STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE
If you were black or a Negro during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, certain folks wanted you to take a step back. I am so glad Stokely Carmichael, James Forman, Bob Moses, Marion Barry and of course John Lewis did not take a step back. They started the fire! The SNCC had a prolific impact on the civil rights movement and their organizing strategies historically impacted black life. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee changed voter suppression and political enrollment in the black community as it should have. White folks would have never allowed an all black group of politicians to be over a predominantly white neighborhood where they are the majority. Why would they anticipate that for blacks. Well, they did back then and some still have the nerve to think this is okay. It's not! SNCC was a nonviolent extension of Dr. King's philosophy and of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Their message was more uncompromising and pervasive with black power.
SNCC Sit-in
So many children can’t even image not being allowed to sit in a McDonald's restaurant or have the desire to go to their favorite eatery but prohibited from going in light of their skin color. SNCC formed sit-ins to help combat the problem. Three young soldiers who played a critical part in the SNCC and the Freedom Riders movement were killed for trying to change history. This is why you are explicitly encouraged to share black history with your kids. If you don't who will? Folks (blacks and whites) died so that you and your kids would be able to sit down wherever you wanted to go, freely. Freedom wasn't given it was won! It was the number one objective. If one group of individuals can sit down and go to any public place but others cannot, I believe that is not freedom. That is a form of slavery! We are presently fighting for some of the same freedoms in 2019.
Freedom Day! Let's register to vote!
An insurrection of radicalism was fearlessly formed and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was born! Young folks (students) demanded their say in the political arena. They wanted their own representation and telling them no was NOT an option. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is worthy of the marks they left in history. They organized and continued to organize until doors were opened for their civil rights.
Before Black Lives Matter began to organize and tell us that a black person's life does matter politically, economically and socially with racial injustice boiling over in their message, there was a passel of another group of brave Sancti-Fly Papas and Mamas known as SNCC. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee took a stand for their liberty and for their justice that was bequeathed to them by those who wrote the laws mandated by the United States of America. It did state that the laws of the land were for all American citizens. When you pay your taxes and understand your rights as an American citizen, you have a right to fight for the humanity and civil rights of others and for yourself. These two movements have boldly demonstrated that. You don't have to agree with it. We know some won't understand the vision or the purpose of others. You have to keep pushing forward regardless of who doesn't understand it or like it! Where would we be if Ali or Dr. King focused on the agenda of others and not the black agenda? What side of history do you want to be remembered for?
