From Sit-Ins to SNCC: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

Preface

Preface The student sit-ins to challenge segregated lunch counters in the early 1960s were, in civil rights activist Ella Baker’s famous phrase, “bigger than a hamburger.” The wave of protests that rapidly developed in the wake of the first demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, and the consequent formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April to provide organizational support for peaceful direct action had fundamental significance for the achievement of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. SNCC, or “Snick,” as it was known, would be at the forefront of the black freedom struggle until internal dissension and ruthless repression brought about its collapse in the early 1970s. The student-centered movement for African American civil rights that began in 1960 may not have swept aside all vestiges of racial inequality but it had a major role in destroying the public segregation and black disenfranchisement that were the hallmarks of the South’s Jim Crow system. Accordingly, there were celebratory events to mark the transformative significance of this new activism in the fiftieth anniversary year since its emergence. These included the opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum on the former site of the Woolworth store in Greensboro, where the first sit-in took place, and a conference attended by many SNCC veterans at Shaw University, where the organization was first launched. On the other side of the Atlantic there was also recognition of the profound importance of the new protest movement that emerged in 1960. A conference, co-organized by the British Library’s Eccles Centre for American Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas (part of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study), marked the half-century anniversary not only of the sit-ins but also the formation and subsequent development of SNCC. This collection of essays written by conference participants is the outcome of that event. Our book has no claim to be a comprehensive history of the studentcentered civil rights movement that was born in Greensboro and underwent significant evolution in line with SNCC’s changes in outlook over the decade that followed. Instead, it examines selected aspects of this movement to cast light on its complex substance, development, and viii · Preface significance. Insofar as possible, as the title of this book indicates, the contributors keep their lens focused on the student movement in pursuit of African American civil rights. As SNCC developed, of course, the full-time staff that it employed at its headquarters and on its field projects ceased to be students. This was particularly the case after voter registration superseded anti-segregation direct action as the organization’s primary focus from the latter part of 1962 onward. Nevertheless, we feel justified in our effort to assess SNCC in its later phases of development as part of the student civil rights movement from which it had emerged. However much the organization underwent change in the 1960s, it retained two fundamental characteristics associated with its early history. First, in contrast to longer-established civil rights bodies, it was an organization primarily built upon on the support of young activists. Second, it continued to embody the belief of the mass sit-in protesters that ordinary people without significant resources and specialized skills could be decisive in effecting social and political change. This collection is not a history of leaders but of innovative grassroots protest and new organizational development in support of the African American freedom struggle in the world’s most powerful democracy. The key themes emphasize the nature and dynamics of student civil rights activism, the impact of direct action on the white South, the internal culture of SNCC, and the ideological evolution of this organization from the biracial optimism of 1960 to a pessimistic view of America and what it represented. The international influence of a movement that captured the imagination of the world in the 1960s also comes under review, in relationship both to SNCC’s changing attitudes on the Cold War and the development of racial equality protest in other countries, most notably the United Kingdom. Finally, the epilogue considers to what extent the goals of the civil rights movement remain unfulfilled at a time when there is an African American in the White House and what are the prospects of further advancement toward racial equality in early-twentyfirst -century America. To help place in context the evolution of the movement spawned by the sit-in demonstrations...