The   Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in April 1960, by young people who had emerged as leaders of the sit-in protest movement. The  young activists united with elders in the Deep South with a long history of activism to build a grassroots movement for change in voting rights, public access, education, labor, healthcare, and more.

 

On this 60th anniversary of SNCC's founding, the Zinn Education Project offers resources to teach about one of the most significant organizations for social change in U.S. history.

On April 24, in honor of the 60th anniversary of SNCC, the Zinn Education Project is hosting an online mini-class with SNCC veterans Courtland Cox and Judy Richardson, in conversation with high school teacher Jessica Rucker. 

This is part of our Zinn Education Project People's Historians Online series launched in March with Jeanne Theoharis and Jesse Hagopian.

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Credit: Jim Peppler  /  Alabama  Department of Archives and History

"Has anyone ever heard of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee?"

 

High school history teacher Adam Sanchez asked his students while writing the acronym on the board.

"S-N-C-C?" students sounded out, as his black Expo marker moved across the whiteboard. They weren't sure.  

As Sanchez demonstrates in his teaching story and lesson, without the history of SNCC, students think of the Civil Rights Movement as one dominated by charismatic leaders and not one that involved thousands of young people like themselves.

This lesson offers a series of activities that explore the history and evolution of SNCC, including freedom rides and voter registration.

By Melinda D. Anderson

	Jennifer Lawson (top), Gwendolyn Simmons, and Judy Richardson.

The courage of Black women is embedded in SNCC's DNA, spearheading the group's evolution into an organizing juggernaut with its imprint on notable events of the civil rights era:  the 1961 Freedom Rides, opposing racial segregation on interstate buses; the 1964 Freedom Schools, coupling reading and writing with political advocacy; and the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Alabama, in support of voting rights.

In Zora magazine, journalist Melinda D. Anderson describes the central role of Black women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and features interviews with the three women pictured to the right. 

Although we often hear about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's work in voting rights and education, SNCC also challenged the denial of adequate health care for African Americans. They formed a Medical Committee for Human Rights.

The manual for Medical Committee for Human Rights volunteers reveals the risks they faced.

 

In light of the disproportionate percentage of African Americans dying from coronavirus as a result of institutionalized racism, and the frontline activism of medical personnel, it is important to highlight this history. 

Learn more in The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care by John Dittmer.

This  unit with three lessons by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca provides essential historical context for the contemporary struggle against voter suppression and for voting rights in the United States.

This year marks the  150th anniversary of the ratification of the 15th Amendment.  Given the dizzying array of disruptions to our lives during the pandemic, one could be forgiven for failing to register this anniversary. But the fight for voting rights enshrined in the 15th Amendment is still alive, and more urgent than ever. 

Continue reading at
The Washington Post

 

Also available at the
Zinn Education Project website

As teachers across the country face the daunting challenge of emergency online instruction, we want to hear your stories. Are you finding ways to bring interactive, people's history lessons to online platforms? What about the schools where not all students have online access? How do you continue to build the community necessary for these lessons to be successful? How are you teaching about the coronavirus with a focus on equity and climate science?

In appreciation for your time, we will send you a copy of the new book Rad American History A-Z.

Learn more about how to share your story and read other educators' entries in People's History Teaching Stories: Remote Learning, about teaching during the pandemic.