Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee financial records

1962-1965

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was an American political organization that played a central role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Begun as an interracial group advocating nonviolence, it adopted greater militancy late in the decade, reflecting nationwide trends in Black activism.

SNCC was founded in early 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina, to capitalize on the success of a surge of sit-ins in Southern college towns, where Black students refused to leave restaurants in which they were denied service based on their race. This form of nonviolent protest brought SNCC to national attention, throwing a harsh public light on racism in the South. In the years following, SNCC strengthened its efforts in community organization and supported Freedom Rides in 1961, the March on Washington in 1963, the Civil Rights Act (1964), voter registration drives in the South, and desegregation in schools. In 1966, SNCC officially supported the broader protest of the Vietnam War. As SNCC became more active politically, its members faced increased violence, leading the SNCC to migrate from a philosophy of nonviolence to one of greater militancy after the mid-1960s. The shift was personified by Stokely Carmichael, who replaced John Lewis as SNCC chairman in 1966–1967; Carmichael was an advocate of the burgeoning "Black power" movement, a facet of late 20th-century Black nationalism. SNCC was disbanded by the early 1970s.