The SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

In April 1960, Ella J. Baker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) convenes a meeting at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. This group of primarily southern black college students, inspired by the success of student activists' sit-ins, establishes the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The SNCC is independent of other civil rights organizations, relies on strong local leadership, and focuses on the use of civil disobedience as its protest strategy — with a philosophical and tactical commitment to nonviolent direct action. The organization becomes a major force in the movement to challenge American beliefs, practices, and laws.

African American Demonstrators march in Downtown Birmingham, Alabama United Press International telephoto, 1963 Library of Congress