SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

1. SNCCStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Seferino Avila Palwinder Sodhi Calvin Gang Marc Jonathan Saint-Cyr Rm:201-8th

2. Table of Contents • Events Leading to the SNCC3 • The Restaurant Event4 • Founding of the SNCC5 • Ella Baker6 • Stokely Carmichael7 • Other People Involved8 • SNCC Embraces “Black Power”9 • March On Washington10 • Other Issues11 • Nonviolent Actions and the Fall of the SNCC12 • Timeline13 • Significance 14 • Bibliography15

3. Events Leading to the SNCC • On the date of February 1, 1960, a body of African-American college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch table in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been opposed service. • Because of the incident that occurred at the restaurant, more and more sit-ins began to happen in college towns all over the South of the United States. • Two months later, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had been found. • The SNCC wanted the white and black man to get along and this image represented that belief.

4. The Restaurant Event • On February 1, 1960, at 4:30 pm, Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond, four black freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (A & T) College decided to find a meal at Woolworth's lunch counter. They ended up making a bold statement about Civil Rights when they refused to leave the restaurant because the waitress wouldn’t serve them since they were African American. They left only when the restaurant closed at 5:30 p.m. • The next day they came back with twenty more supporters and every day they would come with more supporters until the whole building was filled. The four students that were denied service at Woolworth’s.

5. Founding of the SNCC • The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee developed from a chain of student meetings administered by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April of 1960. • As the SNCC grew into a larger organization, many followers helped raise funds to assist SNCC’s doings in the South. Full time workers received an average salary of $10 a week although there were also many unpaid volunteers. • The SNCC, as an alignment, started with an $800 allocation from the SLCL (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) so that student activists could share experiences and coordinate activities. • The committee was attended by 126 student delegates from 58 sit-in centers in 12 states, along with delegates from 19 northern colleges, SCLC, CORE, FOR, NSA, SDS. Out of this conference the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed. • The students were held at Leonard Hall at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

6. Ella Baker • As a student at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ella Baker challenged policies that she thought were unfair. • After graduating in 1927 as a valedictorian in her class, Baker began joining many social activist organizations. • Ella joined the NAACP in 1940 as a field secretary. • In 1957, Ella Baker moved to Atlanta to organize MLK’s new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She stayed with the organization for two years even though she disagreed with the policy of "strong people don't need strong leaders.” • After leaving the SCLC, she started organizing student meetings at Shaw University and from those meetings, the SNCC was born. Ella Baker was an important figure in the SNCC and Civil Rights Movement overall.

7. Stokely Carmichael • Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Toure, was a leader of the SNCC and later as the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party. • Carmichael first argued that blacks should be free to use violence in self-defense, then later he advocated revolutionary violence to overthrow oppression. • Stokely also worked on the Freedom Summer project and became chairman of the SNCC in 1966. • In Jackson, Mississippi, Carmichael was arrested and jailed for 49 days in Parchman Penitentiary . • Stokely was shot by a sniper on 5th June, 1966 after protesting against racism. Stokely Carmichael speaking to an audience .

8. Other People Involved • John Lewis was an influential SNCC leader and was one of the important leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. He joined the SNCC during the freedom rides. He was also arrested 24 times because of his activism. • Fannie Lou Harmer was an inspirational figure to many involved in the struggle for civil rights. Harmer went to a courthouse to vote, but as a result she was beaten and thrown to jail. • Bob Moses moved to Atlanta and began working with SNCC. Moses made a trip to Mississippi to gather people to come to Atlanta in October for a SNCC conference. He also spent 4 years working on voter registration. • Julian Bond was the first black president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Bob Moses Julian Bond John Lewis Fannie Lou Hamer

9. SNCC Embraces “Black Power” • The SNCC believed in the philosophy of “Black Power”. • The philosophy of “Black Power” was to create a strong racial identity for African-Americans. • They wanted African-Americans to have their own history and culture. People were encouraged to write about their feelings of beauty. They wanted the Caucasian prejudice to stop, and they felt that African-Americans should know their true value rather than trust the insults of some racist white people. • Black Power was controversial because it was seen as an anti-white group and black supremacist organization. However, the organization acknowledged the white people that helped African-Americans for all the equal rights they have received. The symbol of a fist represented “Black Power”.

10. March on Washington • During the March on Washington, many speeches were delivered by leaders of civil rights organizations. Apart from Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech, John Lewis’ speech was remembered for going a different direction than MLK’s. • Even though both leaders believed in a desegregated society with equal rights for all, Lewis felt the federal government wasn't doing enough. • While members of the Kennedy Administration celebrated, members of the SNCC felt the federal government wasn’t doing anything to help the South, which is where racism lived. • In his speech, John Lewis talked about why the African-American community should not be proud since many of their “brothers” were not their since they didn’t have money for transportation, had no wages, and why they could not support the Administration’s Civil Rights bill. John Lewis delivering his speech at the March on Washington.

11. Other Issues • The SNCC did not support the Vietnam War in the beginning of 1966 because of the pressure of the northern supporters. SNCC compared African-Americans to the Vietnamese as they were both poor and non-white, and SNCC felt the United States had demonstrated a distinct lack of respect for the lives of both groups. • The SNCC began to make a bond between white liberals and the organization . They believed that when the white liberals saw what happens in the South, immediate action would be taken. When whites began to protest, they would not get the same treatment as would blacks. But, the presence of whites who appeared supportive complicated the issue and made SNCC's movement harder to sell to the black public. • Many people felt that the SNCC helped push the feminist movement as it established many principles that would be used by feminists. Many of the leaders of the local SNCC projects were women, and in the 1965 election, all of the black Freedom Democratic Party Congressional candidates from Mississippi were women. A woman activist A soldier in the Vietnam War A white liberal

12. Non-Violent Actions and Fall of the SNCC • The SNCC was largely influenced by Martin Luther King Jr. • They followed his belief of nonviolence, and never took part in any kind of harm towards those who abuse them. • To rally support from whites and blacks outside the movement, the sit-ins made an impression of moral superiority. They did this by fighting the white man not with violence, but with pacifism. • As more and more members were beaten, more of those people were unofficially permitted to carry guns for self defense. However, the principle was still maintained to publicly, as it remained an effective means of protest. • Non-violence became less powerful as white people knew about the tactic. Instead of being beaten publicly, the protestors were beaten away from cameras and reporters. • This event, and the rise of Black Power, led to the fall of nonviolence in SNCC.

13. Time Line http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/timeline.html

14. Significance • The SNCC helped the Civil Rights movement in many ways as it did for other issues and people. Ella Baker and Stokely Carmichael a.k.a Kwame Toure helped the organization get on its feet. • Their philosophy of “Black Power” was their identity as they wanted every African-American to believe in themselves and all their brothers and sisters. They wouldn’t care what the white man would say about them. • The SNCC also launched the feminist movement. Many of their leaders were women. This caused a chain reaction and more and more organizations began to follow them as well as new organizations to form. • Even though it was controversial, John Lewis’s speech made a point that people weren’t making enough progress to fix racial prejudice in the South and all over the country. A button from the March on Washington.

15. Bibliography • Griffin, Scott. “Six Years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee”. <http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/> This website offered a lot of info on the SNCC, events, people, and specific dates. It was the most useful source used for this PowerPoint and I would recommend it. • McElrath, Jessica. “Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)”. <http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/sncc/a/sncc.htm> This website didn’t offer as much info as the others though it did give us great facts on a couple of important events. • Morton, Eric. “THE STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF A GRASS-ROOTS ORGANIZATION”. <http://www.africaresource.com/ijele/vol2.1/morton.html> This website we used only for the restaurant event as it gave names, dates and times which was useful for that slide. • Griffin, Scott. “SNCC: Timeline”. < http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/timeline.html> This website offered us the timeline used in our PowerPoint project and we give them a special thanks. • Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: Sncc and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. USA: Harvard University, 1981, 1995. This book was really helpful to the group to finish the PowerPoint. It gave us that last bit of information. I would recommend this book.