Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a civil rights organization founded by students in 1960 to coordinate direct action and grassroots organizing, especially in the American South.

Sit-in movement: A wave of student-led protests in which participants occupied segregated public spaces, beginning in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Greensboro students’ sit-in campaign prompted the meeting that established SNCC.
Greensboro sit-ins: A series of protests begun by four Black college students at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Their action helped spark the wider sit-in wave from which SNCC emerged.
John Lewis: A civil rights leader who chaired SNCC from 1963 to 1966 and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lewis represented SNCC’s commitment to nonviolent protest during major campaigns and the 1964 Democratic convention challenge.
Voting Rights Act of 1965: A U.S. federal law that prohibited racial discrimination in voting and authorized federal oversight of election practices. SNCC’s voter-registration campaigns exposed barriers the act was designed to dismantle.
Freedom Rides: Interracial bus journeys through the American South that tested federal rulings against segregation in interstate travel. SNCC organized later rides to sustain the campaign after violence against the original riders.
Ella Baker: An American civil rights organizer who emphasized grassroots leadership and helped guide the founding of SNCC. Baker convened student leaders and encouraged an independent organization rather than a youth wing of an established group.
Diane Nash: A student civil rights organizer who helped lead the Nashville sit-ins and Freedom Rides. Nash helped sustain the Freedom Rides when attacks threatened to end them.
Black Power: A political slogan and movement advocating Black self-determination, pride, and control of community institutions. SNCC’s 1966 shift toward Black Power helped popularize the phrase and changed its organizing priorities.
Freedom Summer: A 1964 campaign in Mississippi that brought volunteers to register Black voters and establish community institutions. The campaign concentrated SNCC’s voter-registration and organizing work in Mississippi.
Shaw University: A historically Black university in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded in 1865. Its campus hosted the April 1960 conference that founded SNCC.

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