Collection depicts some of the participants, and the political and community activities, related to the American civil rights organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), from the early to mid-1960s. The collection includes work by photographers, many of whom are African American, who were retained by SNCC to produce images for documentary and publicity purposes. Many images are only available on contact sheets.Collection consists of posed portraits and candid shots of SNCC personnel and volunteers; studio portraits of prominent figures; candid shots and group portraits of African American men, women and children; and views of SNCC political actions such as protests and lunch counter sit-ins, SNCC meetings, union and political organizing activities, voter registration drives, stage and musical group performances, health clinic services, African American communities in both the urban and rural South, white residents in the South, Southern police activities, and Ku Klux Klan picketers. Of note are views of activities of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, in Washington, D.C. (1965); and views of an eviction, poor housing conditions and rent protests, probably organized by the SNCC- affiliated Atlanta Project, in the African American neighborhood of Vine City, in Atlanta, Georgia (1966).
Content: Some photographs bear photographer's or photography studio's hand stamp on verso; some items bear organization's hand stamp on verso. Some items bear handwritten captions on verso. Some items are attached to scrapbook pages. Some items bear cropping marks; some contact sheets bear photographer's selection marks on recto. Some items are duplicates.
Content: Collection contains work by Joffre Clark, Bob Fletcher, George Frye, Rufus Hinton, and Norris T. McNamara, among others.
Biographical/historical: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an American civil rights organization, was formed in 1960 as a result of the successes of the student sit-in campaign to integrate segregated eating establishments in the American South. The sit-in campaign was a reflection of the organization's philosophy of non-violent direct action to end political and social disenfranchisement of African Americans in the Deep South. SNCC would later participate in the 1961 Freedom Rides and the 1963 March on Washington, as well as organize the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign. By 1966, SNCC, which had been a interracial organization, began to embrace a more militant black power stance which alienated many supporters, including white liberals. By 1970, the organization generally ceased to exist.
Physical Description
Extent: 3,850 items (1.2 cubic ft., 6 boxes)
Extent: 355 photographic prints : gelatin silver, black and white ; 21 x 26 cm and smaller.
Extent: 220 contact sheets : gelatin silver, black and white ; 28 x 22 cm and smaller.
Extent: 2,629 negatives : gelatin silver, black and white ; 35 mm
Extent: 646 negatives : gelatin silver, black and white ; 7 x 9 cm and smaller.
