Founded 1960
Raleigh, North Carolina
Disbanded 1967

Student civil rights organization

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC; pronounced “snick”) was an alliance of student civil rights activists who used direct-action tactics as a means of achieving racial equality on all levels of society. SNCC members worked throughout the South, encouraging ordinary people to participate in campaigns for desegregation and voter registration. Born out of the lunch-counter sit-in movement, SNCC positioned itself on the front lines of what amounted to a civil war over civil rights. SNCC members displayed incredible courage and perseverance, despite being threatened, harassed, beaten, and jailed time and again.

Sit-ins: The first student civil rights campaigns

SNCC came out of the lunch-counter sit-in movement of 1960. Sit-ins were a form of protest in which African American students, sometimes joined by white students, would request service at segregated lunch counters. When...