Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America

by Wesley C. Hogan

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee broke open the caste system in the American South between 1960 and 1965. Hogan explores how the organization fostered significant social change in such a short time. She offers new insights into the internal dynamics of SNCC as well as the workings of the larger civil rights and Black Power movement of which it was a part. She shows that SNCC laid the foundation for the emergence of the New Left and created new definitions of political leadership during the civil rights and Vietnam eras. She traces the ways other social movements such as Black Power, women's liberation, and the antiwar movement adapted practices developed within SNCC to apply to their particular causes.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, Feminism, American History

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Robyn White · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on the Civil Rights Movement I have read (and as a history major, I've read quite a few).

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and the Civil Rights movement during the late 1950s and 1960s.

This book talks about how SNCC worked, philosophies, where it failed or had troubles, leaders and members of SNCC, and the affect it had on future movements in the U.S. While talking about the good aspects of SNCC, this book also calls out the not-so-successful aspects, where there was dissent among the group, and how history has overlooked both the positive and negative aspects of the group and its work.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of bizarrely sentimental and the argument falls apart at the end, but competently tells the story of the development of SNCC's political philosophy and how racism (both the escalation of white-supremacist violence and the arrogance and romantic racism of white activists) fragmented and destroyed the organization.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excellent scholarship, but ultimately destined to be read only by other scholars and college students assigned the book. A great topic, but 200 pages was appendices, notes and index. Many good observations on what made the SNCC work and why it eventually dissolved, but very dense, citing too many names, dates, and locations to follow without taking notes.