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THE FUTURE ... SNCC: Structure and Leadership

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THE FUTURE ... SNCC: Structure and Leadership THE FUTURE ... SNCC The future means redoubled efforts to continue ... -introducing educated and deter­ mined young workers into hard core areas; / SNCC: Structure and -maintaining a college contact that leads to militant action in cities and Leadership provides new recruits for full time I work. The future means ... The Student Nonviolent Coordinating -expanding our pilot voter registration Committee is not a membership organization, projects in cities to provide workers but rather an agency attempting to stimulate in surrounding counties. and foster the growth of local protest move­ ments. -finding more funds to support stu­ dents willing to work at subsistence The Coordinating Committee itself con­ wages and share the life of the South­ sists of representatives of protest groups ern rural Negro while trying to con­ which meet regularly to formulate strategy. vince him of his rights. The Committee elects an executive commit­ tee, which is responsible for employing staff -providing more and better workshops and overseeing the general program. and conferences on the meaning and techniques of nonviolent community Chairman: JOHN LEWIS action and political involvement. Executive Secretary: JAMES FORMAN Staff Coordinator: WORTH LONG Change will be slow, but change must take place. SNCC will need three times our cur­ Communications rent staff to do the job we have only begun. Director: JULIAN BOND We will also need three times our current Project Directors: budget. Mississippi: ROBERT MOSES Southwest Georgia: CHARLES SHERROD The future means your support ... Central Alabama: BERNARD LAFAYETTE -in contributions and in stimulating Arkansas: WILLIAM HANSEN your local community to break down Eastern Shore: REGINALD ROBINSON every form of racial discrimination now. -in letting us know how we can help you and how you can help us. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 8V2 Raymond Street, N. W., Atlanta 14, Georgia DANVILLE, VA. Telephone : 688-0331 Photos: Danny Lyon August, 1963 WE BELIEVE AND WE ASK YOU TO BELIEVE WITH US: WE SHALL OVERCOME! HISTORY The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com­ mittee was born out of the history-making We, the . students who sit-in movement that erupted across the South in the spring of 1960. At Easter of that make up the staff of the Student year, the first southwide meeting of sit-in Nonviolent Coordinating Com- 1 leaders was held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Here a temporary committee to promote mittee, and the thousands that ,' communication and coordination of activi­ ties among protest groups was set up. This make up its base, have staked, Committee met monthly during the summer, our lives on the principle that opened an office in Atlanta, and at a second SAVANNAH , GA. ATLANTA, GA. conference held in Atlanta, October, 1960, an interracial democracy can the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com­ be made to work in this coun­ mittee was formally organized. One repre­ se ntative from each Southern state and the PROGRAM try, even in the fields, bayous, District of Columbia made up the Coordinat­ SNCC's grass-roots approach is designed to .... build indigenous, trained leadership .. on ing Committee. and deltas of our deep South. college and high school campuses, and in local communities ... Participation in the Freedom Rides in 1961 and a growing sense of the depth of * * * In recruiting potential student leaders from college campuses and sending them to We have not spared our­ fear that shackled most Negroes of the South work in rural communities, SNCC hopes to b1ridge the gap between centers of learning and convinced SNCC leaders that some one the work-a-day communities. selves in attempting to make would have to TAKE the freedom move­ that faith good. We call on the ment to the millions of exploited, disfran­ * * * SNCC workers have organized and guided local protest movements which are never chised and degraded Negroes of the Black identified as SNCC projects. This is part of it program of developing, building, and strength­ federal government to do like­ Belt .. .. ening indigenous leadership. wise. We would have it under­ SNCC DID JUST THAT. This program has captured the imagination of students all over the country, and today more stood that we are not calling on ... August, 1961-SNCC launched its first than 150 SNCC field secretaries are symbols of courage and dedication as they undertake the voter-registration project . choosing often tedious and tiring, and always dangerous work, in the most difficult areas of the South . ... the country for what she might Walthall, Pike and Amite Counties of Mis­ Mississippi-Southwest Georgia-Central Alabama-Eastern Arkansas-Southern Virginia do for us, but rather to inform sissippi.- This sparked nonviolent direct action by hundreds of high-school stu­ These students work for subsistence salaries w en funds are available, but at times they have her of what she must be pre­ dents in McComb, Miss., and led to the chopped cotton and picked squash to secure food. They li ve in the community, often in the homes pared to do for herself. development of a statewide voter registra­ of local residents, for the weeks and months that are required to break through generations of fear tion program, recently dramatized by the and intimidation. The students' courage helps e erging leaders achieve a new self im age and the use of snarling police dogs to stop Ne­ strength to act. Sustained personal contact, discussion and persuasion and his determination to stay groes from registering in Greenwood, Mis­ with them and their problems, give the local people confidence in the SNCC worker and the program sissippi. he advocates. The people then begin to gain enough confidence in themselves to seek and assert • . October, 1961-SNCC workers went their rights . ... from S N C C t est imony, before to Albany, Georgia, and became the cata­ In the community SNCC workers organize for voter registration and direct action. SNCC voter the House Judiciary Committee, lytic fuse for the massive protests of the registration efforts give disenfranchised Negroes the right to vote in areas where they have been May, 1963 Albany Movement. denied this right since Reconstruction. And, fu ll y as important, the program deepens an awareness •.. By November, 1961, some sixteen stu­ of the meaning of first class citizenship, develops a community of action, and creates mutual trust dents had volunteered to take out a year and support among people who too often have been suspicious and divided by fear. or more from school to work in the hard­ As of summer, 1963, SNCC had initiated and participated in .... direct action campaigns in core rural areas for subsistence only. 49 cities in 13 states . .. STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE .
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