The
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were two major civil rights in the 1960’s. Both
groups worked alongside leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., in order to
encourage and create change during the civil rights era however their
ideological differences often challenged their ability to work in cohesion.
SNCC was an organization formed by students who believed in the effectiveness
of grassroots organizing. Following the popular use of sit-ins by these college
students, leaders such as Ella Baker encouraged these activists to continue to
organize from the ground up. However, SNCC never chose to align completely with
the already existing SCLC. The SCLC focused more on mass movements that took
place in different localities and turning them into national movements.
Oftentimes, SNCC members bore resentment towards the SCLC due to the
conference’s methods of entering a community where local organizers were
already active, bringing attention onto the issues and then leaving once
attention faded out or their goals were not reached quickly enough. These fundamental
differences between the two groups led to their eventual split that began during
the period of the Albany movement. Although both groups had the goal of racial
equity in their platforms, the ideologies for how each believed that could be
achieved were at times quite different.
SNCC’s
approach to achieving their goals was empowering southern blacks rather than
adhering to SCLC’s grand speeches and marches headed by overreaching leaders.
SNCC focused on getting the black vote. In 1961, SNCC leaders Charles Sherrod
and Cordell canvassed across Terrell County, Albany specifically, and created
voter education projects. SNCC’s 1961 manifesto for what was penned the “Albany
Nonviolent Movement” was explicitly detailed at the Union Baptist Church. The
committee called upon students from schools all across the city to canvass
door-to-door and encourage people to register to vote. The students were also
asked to request donations from citizens in the form of funds and other
resources such as vehicles to the movement. “Airports, trail ways, train
stations, lunch counters, city hall, boycotts at stores where Negroes buy but
are not enjoyed” were listed in the SNCC manifesto under the headline, “Where
Do We Go From Here?”[1]
Terrell County was
rampant with racism, which fueled the desire for many Albany State students to
participate in SNCC’s organizational efforts. Following protest from students
who did not feel protected from white attacks by their school or law
enforcement, the Albany Movement was formed joining SNCC, the NAACP, the SCLC
and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). These groups sought to initiate
changes in employment practices, segregation and police brutality. The movement
took the forms of protests resulting in arrests of over 400 SNCC members.[2]
The Albany Movement’s platform explicitly identified Police Chief Laurie
Pritchett as the main propagator of maintaining the segregationist system that
the city was built upon. It was also expressed that Pritchett’s history of
broken promises and “double talk” were harmful to the community and that blacks
were not able to exercise their constitutional rights without being arrested or
assaulted.[3]
Pritchett was quoted telling the press, “We can’t tolerate the NAACP or the
SNCC or any other nigger organization to take over this town with mass
demonstrations.”[4]
The crisis in
Albany led to the involvement of King and the SCLC. King’s association with the
movement was intended to encourage the city to negotiate with the local
activists.
They led marches and canvassed against city
bosses before King was eventually arrested along with fellow SCLC leader Ralph
Abernathy. This arrival actually heightened tensions between the two civil
rights groups. Poised to give a speech and leave Albany, King’s presence came
across at the SCLC coming to take over the movement from SNCC. The movement
could not fight against the actions of city administrators or local law
enforcement as Chief Pritchett was given the liberty to impose segregated
“justice” by continuing to jail activists in surrounding counties in an attempt
to thwart King’s “fill the jails” tactic.[5]
This could be seen as a defeat, but it was also a moment for both groups to
restructure their methodology and focus on the power of black and poor
political and economical engagement.
The
appeal of King was still undoubtedly recognizable to SNCC members. His ability
not only to attract media attention but also to galvanize the poor and
oppressed was useful to the efforts of the movement as a whole. Still, many in
SNCC felt his capabilities were essentially superficial and lacked fundamental
objectives that would continue on within each locality once he departed. SNCC
leader James Forman specifically opposed of King’s involvement because he
believed that it was necessary to keep the movement strictly for the people and
by the people meaning the empowerment of ordinary black Americans. He also
expressed that the media attention King brought was not entirely needed for the
movement as it was already getting attention from outside press. He also
believed that King had a “Messiah complex” that would deflate the confidence
that the people already had for themselves and their ability to create change
effectively. He believed that the people would put all their hope into the
sensational Dr. King and lose motivation to continue doing what was necessary
on their part.[6]
While King and
Abernathy were incarcerated, movement leader William Anderson was thrown into a
manic spell of disillusion and was bailed out; insisting that King came with
him. King’s inexplicable early release from the city jail, contrary to his
promise to remain there through the Christmas if necessary, created further
resentment and mistrust from SNCC members.[7]
Once released, King included no SNCC members in immediate public addresses.
King and the SCLC outshined the efforts of the work that SNCC and local
activists had put in to change the lives of the blacks and when Albany was not
a success, they continued their spectacle onward to Alabama and Mississippi.
The groups’
philosophical differences became even clearer in regards to the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom. New SNCC chairman John Lewis refused to change
militant rhetoric addressing the federal government not doing enough for
equality, despite SCLC’s wishes. SNCC
joined the march to show their opposition to the Kennedy administration’s
failures and to promote their newly formed militant attitude. They aggressive
rhetoric was slightly tweaked due to personal appeals from Forman and the SCLC,
but SNCC made their criticisms known and showed that they were not willing to
give up on what they felt was necessary to accommodate the strategies of groups
such as the SCLC.[8]
The original draft for John Lewis’ speech contained lines such as,
“We are now
involved in a serious revolution. This nation is still a place of cheap
political leaders who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally
themselves with open forms of political, economic and social exploitation... where
is our party?” and, “The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy
is trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it into the courts…
The time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will
march through the South…We shall pursue our own scorched earth" policy and
burn Jim Crow to the ground — nonviolently. We shall fragment the South into a
thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of democracy. We will
make the action of the past few months look petty.”[9]
Lewis
was figuratively and literally speaking in behalf of those who could not
actually be in Washington. There were far fewer poor people at the march than
leaders would have wanted but not everyone could afford to make the trip or
take a leave from work. In fact, the vast levels of income inequality between
whites and blacks in the regions that SNCC campaigned in were expressed in
voter registration drive documents. SNCC described places like Albany, the
rural south, where there were numerous amounts of wealthy white businessmen and
planters who were financially secure as opposed to the small amounts of black
landowners and the “black elite” that many of the SNCC leadership came from.[10]
Lewis’ compromise with his speech showed SNCC still adhered to the larger
picture. When King spoke, he received the praise from the audience and SNCC
members despite the group’s resentment towards him and their dedication to swift
actions.[11]
The
fundamental differences between SNCC and the SCLC was where each group felt the
power came from. However both groups began promoting nonviolent action. Later
on, King and the SCLC focused on nonviolent protesting and garnering attention
from notional and international media. However establishing failure or success
of a movement based on media coverage had its downfalls. The power of the press
either losing interest, as was the case in Albany, or covering violent
“onlookers” in Birmingham was recognized well enough by King to determine when
it was time to “move on” from a certain locality. Birmingham began with
students strategically initiated mass boycotts and refused to buy from stores
that wouldn’t hire or promote blacks. Targeting the economical stability of a
city was effective, however the reprisals that stemmed from the city in
retaliation were far too great. The SCLC then began to utilize confrontation
and determined that boycotts and sit-ins “must focus on specific targets:
segregated lunch counters, and Birmingham’s business elite”.[12]
When news media showed images of young people and nonviolent blacks being hosed
and attacked by dogs, support came in the for of monetary funding, however when
violent spectators became involved, th creditability of King’s strategy
faltered allowing even the notoriously racist Police Commissioner Bull Conner
to be praised for restraint and effective police work. SNCC’s divergence from
conservative civil rights groups was quite clear. In the mid 1960s, the
committee left behind their emphasis on nonviolence and followed the principles
of Black Power under Stokely Carmichael’s leadership. The group took a
separatist approach to achieving black empowerment and unity rather than trying
to work within existing systems as SNCC did. The committee adhered to
anti-white ideology, unlike the SCLC’s corporation with white liberals.[13]
The
existence of a rift between SNCC and the SCLC is telling of the Civil Rights
Movement and how progress was actually made. Contrary to mainstream historical
memory, there was not a monolithic set of strategies to bring about change.
Separate ideas were necessary in order to effectively mobilize from the ground
level and to encourage change from the federal level. SNCC began with students
from a new generation who were educated had had no memories of slavery. They
relied less on pragmatism and waiting for change and chose to take direct
action in uplifting their community and achieving what they believed they were
owed.
Works
Cited
Zinn, Howard.
"Albany", 1962. http://www.crmvet.org/info/6201_zinn_albany.pdf.
The Albany
Movement,. 1962. Albany Manifesto. Albany, GA.
http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6207_albany_manifesto.pdf.
"Civil
Rights Movement Veterans - CORE, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC". 2016. Crmvet.Org.
http://www.crmvet.org.
Downs, Matthew
(2012). Winter 1962: Albany and the Movement Divided. Alabama Heritage, (103),
44-45. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.uncg.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/963551336?accountid=14604
Forman, James. 1972. The
Making Of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle & London: University of
Washington Press.
Jackson, Thomas F. 2007. From
Civil Rights To Human Rights. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
"SNCC 1960-1966". Ibiblio.
https://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/black_power.html.
Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,. 1961. Albany Nonviolent Movement.
Albany, GA. http://www.crmvet.org/docs/611115_albany_agenda.pdf.
Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,. 1962. Unknown. Albany, GA.
http://www.crmvet.org/lets/62_sncc_albany.pdf.
[1]
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,. 1961. Albany Nonviolent Movement.
Albany, GA. http://www.crmvet.org/docs/611115_albany_agenda.pdf.
[2]
Matthew Downs, “Winter 1962: Albany and the Movement Divided”, 2012.
[3]
The Albany Movement,. 1962. Albany Manifesto. Albany, GA.
http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6207_albany_manifesto.pdf.
[4]
Zinn, Howard, "Albany", 1962, 14.
[5]
Jackson, Thomas. From
Civil Rights To Human Rights. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2007
[6]
Forman, James. 1972. The Making Of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle & London:
University of Washington Press, 255.
[7]
Jackson, 150.
[8]
("Civil Rights Movement Veterans - CORE, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC" 2016)
[9]
Lewis, John and Michael D'Orso, Walking With The Wind. New York, NY: Simon
& Schuster, 1998, 221.
[10]
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,. 1962. Unknown. Albany, GA.
http://www.crmvet.org/lets/62_sncc_albany.pdf.
[11]
Jackson, 181.
[12]
Ibid., 158.
[13]
"SNCC
1960-1966". Ibiblio.
