THE SNCC CHALLENGE TO YOUNG AMERICA TODAY

by Timothy L. Jenkins (A SNCC Founder)The ancient peoples of West Africa have a wise saying: “The onlyway to know where to go is by first learning where you have been.” Thismeans that by studying your history you will be better empowered to dealwith your future. That is the reason for us to look back at the origins andaccomplishments of the powerful course of social and political change thatswept the nineteen-sixties into the record books of human rights, as we prepare for another era of surging youthful leadership.The special reason we must be at great pains to tell our own story NOW is to embolden a like audacity in the generations to come to changethe world, rather than accept victimhood. Hopefully through our story theywill be assured that with no resources other than the courage of ideals,endurance and mutual trust, they can meet the giant enemies of their day andslay them, however fearsome they may appear beforehand. More thananything else it is important today to reemphasize self-empowerment rather than waiting to be empowered by those already in power. By making a permanent record of our narratives, our humor, our affections and our songs,we want to explain what it meant to be part of a happy mass movementagainst widespread and seemingly permanent injustice. This was so becausewe suffered from no competing fears or incentives to do other than give power to the people, even in the face of death itself. Where in the history of American reform movements is there a superior roll model of institutionalintegrity to motivate today’s "Bling and ME-generations" to walk moreheavily upon the earth, preparing the ground for those yet to come?In contrast to those calling these times “post-racial,” it is our declaration that major elements of the civil rights agenda of the sixties arestill blatantly unfulfilled. For us the newfound privilege and affluence of thefew must not be allowed to outweigh the plight of the majority of the poor and black left still left behind. The Human Rights Revolution must beongoing!Therefore, it is important to note this special year of 2010, as the 50thanniversary of the exciting events, which launched the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee as a revolutionary youth force to end racialdiscrimination without resort to combat or physical harm. In spokenlanguage, it was commonly referred to as “snick” from its initials, “SNCC.”

It was organized to provide peer coordination and leadership of thespontaneous demonstrations sparked on February 1st, 1960 by four black students from A&T College in Greensboro, North Carolina. With greatdignity, they had quietly sat and nonviolently refused to move until served ata downtown lunch counter in defiance of local laws forbidding blacks to beserved food alongside whites. These and other “segregation” laws,sometimes referred to as “Jim Crow” laws, were intended to make blacksfeel perpetually inferior to whites and had been in force in one form or another for more than a hundred years, both before and after the time of slavery.This was in spite of unenforced national legislation intended to endslavery after the Civil War in 1865 and claiming to grant equal black votingrights and the guarantee of equal protection for blacks under the law by wayof the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.To the surprise of all, as soon as other students learned of this bravedemonstration in Greensboro, from nonstop newspaper and televisionreports, they too spontaneously began to “sit-in” at local lunch counters.And soon there were hundreds of nonviolent sit-in protests occurring dailyall across the South. These continued to grow like wildfire in spite of localwhite violence against them by police and mobs for the student refusing tomove until served. The student commitment to avoiding violence came tosome as a religious conviction and to others as the best tactic for avoidingdisastrous confrontations.Then the leaders of these many student demonstrators decided tocome together for the first time in April of 1960 at Shaw University inRaleigh, North Carolina. Their purpose was to coordinate their efforts andestablish a strong regional movement under independent student controlthroughout the South. Their enthusiasm soon went further than the sit-inintegration of lunch counters to include “read-ins” at public libraries, “wade-ins” at public beaches and swimming pools, and “kneel-ins” at churches.The thought of establishing SNCC as a formal organization alongside other long-standing civil rights groups was secondary to urgently providing on-going mutual support among students committed to winning equal rights for blacks throughout the South.The only reward sought was the altered condition of the people. Their awakened sense of self-empowerment was the sole dedication. The

collective creed was the ultimate liberation of the masses from deprivationand manipulation. The idealistic vision was of the last burden being liftedfrom the shoulders of the world’s last oppressed woman and man.Soon there was a core group of students who decided to drop out of school for a defined period of time to give their fulltime efforts to civilrights. A committee structure was agreed upon. It had an elected chairmanand a decision-making executive body representing the various southernstates with active demonstrations. With SNCC volunteers performing as“the Freedom Singers,” funds were raised to support the full time workers inthe field and the written documentation of the student effort for the news.Thereafter, thousands of black and white students began to mobilizeall over the country with sympathy demonstrations and boycotts against theretail chains whose local stores continued to practice racial segregation.These national student support groups included the United States NationalStudent Association, The Students for a Democratic Society, The YoungChristian Students, The Northern Student Movement, and others.With the love, guidance and support of adult mentors, like Ms. EllaBaker, Dr. Martin Luther King, the Rev. Jim Lawson, and countless others,the students came to learn more about the history of the past and current black resistance to racial discrimination, and oppression. Toward this end asix-week seminar, involving world-class scholars was organized for SNCCleaders at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee sponsored by the UnitedStates National Student Association. This led the SNCC leaders to learn thestirring thoughts and words of Frederick Douglass, protesting against slaveryand oppression and unequal treatment in the 1800s, including his insistenceon constant struggle as the only way black people could achieve andmaintain their freedom.As SNCC knowledge of history grew, it came to know and respect thenames of John Brown, a white man, who died in 1859 fighting along side hissons against slavery at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia; Harriet Tubman, a black woman, who escaped to the North from being enslaved and repeatedlywent back South the free others before the Civil War; as well as Nat Turner,who led a slave rebellion disguised as a religious movement in Virginia thatshook the plantations of the South like no other force. Seminar readingmaterials included the words of Paul Robeson and Mahatma Gandhi to Zora Neal Hurston and Ida B. Wells, on to James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Amiri