Chap­ter 4: SNCC delves into the for­ma­tion and ear­ly activ­i­ties of the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC), focus­ing on the piv­otal role the orga­ni­za­tion played dur­ing the civ­il rights move­ment, espe­cial­ly in Nashville. The chap­ter begins by high­light­ing the suc­cess of the Nashville sit-ins, which were instru­men­tal in the deseg­re­ga­tion of local busi­ness­es. These protests not only advanced the cause of civ­il rights but also forged deep­er con­nec­tions among the activists, includ­ing John Lewis and his fel­low stu­dents, whose bond grew stronger as they worked side by side in their shared strug­gle for equal­i­ty. The Nashville move­ment became a cat­a­lyst for wider efforts in the civ­il rights move­ment, sym­bol­iz­ing the ener­gy and deter­mi­na­tion of the youth involved in chal­leng­ing seg­re­ga­tion. As the sit-ins gained momen­tum, they set the stage for even more orga­nized efforts aimed at achiev­ing racial jus­tice in oth­er parts of the coun­try. The sit-ins them­selves were a tes­ta­ment to the resilience of those who refused to accept the sta­tus quo and were will­ing to face vio­lence and injus­tice in pur­suit of change.

In April 1960, the scene shift­ed to the High­lander Folk School, a key site for civ­il rights train­ing and dis­cus­sion, where eighty-two activists, includ­ing those involved in the Nashville protests, gath­ered for a retreat. High­lander, known for its focus on non­vi­o­lence and grass­roots orga­niz­ing, played a cru­cial role in shap­ing the strate­gies of the civ­il rights move­ment. For John Lewis, High­lander was a trans­for­ma­tive space where he was exposed to the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion and polit­i­cal empow­er­ment in com­bat­ing sys­temic oppres­sion. It was at High­lander that the seeds for SNC­C’s for­ma­tion were sown, as activists from var­i­ous schools and back­grounds came togeth­er to dis­cuss how best to con­tin­ue their fight for jus­tice. A piv­otal aspect of this retreat was the debate over the phi­los­o­phy of non­vi­o­lence, which divid­ed some of the par­tic­i­pants. While Lewis and his sup­port­ers viewed non­vi­o­lence as a moral and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ple that could tran­scend polit­i­cal tac­tics, oth­ers saw it as a prac­ti­cal method for achiev­ing spe­cif­ic goals. This debate set the stage for SNC­C’s future, as it began to devel­op its own unique approach to activism, dis­tin­guish­ing itself from oth­er civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions such as the South­ern Chris­t­ian Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence (SCLC).

As the group’s direc­tion became clear­er, SNCC evolved into an orga­ni­za­tion focused on direct action, and its influ­ence grew expo­nen­tial­ly. The chap­ter also illus­trates the ten­sions with­in the civ­il rights move­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly the gen­er­a­tional divide between sea­soned lead­ers and the younger activists of SNCC, who were deter­mined to take bold steps. The desire for auton­o­my from the more estab­lished civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions was a major force in SNCC’s devel­op­ment. Unlike the SCLC, which was close­ly aligned with the lead­er­ship of Mar­tin Luther King Jr., SNCC’s mem­bers were inter­est­ed in more rad­i­cal, youth-led ini­tia­tives. The estab­lish­ment of SNCC, which was orig­i­nal­ly formed as the Tem­po­rary Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, reflect­ed a new wave of activism that was not bound by the tra­di­tion­al meth­ods of their pre­de­ces­sors. As SNCC’s mem­ber­ship expand­ed and its mis­sion became more refined, the group moved beyond the col­lege cam­pus­es where it had begun and start­ed to take its fight to the heart of the seg­re­gat­ed South. The Nashville protests evolved into a broad­er cam­paign tar­get­ing busi­ness­es and pub­lic spaces, where young peo­ple con­tin­ued to chal­lenge both the social and legal sys­tems of seg­re­ga­tion. Despite fac­ing vio­lent oppo­si­tion and arrests, the per­sis­tence of SNCC mem­bers began to yield results, includ­ing the even­tu­al inte­gra­tion of Nashville’s movie the­aters, a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment that fur­ther solid­i­fied the group’s impor­tance with­in the civ­il rights move­ment.

By the chapter’s con­clu­sion, it’s clear that SNCC’s activ­i­ties in Nashville and beyond were defin­ing moments in the larg­er civ­il rights strug­gle. While the group faced con­sid­er­able chal­lenges, includ­ing inter­nal dis­agree­ments over tac­tics and exter­nal resis­tance from seg­re­ga­tion­ist forces, their efforts rep­re­sent­ed a crit­i­cal shift in the move­ment. As SNC­C’s lega­cy con­tin­ued to grow, the sit-ins in Nashville stood as a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance, as well as to the pro­found impact of youth activism in the broad­er fight for civ­il rights and racial equal­i­ty. The chap­ter rein­forces the idea that, even though the civ­il rights move­ment encoun­tered set­backs and obsta­cles, the deter­mi­na­tion of activists like John Lewis and his peers laid the ground­work for future vic­to­ries and con­tin­ued progress toward racial jus­tice.