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Early 1960s Sit ins
Many African Americans demanded equality in non-violent ways, such as sit-ins. Many young people such as college students participated in these activities. Especially in the South, where lingering prejudice existed, such as North Carolina to be specific. -
Greensboro Sit-in
SNCC students organized their first large sit-in and nonviolent protest at a segregated counter. The news of this sit-in spread like wildfire and encouraged many other young people to get involved as well as gave the group traction. New -
Ella Baker & Shaw University
Ella Baker was an active member of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and participated in many protests and nonviolent activities calling for Civil Rights. She encouraged a variety of African American youths that participated in previous sit-ins to gather at Shaw University in South Carolina. -
Formation of the SNCC
Ella Baker encouraged the students that joined her in the sit-in to stay unaffiliated and to be an independent group. Key players in the Civil Rights movement such as Martin Luther King Jr. thought that the students should be a youth wing of his SCLC group, and pressured the students to join. Students strived to stay independent and create their own non-violent agenda and therefore formed their own temporary movement "body." -
Marion Barry first SNCC Chairman
SNCC becomes a permanent organization and the first chairman is elected, a student Marion Barry. -
Albany Movement
Students continued to fight for desegregation in the Albany movement side by side with the SCLC but there was definitely tension between the two groups. -
Freedom Rides
The SNCC participated in Freedom Rides where students challenged lingering prejudice despite segregation in public commerce made unconstitutional the year before. African Americans were still threatened and faced with an intense hatred for not segregating themselves on buses and such, so these young students braved violence and assault in order to invoke actual enforcement of the new law. -
McComb Voting Rights
Many of the students were jailed for participating in the Freedom Riders movement, but as soon as they were freed they set course for voting rights in McComb Mississippi. -
March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom
The McComb movement continued well into 1963 when students were still actively protesting for equal voting rights. SNCC chairman John Lewis was scheduled to share a speech that condemned John F. Kennedy for what little action he was taking to care for his African American citizens but was limited in what he could say.