Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - Essay Example The essay "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee" talks about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the major organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement. In April of 1960 Ella Baker, an expert civil rights organizer, invited black college students who had taken part in the 1960 sit-ins to meet at Shaw University.Alongside specific activities targeted at gaining civil rights for Blacks, SNCC also addressed major political issues of the sixties, namely feminism and the Vietnam War. SNCC officially came out against the Vietnam War in the beginning of 1966. SNCC linked the brutal bombing of Vietnamese citizens to the U.S. government's recurrent failure to bring the murderers of black people to justice. The destruction of Vietnamese rural life in the name of "pacification" was held akin to the destruction of African culture during the period of slavery. Hence, SNCC disputed the U.S. government's "benevolent intentions." The group did not believe that the gover nment would build a truly democratic society with free elections in a foreign country when such rights were not provided for a large percentage of the Black people at home. Several people feel that SNCC opened the door for the feminist movement. It united the oppressed and it viewed discrimination, in the form of racism or sexism, as a core social dilemma. In 1964, SNCC published a position paper that described the situation that women faced within the organization itself, indicating an awareness of the problem before it was fashionable.