Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced "snick") was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged in April of 1960 from student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. This group turned into a large organization and had many supporters who helped with their one-million dollar annual budget, allowing full time workers to have a salary, and also enlisting unpaid interns.
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.Though the group claimed to have no leaders, its executive secretary, James Forman, was the closest thing. John Lewis, chairman, and Robert Parris Moses (also known as Robert Parris), who had an M.A. from Harvard, were also seen as leaders. In the later part of the 1960s, led by fiery leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, SNCC focused on "black power", and then protesting against the Vietnam War. As early as 1965 Forman said he didn’t know “how much longer we can stay nonviolent” and in 1969, SNCC officially changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee to reflect the broadening of its strategies. It passed out of existence in the 1970s.
