Civil Rights Activists Gather for 50th Anniversary of SNCC

A national symposium celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee will take place on Thursday, April 22, and Friday, April 23, 2010, at Brown, sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies. The symposium is free and open to the public.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A national symposium celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) will take place on Thursday, April 22, and Friday, April 23, 2010, at Brown University, sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies.
The symposium, “Come Let Us Build A New World Together,” will feature a series of conversations among SNCC activists, scholars, students, and the general public, examining the history of the organization and its continuing relevance in American society. The symposium will emphasize SNCC’s grassroots organizing tradition, philosophy, and strategies.
The symposium will feature a number of distinguished participants including:

• Robert P. Moses, former SNCC Mississippi Project director, MacArthur “Genius” Award winner, and founder of the Algebra Project;
• Vincent Harding, former advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. and noted scholar of African American history;
• Judy Richardson, former SNCC field secretary and associate producer of the award-winning PBS series Eyes on the Prize;
• Maria Varela, former SNCC field secretary and MacArthur “Genius” Award winner;
• Muriel Tillinghast, former SNCC field secretary and interim general manager of WBAI.

Through a series of panels, the symposium will focus on such topics as the eruption of the student sit-in movement that began Feb. 1, 1960, and the spread of student-initiated protest across the American South; the movement by students from protest to grassroots organizing; the leadership role of women within a full-time grassroots organizing movement; the challenges of the grassroots political philosophy of SNCC; the tensions between student activists in SNCC and leaders from other established civil rights organizations; the impact of the Cold War and decolonization on SNCC’s organizing work; Black Power and the expansion of African American elected officials; and the lessons learned and continuing relevance of the history and memory of SNCC for American civic culture.