SOURCE: O'Brien, Margaret. Review of SNCC: The New Abolitionists, by Howard Zinn. Commonweal 81, no. 19 (5 February 1965): 616-17.

In the following review, O'Brien maintains that Zinn overestimates SNCC's potential to effect major changes in America unrelated to racial issues.

From February 1, 1960 when the first sit-ins occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Spring, 1964, young members of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee moved across the South, organizing sit-ins, freedom rides, and voter registration drives. Their efforts put them on intimate terms with cattle prods, jail cells, and a cast of law enforcement officials whose style of rule would warm the heart of—maybe Ivan the Terrible.

This book is built on the personal accounts of these young men and women. It is journalism; it is “human interest”; and it is valuable. We remember that behind “strategy” and “power structure” and “backlash” are people; that there are parts of our nation where people...