Nakon, Namiba, Ndteegarden, Netesq, Nimur, Noah Salzman, Noleander, North Shoreman, Parkwells, Petrb,Pgan002, Pigman, Piquant, Pohick2, Postdlf, Preschooler.at.heart, Prof75, Quadell, RFD, Radicalsubversiv, Randy Kryn, RapidSkis, Retired username, Rich Farmbrough, Richard Arthur Norton(1958- ), Rjwilmsi, Rrburke, Sam Hocevar, Sardanaphalus, Savidan, Seanahan, Shanes, Sharamt, Shimgray, SimonP, Skywriter, Sluzzelin, SonicAD, Srikeit, StephNJ, Stevietheman, Supadawg,TFCforever, TGGP, Taw, The Rambling Man, The Thing That Should Not Be, The wub, Tombomp, Toshiba99, Tothebarricades.tk, Trgiii, Ublawstudent, Ulric1313, VMS Mosaic,VirginiaEditor, Wapcaplet, Whitejay251, Wikignome0530, Will Beback, Wmahan, Yboord028, Yonghokim, Youryellowbird, Youzwan, 274 anonymous edits

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