Meredith March, June 16, 1966 (l-r) (Andrew Young, Martin Luther King, Floyd McKessik, Stokely Carmichael.)
An Ebony Magazine photo

Meredith March, June 16, 1966 (l-r) (Andrew Young, Martin Luther King, Floyd McKessik, Stokely Carmichael.)
An Ebony Magazine photo

SNCC Launches Black Power

Introduction

In that historic moment when Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chairman Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and legendary community organizer Willie Ricks (Mukasa Dada) declared, “We Want Black Power!” the trajectory of SNCC and the Black freedom movement was changed forever.

The Black Power Movement was far from a knee-jerk reaction to white violence during James Meredith’s 1966 March Against Fear. Rather, the framework for Black Power had evolved during nearly a decade of SNCC’s grassroots organizing, political study, and internal discussion and analysis about the best way for the masses of Black people to control their own lives.

By 1961, the debate in SNCC about whether to focus on direct action or voting rights had been largely settled. The organization decided to focus its resources on organizing in rural, Southern counties where the power of the vote was crucial.

This essay charts the SNCC timeline—actions, programs, and events that led up to the June 16, 1966 call for Black Power. It lays out the principles of Black Power, examines the initial impact of Black Power in America, and describes how SNCC as an organization worked collectively to build the Black Power Movement.

Voter registration assistance
Tuskegee Alabama 1966
a Bob Fitch photo
Stanford university library

 

1. SNCC Creates Black Voting Power in the Rural South, 1961-66

SNCC’s executive secretary, James Forman, borrowed the slogan, “One Man, One Vote” from Zambia’s independence movement. It became the unofficial slogan of SNCC’s voting rights campaigns, thereby associating SNCC’s work with freedom struggles on the African continent for the first time.

Under the “One Man, One Vote” banner, SNCC organizers reached out to thousands of potential Black voters throughout the South. However, much of this work took place in small, rural communities dominated by White Citizens Councils and terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. Violence, discriminatory literacy tests, and the reluctance of the federal government to intervene despite obvious violations of federal law undermined much of SNCC’s work. Much of the country paid little attention. Nonetheless, the struggle intensified.[1]

A. The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) in Mississippi, 1962-64

COFO organizers Bob Moses (right) and Mike Miller (left)

One of the first voter consolidation campaigns in Mississippi was the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). COFO brought together all of the civil rights organizations working in Mississippi to plan joint strategy, pool resources, distribute work, and minimize conflicts over territory. Participating national organizations were SNCC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

SNCC’s Bob Moses became the COFO director, and Dave Dennis from CORE became second in command. SNCC organizers made up 90 percent of COFO’s staff. COFO became the base from which SNCC launched all of its voting campaigns, including the Mississippi Freedom Summer program that brought hundreds of northern, mostly white, student volunteers into the rural counties to register Black voters and conduct Freedom Schools.

White-led violence against the students intensified during the summer of 1964, resulting in beatings, arrests, and the murder of three summer project volunteers: William Chaney, Andrew Schwerner, and Michael Goodman. Despite the climate of fear, the volunteers registered hundreds of voters who would take part in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) elections.

Later in 1964, COFO was defunded by the Atlanta-based Voter Education Project (VEP), which claimed that the results were not worth the money. There was an underlying fear that SNCC’s influence in the state was too large and too radical.[2]

 

B. Freedom Day” Mass Voter Registration Campaigns, 1963-65

SNCC organized the first “Freedom Day” mass voting registration campaign in Selma, Ala., in 1963. The Freedom Day action plan called for the registration of hundreds of Black voters from a single city or county in a single day. SNCC volunteers would contact all potential Black voters by telephoning, canvassing, or distributing flyers and invite them to register on the same day at selected locations in the Black community. The first Freedom Day voter registration campaign succeeded in registering several hundred voters in Selma and was replicated in several key cities and states where SNCC was organizing.

C. The Mississippi “Freedom Vote” Mock Election, 1964

Under the COFO umbrella, SNCC organized the Mississippi “Freedom Vote” mock election campaign (also known as the “Freedom Ballot”), which was held throughout the state of Mississippi. Over 78,000 Black people were registered to vote at sites in Black communities. Then they cast mock ballots for the candidates who campaigned on the issues most important to Black voters, “electing” Mississippi state NAACP president Aaron Henry as governor and Rev. Ed King of Tougaloo College as lieutenant governor.

The vote disproved allegations by the national press and white opponents of the Freedom Vote that Black people were not interested in voting and were incapable of handling the voting process. The Freedom Vote built confidence in the Black people who were voting for the first time in their lives. It also gave them a voting experience free from the intimidation that took place in many state elections, where Blacks who registered were threatened with beatings if they tried to vote, faced reprisals from their white employers, and were sometimes even murdered. Finally, the Freedom Vote provided new Black voters an opportunity to select and run candidates who represented their interests and aspirations.

Under the COFO umbrella, SNCC organized the Mississippi “Freedom Vote” mock election campaign (also known as the “Freedom Ballot”), which was held throughout the state of Mississippi. Over 78,000 Black people were registered to vote at sites in Black communities. Then they cast mock ballots for the candidates who campaigned on the issues most important to Black voters, “electing” Mississippi state NAACP president Aaron Henry as governor and Rev. Ed King of Tougaloo College as lieutenant governor.

The vote disproved allegations by the national press and white opponents of the Freedom Vote that Black people were not interested in voting and were incapable of handling the voting process. The Freedom Vote built confidence in the Black people who were voting for the first time in their lives. It also gave them a voting experience free from the intimidation that took place in many state elections, where Blacks who registered were threatened with beatings if they tried to vote, faced reprisals from their white employers, and were sometimes even murdered. Finally, the Freedom Vote provided new Black voters an opportunity to select and run candidates who represented their interests and aspirations.


James Forman described the significance of the Freedom Vote this way:

“SNCC moved into the stage of consolidating established bases of popular power—a consolidation which we saw as the next logical step in building a movement. The time had come for us to expand our voter registration work in separate communities into active political organizing on a statewide basis.”[3]

 

[3] James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, New York: The McMillan Company, 1972. p. 354.

James Forman, SNCC
Executive Secretary

D. The MFDP Challenge to the Democratic National Convention, 1964

Fannie Lou Hamer and Bob Moses at the 1964 Democratic convention.
SNCC Digital Gateway photo

 

Building on the momentum of the 1963 “Freedom Vote,” Black people in Mississippi wanted to take a strong stand against the all-white Mississippi “Dixiecrat” Democratic Party that had systematically denied Blacks access into the mainstream party. COFO decided to form a new, parallel party organization, which was named the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The founders included Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker. Lawrence Guyot was elected chair, and Mrs. Hamer was elected vice-chair. Immediately, they set about organizing what has come to be known as the “MFDP Challenge,” bringing 68 MFDP-elected delegates to the 1964 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Atlantic City, N.J., to challenge the legality of seating Mississippi’s all-white “Dixiecrat” delegation on the grounds that it did not allow Blacks to participate in selecting the party’s delegates.

The MFDP Challenge was heavily covered in the press and gained the support of party delegates from other states who were sympathetic to the MFDP’s case. Success seemed to be within their grasp; however, after much heated debate, trickery, and threats made by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the DNC party regulars (including some Black elected officials who chose their political interests above solidarity) voted with the Democratic Party establishment and refused to seat the MFDP delegates.

Without ever negotiating with the MFDP delegation, the DNC offered two “consolation” at-large seats and even selected the two MFDP delegates who they wanted to fill the seats. After this unacceptable proposal was made to MFDP, the women delegates played an important leadership role in keeping the MFDP delegates unified. Remember the names of Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, Unita Blackwell, and Annie Devine.[4]

E. The Significance of the MFDP Challenge

 

COFO Office, Gulfport Mississippi  A CRMVETS photo

COFO Office, Gulfport Mississippi  A CRMVETS photo

The challenge to the DNC signaled an important shift in the relationship between SNCC and the traditional liberal wing of the Democratic Party. James Forman summed up SNCC’s changing relationship with the white liberal establishment after the MFDP Challenge:

“At the Democratic Convention of 1964, SNCC had demonstrated not only that it sought political power in the national arena, but also that it had power and the capacity to use it. The small group of [SNCC] organizers who had cooperated with the Justice Department in obtaining information about voter discrimination had become a determined, greatly enlarged, organized political force opposed both to the policies of the Democratic Party and the liberal-labor establishment….This drive for power for poor people signaled danger to the officials of the Democratic Party, especially President Lyndon Baines Johnson and vice-presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey. Therefore, the destruction and neutralizing of SNCC’s power became a must for the Democrats…”[5] (Emphasis added.)

References

[1] Charles E. Cobb, Jr. [interview], August 2020.

[2] Cobb interview

[3] James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, New York: The McMillan Company, 1972. p. 354.

[4] Cobb interview.

[5] Forman, pp. 396-397.