SNCC: The New Abolitionists

by Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn tells the story of one of the most important political groups in American history. SNCC: The New Abolitionists influenced a generation of activists struggling for civil rights and seeking to learn from the successes and failures of those who built the fantastically influential Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It is considered an indispensable study of the organization, of the 1960s, and of the process of social change. Includes a new introduction by the author.

Genres: History, Politics, Race, Nonfiction, American History, Social Justice, Sociology

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

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 more than 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.

Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.

Reviews

[10thumbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not the definitive history of SNCC that I'd hoped.

(I'd highly recommend both Cleveland Sellers' The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC and James Forman's The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Both are compelling accounts of the life and times of SNCC from people who helped build the organization. Both are virtually required reading for any organizer/activist.)

But Zinn's book is remarkable when you realize that it wasn't written in 1985 or 1990 but in 1965, literally as SNCC's history was unfolding.

For me, reading it now — after having absorbed so much of SNCC's history — strips it of so much of it's immediacy. There's a lot of great material here, but much of it I'd come across in other books, articles, even some first hand meetings with SNCC veterans.

I'd recommend this book — but probably only for the hard core reader of SNCC history. There is some beautiful writing (esp. toward the end as Zinn works to put SNCC's heroic and sadly-still-underappreciated work into some historical context) but there have since been written many more full accounts of SNCC's work and history. (I'm very much looking forward to reading, for example, the recently-published Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC)

Seek them out. It's not hyperbole to say that the women and men of SNCC fundamentally changed the course of American history.

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

More a historically conscious sketch of action than a history, Zinn characterises the mood developed in SNCC by 1964. The voice is entirely his own – decentring himself and yet generously detailing an insider perspective. There is a strange coexistence of meticulous administrative detail and casual depiction. On the eve of Freedom Day, he writes of Bob Moses’ new wife and their office/bedroom, then describes how the meeting is moved to the hall so they can pack a little for jail, then moves onto an interruption of the hall meeting by Ella Baker, fresh off the train, who announces an idea that is to become Freedom Summer. The next day, Zinn takes a minute-by-minute account replete with the white painters on a nearby building and dramatic rainfall. It is not only wonderful to see how SNCC regarded its own future but how these minor details have become symbolic through deliberate memorialisation. Zinn leans into the soaring emotion of the movement, unabashedly revealing his own hopes beyond that of racial justice. Yet, he is careful to resist their characterisation as communists writing that “SNCC's new radicalism comes from nowhere in the world but cotton fields, prison cells, and the minds of young people reflecting on what they see and feel. So it is expressed in no ancient hooks, but in odd bits of conversation, which reflect not a precise doctrine but an emotion.” Foregrounding their bravery on tender humanity, Zinn reveals that though they do cry and act in anger, this doesn’t devalue their brotherly love. Quite the opposite, because to see people laugh when taken off to prison, cry when they are reunited, and sing through the bars is to be privy to something much greater than the presence of heroes. Their momentous acts no less influential for having human actors.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I read awhile ago and thought it would be good to re-read about the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and what Howard Zinn calls the "Negro uprising" of the 1960's, given that we are now witnessing a similar spontaneous movement known as Black Lives Matter. Zinn wrote this before the after-the-fact term "Civil Rights Movement" was applied and the prettified story of Dr King and his "I have a dream speech" became the only history to be told. In the middle of an unprecedented revolt of young Black and white college students who went into the deep south of the US to test the new public transportation laws and encourage Black people to demand their right to vote. Zinn writes in the present tense about President Kennedy, his brother and Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X - all assassinated before the decade was over.

In the south, southern-born students confronted and northerners met for the first time the Jim Crow system where violence of white police and ordinary white citizens was the norm. Threats, economic and physical punishments, evictions and murder enforced the racial code called "our way of life" by the white population. These same things became the impetus for many to join the revolt. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a middle-aged widow, for example, went to register to vote and was evicted and fired from her job of 18 years. She joined SNCC as one of the few older members. In counties where Black people outnumbered whites, it was normal to see only 2% of the Black population registered to vote, while the majority of whites were. There was no representation, no Black candidates, no political voice.

The first two thirds of the book are dedicated to the blow-by-blow (literally), city-by-city progression of the students, beginning in the "border" states of the north, then heading into the deep south. It covers the formation and growth of the organization, their initial adoption of non-violence as a guiding principle, the progress and setbacks they experienced. There were assassinations, executions and murders of SNCC members, of ordinary Black folks who gave them shelter or followed their advice to try to register to vote. Houses bombed. Churches burned to the ground. Beatings, extended incarceration in medieval jails with hot boxes and hard labor. Dogs unleashed. Seiges of communities to starve them back into submission. Fixed trials, trumped up charges, defiance of federal law and silence from a federal government who sent "observers" to report back to President Kennedy and then Johnson after Kennedy was assassinated. The violence at times was uncomfortable to read. In the closing chapter, Zinn places the non-violence approach in context with the violence perpetrated against them and questions how durable non-vioence is. He himself was a bombadier in WWII.

Then there is a chapter on "The White Man in the Movement," where Zinn details the open discussions and intentional choice to have Black leadership in SNCC. (A white student movement in the north to educate their peers on white college campuses on the issues was also formed.) This is a good example of handling an issue being faced anew by today's movement. In the 60's, it was a practical matter, because segregation and white oppression made the Black populations of the South extremely skeptical of white people. So door-to-door canvassing was done in mixed pairs, with a Black SNCC member working alongside a white one. Zinn mentions later that working alongside others of a different race was a new experience for most, and was in itself life-changing. Segregation breeds unfamiliarity. But inter-racial friendships--even marriages--happened within SNCC.

Following that is a chapter on the federal government's reticence to intervene based on legal reasoning that was challenged by many attorneys and law professors who joined SNCC to provide legal assistance in getting members out of jail and challenging the federal claims of lack of jurisdiction. Back then, as now, practices like voter suppression come down to states' rights vs federalism. The cases cited by SNCC lawyers make it clear that going back to the days of the forefathers, the federal government has the responsibility to ensure federal civil rights for all citizens in all states. At that time--as now--states defied the Supreme Court rulings and that planted the seeds of animosity against the courts. The states that seceded from the Union and fought against it never really gave up, and still pit themselves against the federalist system established by the Constitution. The Civil War was unfinished, as history shows: Lincoln assassinated, Reconstruction lasted only 12 years, Jim Crow laws in the south and an unwrritten agreement that the federal government would look the other way - that's what the "Negro uprising" was up against.

The next chapter is, I think, beautifully written and my favorite. It is titled "The Revolution Beyond Race," and says, in part:
"There are many things to criticize about SNCC...But the young people in SNCC have two crucial qualities which override everything else. First, they are as compassionate and brave as human beings with human failings can be, and they form a ragged, incorrputible front line in the struggle to abolish racism in the United States. And second, they nurture a vision of revolution beyond race, against other forms of injustice, challenging the entire value system of the nation and of smug middle-class society everywhere.
"This vision beyond race is dimly and unevenly perceived by the people in SNCC, and there is much uncertainty about the specifics. Perhaps I am speaking of an emotional force more than anything else, born in that terrible and special anguish with which youth discovers evil in the world. But the emotion is informed by a rough intelligence that comes somewhat from reading, more from thinking, and most from being inside the marrow of the nation's shame. SNCC's radicalism has the advantage of being free from dogma and tradition, uncluttered by clichés, seeing the world afresh with the eyes of a new generation."

Zinn then goes on to quote John Lewis' speech he prepared for the march in Washington DC - a portion he was pressured to cut out by others, a portion much like what Dr King said in smaller gatherings:
"We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses must bring them about. In the struggle we must seek more than mere civil rights, we must work for the community of love, peace and true brotherhood. Our minds, souls and hearts cannot rest until freedom and justice exist for all the people."

John Lewis is just one of the people who began their careers in SNCC. The a capella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, came out of SNCC. They dedicate a song to Ella Baker, who had five decades of activism with SNCC, the SCLC and NAACP and on the Free Angela Davis campaign until her death at 83. Fannie Lou Hamer, born the 20th child in her family of share-croppers was inducted posthumously to the Women's Hall of Fame for her work with SNCC and continuing work against segregation and vote suppression. Also Julian Bond, who went on to become a Georgia congressman and Chairman of the NAACP started with SNCC. Bob Moses, an influential leader of the group, went into education and math literacy and along with Charles Cobb published a few books. Many professors, politicians, authors and lifelong activists came out of the organization.

After reading this, it's clear the absolute devotion to voting rights as sacrosanct to those familiar with the movement to secure them. The sacrifices are unfathomable, especially since this history is so hidden. Also unknown to most Americans--touched on by Zinn--is how the African continent was having its own uprising, and there were great suspicions of collusion--and, in fact, there was a movement which Zinn does not touch on of Pan-Africanism that many believe were behind assassinations in the US and Africa. "Fear of a Black planet" as someone said drove even white liberals to suspicion of SNCC. Even--as Zinn notes--those who vehemently opposed McCarthyism shared the suspicion that SNCC was a cover for Communism (this is a common charge against Black Lives Matter now).

As always, few Americans know that there were marches and outcries around the world against the treatment of African Americans exercising what is known to be a right of protest and petition for redress embodied in our Constitution and inherent in the relationship of most governments to the governed. There still are. We should at least know ourselves what others know about our history, including African Americans and allies who experienced the "Negro uprising" firsthand. Re-reading this gave me a needed perspective - a longer view and a clearer vision of the struggles today, especially the urgency of young people. I wish more of them knew this history, and especially wish their critics understood the context of what's happening now and how predictably trite their resistance is. There's hope that this time will be the "Revolution Beyond Race" Lewis and King talked about.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zinn gives us a wonderful boots-on-the-ground look at SNCC, its operations, people, goal and impact. Each chapter covers a specific zone of SNCC's operations. Typically, a few SNCC people (often fresh out of high school or college) would arrive in a southern town, set up a field office, and begin the difficult work of voter registration. The response was always some kind of violence, although the specifics and extent of this violence varied in each place. One comes away with a jaw-dropping sense of just how mean the South of the early 1960's was: bombings, shootings, beatings, jailings and intimidation followed SNCC everywhere. These did not occur in isolated, discrete events, but in a steady, bloody stream of cruelty and hate.

Zinn's angle (as someone who witnessed first hand and participated in SNCC's efforts) is a nice mixture between journalism, personal involvement and clean history, though he tends to keep himself in the background. He closes with a powerful discussion about the relationship between law, social change and the role of the federal government under Johnson/Kennedy. Like John Lewis, he argues that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was wholly unnecessary- the Federal Government already had the powers it needed to protect the Constitutional rights of southern blacks and Civil Rights activists, but vacillated to pressure from southern Democrats.

It's a short, easy read that has no boring parts. I highly recommend it to anyone studying history, Civil Rights or political movements. This is a must read for young people interested in movements, and frankly Americans in general. With what Michelle Alexander has dubbed "New Jim Crow", racist policing and excessive jailing, the events in Ferguson and elsewhere, an (re-)examination of the Civil Rights movement is essential.

[Note: this text was written in 1964, so it does not cover the full history of SNCC, say under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael, or the tumultuous rise of a black power outlook that coincided with it.]

[Rob Bauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book for a couple reasons. First, the author was a participant in some of the events it discusses. That's an angle you typically don't get in a history book, but when the author is a combination of participant, observer, and historian, typically, good things follow.

This book offers short biographical sketches of several members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), among the most important of all organizations in the civil rights movement. SNCC's dual strategies of direct action protest and training local people to lead their own movement resulted in an array of young people, nearly all younger than 25 when they joined the organization, who helped remake the United States in the first half of the 1960s. Many of the heroes of SNCC are here, including John Lewis, Bob Moses, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Bob Zellner, but the reader will also meet some of SNCC's less-known figures who fought for racial justice in Mississippi, Alabama, and SW Georgia.

Another interesting thing about this book is that it is not a comprehensive history of SNCC. Zinn published his work in 1964, when the organization was at its height in terms of popularity, morale, and success. This, in part, explains the subtitle, "the New Abolitionists." Therefore, the reader will not learn about the ups and downs of Freedom Summer, the failure of SNCC to unseat the Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention, SNCC's struggles to maintain morale and focus in the second half of the 1960s, or its eventual infiltration by the FBI and final demise. For that, the book In Struggle, by Clayborne Carson, is probably the book of choice.

What the reader will find are accounts of SNCC's work prior to 1964, meaning the sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voting work in Mississippi, and so forth. The work hammers several important themes in its eleven chapters. One is the high morale of SNCC. Because it was not a top-down organization and did not depend on a single, charismatic leader a la SCLC and Martin Luther King, Jr., its field leaders decided their own destiny, their own tactics, and learned through experience. This gave SNCC workers the energy needed to sit in, march, demonstrate, withstand numerous police beatings and jailings, and generally perform their work in the unremittingly hostile environment of the 1960s Deep South.

Another theme is the importance of the interracial character of SNCC. Not only did this show the nation that people of different skin colors could work together for justice, it broke down barriers within the movement as well.

The third theme I'd like to mention is the impotence of the federal government in civil rights activities. Time and again, Zinn relates how various civil rights laws went unenforced, FBI agents failed to prevent the beatings received by SNCC's members during their lawful demonstrations, and how the national government generally shied away from confronting southern defiance of its laws. It's an important reminder that any government, no matter what it calls itself, prefers order to justice.

The main issues of the book are the ones mentioned above: it isn't comprehensive and doesn't cover the whole history of SNCC. Again, if that is what the reader wants, look elsewhere. The writing is generally easy to follow, sticks to main themes rather than minutiae, and provides (sometimes) first-hand perspectives on one of the key organizations of the civil rights movement.

[Dewin Anguas Barnette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an amazing book. I am so thankful this was my first Zinn. He gives such a detailed, realistic portrait of the wonder that is SNCC- both the high points and the down falls. He has the unique vantage point of being an outsider who was there on the inside and saw it all go down. This book offers a close look not just at but into what most other books simply glance at and move on. Even better though are the final two chapters in which he offers his own contemplations on the major points- how nonviolence uses violence to some degree as peace and justice can never exist in complete form together at the same time, how economic distribution is inherently involved and how a complete overhaul of government is necessary, how the upper-class, white representatives cannot possibly represent the whole. Basically, he describes our world today, painfully depicting the fact that not much has changed in sixty years and that we have allowed our country to become a place where, as Ralph Allen said, "...everyone has so much money they have no sensitivity- no love, no sympathy, and no hopes beyond their own narrow little worlds." SNCC brought that hope. SNCC was, in my opinion, the most honest, focused, consistent, and revolutionary group of people in American history, a history which, as beautifully described by Zinn, "seems to be a kind of stumbling through the darkness, continually banging into the furniture of the universe, and able to tell where we have been only by counting our bruises." We need a SNCC for this new millenium. Otherwise, we are going to have a lot of bruises to count.

[Paul Deane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A general history of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi.

Zinn provides the whos, whats and hows of SNCC in the early and mid 1960's providing a moving story about SNCC. But he also elaborates the philosophy and policies behind the stories which gives more meaning.

SNCC was confrontational rather than accomodational like mainstream Civil Rights organizations like NAACP, Core, and Martin Luther King's SLCC. A good example was SNCC's opposition to accepting two at large seats for Blacks at the 1964 Democratic Convention and fighting for seating delegates from the Mississippi Freedom and Democratic Party (MFDP). Fighting the suppression of black votes as represented by MFDP was more important than accommodating allies and having a tangible win such as having two delegates.

The SNCC narrative by Zinn delineates the differences between the civil rights fight in the larger urban areas such as Atlanta and the rural small towns. The rural effort encountered much more violence and few if any outright victories in the efforts to register voters. But by enduring the battles and representing the blacks living in rural Mississippi, SNCC showed that there was a legitimate right to vote and that the white supremacists would be fought. The confrontations were more important.

A great book for understanding more about civil rights history after more general texts a read.

[Brittany]

It's pretty neat that this book was written as history was unfolding, and that the author was involved in some of these events with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee ! As with many books on abolition and organizing, this remains a timely read for us in 2025 :)

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1964, this is important reading and still so relevant to what is happening today.

[Paul Sheckarski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a new hero in Charles Sherrod after reading this book.

Powerful and affecting work. I hope I go back and revisit my annotations at some point.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent contemporary history of SNCC, written in 1964. Highly recommend for anyone interested in that era. A-

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my second Howard Zinn. It sheds light on Civil Rights Struggle in the early 1960s. It talks about the freedom riders, freedom walks, and SNCC workers going into the deep south to organize and register black folks to vote. Zinn talks about the absurdity of the lack of justice system. How the Federal government created inalienable rights but did not create a body to enforce them. The Kennedy administration declared that it was up to local law enforcement to enforce anti discrimination practices in the south. But those law enforcement people were white and racist. And when SNCC set up not violent actions next to federal buildings, where it would seem logical that government officials could intervene to stop the organizers from being slaughtered, nothing happened. They still got slaughtered for handing out sandwiches. I know this is 40 years ago. but it still seems relevant. People are fucked everyday by the justice system and there is no avenues of redress no methods of immediate action that can be undertaken for murder, hate and discrimination. It makes me sick.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was awesome.

The first portion of the book is devoted to recounting the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in working towards an integrated, equal society and the violent repression they were met with. Zinn does this in a cool, matter of fact style much like a reporter recounting a days events. The extreme violence, repression and sacrifice SNCC workers and the communities they worked in endured during voter registration efforts should serve as a reminder why the Voting Rights Act and its federal oversight of voting laws in the South is still relevant.

When Zinn gets to the end of the book and offers his own narrative and perspective there is some really powerful stuff in there. Already being acquainted with a lot of the civil rights movement and SNCC's role in it, this was my favorite portion of the book. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the civil rights movement, racism, or US history in general.

[Naima · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible story! Never have I read such a thorough story about SNCC before. What I was especially drawn to was the inaction and really, the failure of the Justice Department and both the Kennedy and Johnson administration in its ability to act and respond to protect Black citizens in the Deep South. Really it's inaction and neutrality gave power to White Supremacy and this is not recorded in either Presidents legacy.

But what a brave group of young folks who really dedicated their lives to the movement, to loving each other and to fighting for each other. Thank you Howard Zinn for re-introducing us to these empowering people.

[Warren Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Talk about being 'there' on the front line is an under statement. Dr. Zinn writes as one who was there and he was there, and he makes you feel you were there. We see young people coming of age in an apartheid moment in the United Staes that set examples for non-violent protest world-wide. These young people he writes about in the 1960s are now our "Circle of Elders." Stilling living they are our wise counsel to this young generation of new abolitionist.

[staceyzh · Rating 3 out of 5]

"most of those troubled students don't even know why they are dissatisfied. But it may very well be that...higher education is divorced from the life-or-death problems of this century, that colleges play with social issues, examine them at a distance, talk endlessly about them, but never live with them."

the kind of inspired writing that only come about when one bore witness and felt its bits and pieces. largely uncritical but hard to do in '64

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical writing documenting the civil rights movement of the 1960s as it was happening, with blow-by-blow accounts of sit-ins and freedom rides to protests in Hattiesburg and Selma. Zinn taught at historically black colleges like Spellman and was close to events and saw his students' protests, so he was not a simple disinterested viewer. Very good up close look at the civil rights movement.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice short book about SNCC and Zinn's history with them. written in 1964, so it comes from a very particular political landscape and doesn't much go beyond freedom songs and nonviolent civil disobedience. period piece.

[Matteo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Zinn's account of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the shock troops of the Civil Rights Movement

[James Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was Howard Zinn's first book. Written almost as soon as the history happened. No benefit of hindsight, just incisive, clear headed analysis.

[Tunde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great historical account of the founding and history of SNCC. Learned a great deal.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting first-hand by a historian.