In Struggle: Sncc and the Black Awakening of the 1960s

by Martin Luther King Jr. and Clayborne Carson

Book Overview

With its radical ideology and effective tactics, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was the cutting edge of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. This sympathetic yet evenhanded book records for the first time the complete story of SNCC's evolution, of its successes and its difficulties in the ongoing struggle to end white oppression.

At its birth, SNCC was composed of black college students who shared an ideology...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674447271
• ISBN13: 9780674447271
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

ALMOST BRAND NEW!

In GREAT condition...better than expected. Almost brand new. Great seller. Would definitely consider buying from them again. :)

What would the US be like without them?

This book is a great account of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which was started in 1960 in regard to Segregation on Americas buses and in the Woolworth dining room. This book leaves out no account, and anyone who had anything to do with the movement and SNCC is mentioned in this book. Carson went all out, and I think this book should be required reading in every Civil Rights History course.

Great analysis of black empowerment

This book traces the rise and fall of SNCC:the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the time Carson wrote it, it was one of the few books on the Civil Rights Movement that didn't focus on Martin Luther King and SCLC, and as such provided a welcome addition, even corrective, to the mainstream narrative of the movement. It is also a brilliant analysis of the dynamics of a reform movement and the tensions between leader centered and group centered styles of leadership. The analysis of Bob Moses and his approach to grass roots empowerment is right on target and provides a whole new way for thinking about Freedom Summer and organizing in Mississippi. This book is not for the fainthearted--its academic prose is dense at times and details can be a little confusing for those unfamiliar with SNCC personnel, hence four stars and not five. Nonetheless, it's worth taking time with, and I assign this book regularly for upper level directed studies and recommend it to students for research papers. Whether or not SNCC's achievements were compromised by the antics of former members in the 80s and 90s, Carson's book is a great analysis of its formation, tactics, and dissolution.