 | |
| Author | Howard Zinn |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Publisher | Beacon Press |
Publication date | 1964 |
| ISBN | 9781608462995 |
| Text | SNCC: The New Abolitionists at The Internet Archive |
SNCC: The New Abolitionists is a book by Howard Zinn that describes the early years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and their registering of voters in the rural south.
This book describes the SNCC, focusing especially on the early years. Zinn details in particular the voting registration efforts by black activists in the most recalcitrant areas of the South, as well as the federal government's failure to support their efforts. [1] Zinn highlighted the role of civil disobedience as a countermeasure to state repression. [2]
Martin Duberman describes this book and its reception in his biography Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left. Duberman notes that Zinn received largely positive reviews at time of publication, and he describes the book as among Zinn's best. Duberman writes that the book is "passionately argued, intense, and persuasive, though it has a few peripheral problems. Duberman critiques the non-chronological structure of the book, which makes it difficult to know which events occur when. In addition, Duberman criticizes Zinn's style of citation, noting that Zinn doesn't always make clear whether he is using remembered quotes or precise quotes from audio tapes. [3]
Writing in a 1974 review of the civil rights history corpus, George Burson Jr. describes Zinn's work as "an excellent history" and as one of the very few books dealing specifically with the SNCC. He notes that the book provides "valuable insights into the SNCC's radicalism." [1]
Writing shortly after publication in the Harvard Crimson , Donald E. Graham, later the chairman of the Washington Post, said that despite the book's quality as an "unbalanced glorification of the SNCC," the book has considerable power and merit. He highlights the book's capacity to help "maintain your sense of urgency of civil rights problems," making concrete the harsh reality of the civil rights protests through Zinn's crafting of narrative and evocative style. Further, Graham says that Zinn's work "stand[s] out" from other accounts because it "presents the unusual philosophy that has been born out of SNCC work," leaving beching the armchair philosophy of other works. [4]
Beacon Press approached Zinn in 1963, suggesting that he write a scholarly book on the NAACP. Zinn proposed that he instead write about the SNCC from his perspective as a participant. Despite a schedule allowing his little time to write, preoccupied as he was with his teaching and his activism, Zinn finished the book in 1964. He based the book on his own experiences with the SCNCC, including recordings of SNCC volunteers and his own recalled conversations. [3]
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government. By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance.
Howard Zinn was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist intellectual and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote over 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young People's History of the United States.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, the Committee sought to coordinate and assist direct-action challenges to the civic segregation and political exclusion of African Americans. From 1962, with the support of the Voter Education Project, SNCC committed to the registration and mobilization of black voters in the Deep South. Affiliates such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama also worked to increase the pressure on federal and state government to enforce constitutional protections.
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.
Kwame Ture was an American organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad in the Caribbean, he grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while attending the Bronx High School of Science. He was a key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), then as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and last as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.
James Forman was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. He was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As the executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1966, Forman played a significant role in the Freedom Rides, the Albany movement, the Birmingham campaign, and the Selma to Montgomery marches.
Staughton Craig Lynd was an American political activist, author, and lawyer. His involvement in social justice causes brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, including Howard Zinn, Tom Hayden, A. J. Muste, and David Dellinger.
Robert Parris Moses was an American educator and civil rights activist known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As part of his work with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations, he was the main organizer for the Freedom Summer Project.
Neoabolitionist is a term used in historiography to characterize historians of race relations motivated by the spirit of racial equality typified by the abolitionists who fought to abolish slavery in the mid-19th century. They write especially about African-American history, slavery in the United States, the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era.
Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
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Hollis Watkins was an American activist who was part of the Civil Rights Movement activities in the state of Mississippi during the 1960s. He became a member and organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1961, was a county organizer for 1964's "Freedom Summer", and assisted the efforts of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to unseat the regular Mississippi delegation from their chairs at the 1964 Democratic Party national convention in Atlantic City. He founded Southern Echo, a group that gives support to other grass-roots organizations in Mississippi. He also was a founder of the Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.
A People's History of the United States is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "fundamental nationalist glorification of country". Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
Diversity of tactics is a phenomenon wherein a social movement makes periodic use of force for disruptive or defensive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of nonviolent resistance, but also stopping short of total militarization. It also refers to the theory which asserts this to be the most effective strategy of civil disobedience for social change. Diversity of tactics may promote nonviolent tactics, or armed resistance, or a range of methods in between, depending on the level of repression the political movement is facing. It sometimes claims to advocate for "forms of resistance that maximize respect for life".
The Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) was a local organization in Dallas County, Alabama, which contains the city of Selma, that sought to register black voters during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The sit-in movement, sit-in campaign or student sit-in movement, were a wave of sit-ins that followed the Greensboro sit-ins on February 1, 1960 in North Carolina. The sit-in movement employed the tactic of nonviolent direct action and was a pivotal event during the Civil Rights Movement.
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), also known as the Lowndes County Freedom Party (LCFP) or Black Panther party, was an American political party founded during 1965 in Lowndes County, Alabama. The independent third party was formed by local African-American citizens led by John Hulett, and by staff members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael.
Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left is a biography of Howard Zinn, written by Martin Duberman and published in 2012.
The Southern Mystique is a 1964 book by Howard Zinn that critiques current conceptions of racism in the North and South and the capacity for change in race relations. The book provoked considerable discussion at time of publication.