The Rise and Fall of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

A concise history of the leading Black student-led social movement of the 1960s, including the historical context prior to its beginning, its start with lunch counter sit-ins on Feb. 1, 1960, its rise to organizing Freedom Summer’s voting project in the South in 1964, and its gradual demise and collapse due to strategic missteps and political repression. How did SNCC come about? What factors led to its triumphs, what were its missteps and what was the nature of the repression that helped lead to its demise? This volume attempts to answer these questions.

Students of the civil rights movment will appreciate appendices including an extensive bibliography and several relevant historical documents.