From Sit-Ins to SNCC: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

Abstract

This collection showcases the work of a number of British scholars who provide insights on the early 1960s sit-in campaign and its impact, as well as the contours of the 1960s movement that developed from it. The volume grew from a conference marking the half-century anniversary of the sit-ins and the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (sncc). Like other fiftieth-anniversary retrospectives, these articles not only analyze the events that led to the creation of sncc but also seek to take stock of the accomplishments and limits of change since those events transpired. The articles provide fresh insights on the civil rights movement of the 1960s as well as evidence of the broad and varied work being conducted by British scholars on the topic. The book's focus is wide, encompassing articles on the nature of the sit-in movement and the new forms of activism it spawned, responses to direct action from white southerners and the court system, and the evolution of sncc “from the biracial optimism of 1960 to a pessimistic view of America and what it represented” (p. viii). An epilogue by Steven F. Lawson (the only non-British scholar among the authors) analyzes the legacy of the civil rights movement in light of the 2008 election of Barack Obama.