Word: sncc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With dizzying speed, SNCC had turned from its strictly non-violent suits and ties at lunch counters to a strident denim-overalls organizing in the fields. It soon shifted again, this time to "Black Power" (a phrase made prominent by SNCC member Willie Ricks), and proceeded to expel its white members. Before the 1960s ended, it had forsaken the "non-violent" in its name, and become the "Student National Coordinating Committee." It began to speak a new language--Molotov cocktails, inflaming, needling, never giving an inch...
...whatever its validity, it succeeded in destroying the organization and helped to provoke a backlash that curbed the effectiveness of the civil rights movement. Carson's account shows the folly of rhetoric when it is unaccompanied by the work of organizing, of creating support. "During the final year of SNCC's existence, staff members became increasingly dogmatic and isolated. Formerly controversial ideas became cant and posturing. SNCC's demise as a national organization merely confirmed the earlier death of its singular spirit and of the black struggles that had produced that spirit...
...SNCC'S ANALYSIS of American society should have warned it of one more danger with increasing militance. Our government places sharp limits on dissent; when a person passes those limits without the support of huge numbers, he is doomed. From the moment that Black Power became the SNCC byword, phones were tapped, arrests were made, leaders shot. As one FBI memorandum about the organization concluded, "You are urged to take an enthusiastic and imaginative approach to this new counterintelligence endeavor and the Bureau will be pleased to entertain any suggestions or techniques you may recommend." Obviously, fear of repression should...
...theory goes, that the more moderate demands of the movement will win acceptance. But being wild-eyed can only be valuable in this way if there is a consensus of less radical but equally committed organizers pressing for demands. Without that support, the militant will inevitably end up like SNCC--out on a ledge where they are vulnerable to the police and the populace...
...World, the neo-conservatives. Again this country will have to be set straight. But it won't be done with hate, and the rhetoric of humanity will be more effective than the rhetoric of revolution. A new movement can begin to build, must begin to build, to continue where SNCC derailed. With any luck, it will be a movement that sings...