[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 113 (Thursday, July 29, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H6440-H6442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    RECOGNIZING 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING 
               COMMITTEE AND THE NATIONAL SIT-IN MOVEMENT

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 1566) recognizing the 50th anniversary of the 
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the pioneering of 
college students whose determination and nonviolent resistance led to 
the desegregation of lunch counters and places of public accommodation 
over a 5-year period.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of the resolution is as follows:

                              H. Res. 1566

       Whereas, on February 1, 1960, 4 students, Joseph McNeil, 
     Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, and David Richmond, attending 
     North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in 
     Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into Woolworth's 
     department store to purchase school supplies and then sat 
     down at the store's lunch counter for coffee;
       Whereas they were refused service at the lunch counter and 
     stayed seated at the counter until the store closed;
       Whereas when they were forced to leave the store, they 
     still had not been served;
       Whereas these same students recruited other students from 
     Bennett College for Women and Dudley High School, and after a 
     few days of sit-ins, protestors filled almost all 66 places 
     at Greensboro's Woolworth's lunch counter, attracting the 
     attention of local reporters;
       Whereas the actions of these 4 North Carolina A&T students 
     sparked a national sit-in movement;
       Whereas by the end of February 1960, there were nonviolent 
     sit-ins in more than 30 communities in 7 States;
       Whereas sit-ins spread to Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Durham, 
     Raleigh, Fayetteville, and other cities in North Carolina;
       Whereas on February 9, students at Smith University in 
     Charlotte, North Carolina, instituted numerous sit-ins with 
     Friendship Junior College students in Rock Hill, South 
     Carolina;
       Whereas most Charlotte lunch counters and restaurants 
     eventually integrated their businesses;
       Whereas North and South Carolina students protested 
     segregation in Rock Hill, South Carolina, to push integration 
     and racial equality within local businesses;
       Whereas on February 11 and 12, sit-ins spread to Hampton, 
     Virginia, and Rock Hill, South Carolina, respectively;
       Whereas on February 25, 40 students tried to sit-in at the 
     Kress store in downtown Orangeburg, South Carolina;
       Whereas Kress's lunch counter was closed and the stools 
     were removed to prevent Blacks from promoting nonviolent 
     resistance by sitting at a ``white-only'' facility;
       Whereas, on March 15, 1960, almost 1,000 students from 
     South Carolina State and Claflin College began a peaceful 
     march downtown to protest segregation and support sit-ins, 
     and were attacked with clubs, tear-gas, and high-pressure 
     fire hoses;
       Whereas almost 400 of the peaceful marchers were forced 
     into a police stockade, it was the largest Freedom Movement 
     mass arrest at that time;
       Whereas, on February 13, 1960, African-American students in 
     Nashville, Tennessee, began a desegregation sit-in campaign 
     called the Nashville Student Movement;
       Whereas racist violence escalated with harassment and 
     beatings and many nonviolent protesters were arrested, 
     overflowing the jails;
       Whereas 81 of the students were convicted of ``disorderly 
     conduct'' and refused to pay the fine and chose instead to 
     serve their time in jail;
       Whereas, on April 19, 1960 the home Alexander Looby, the 
     attorney representing most students in the Nashville Student 
     Movement, was destroyed by a terrorist bomb;
       Whereas the bomb on Looby's home led to a nonviolent march 
     to the Nashville City

[[Page H6441]]

     Hall where student activist Diane Nash confronted Mayor Ben 
     West, forcing him to admit segregation was morally wrong;
       Whereas the Nashville sit-in movement led to it being the 
     first major city to begin desegregation of its public 
     facilities on May 10, 1960;
       Whereas, on February 22, 1960, the Civic Interest Group in 
     Baltimore, Maryland, initiated sit-ins and pickets of 
     department stores, ice cream parlors, and movie theaters;
       Whereas Baltimore restaurants agreed to integrate after a 
     short period of time;
       Whereas Baltimore's Civic Interest Group continued its 
     nonviolent resistance campaign over the next several years to 
     initiate integration of all Baltimore businesses;
       Whereas Atlanta University Center (AUC) students began sit-
     ins on March 15, 1960, after forming the Committee on Appeal 
     for Human Rights that facilitated training sessions and 
     workshops on the tactics of nonviolent resistance;
       Whereas Atlanta students focused on support of Atlanta's 
     African-American community to initiate boycott of all 
     segregated stores;
       Whereas by September of 1961, many Atlanta store owners 
     desegregated their lunch counters based on the Atlanta 
     students' commitment to integration;
       Whereas, on March 16, 1960, students in Savannah, Georgia, 
     demanded the integration of public facilities and the hiring 
     of African-American clerks and managers within stores;
       Whereas Savannah students won their integration demands by 
     boycotting White-owned downtown stores;
       Whereas sit-ins in Memphis were launched on March 19, 1960, 
     by students from LeMoyne College and Owen Junior College;
       Whereas Memphis students organized sit-ins at the main 
     public library and local department stores;
       Whereas protests in Memphis continued throughout the summer 
     of 1960 and resulted in the integration of the local bus 
     lines and the City's parks;
       Whereas, on March 28, 1960, students from Baton Rouge and 
     New Orleans Southern and Xavier University, respectively, 
     began nonviolent resistant sit-ins;
       Whereas Louisiana student activists were arrested for sit-
     ins, expelled from school and barred from all public colleges 
     and universities within Louisiana;
       Whereas their peers called for a boycott of all classes 
     until the expelled students were reinstated;
       Whereas the Louisiana boycotts continued for years and 
     reached it's height with the Freedom March in September 1963;
       Whereas the civil rights movement principle of peaceful 
     protests spread throughout the South, and the Nation was 
     captivated by the images of young people marching, praying, 
     singing, demonstrating, and in many cases, being met with 
     violence;
       Whereas by July 1960, Woolworth and Kress Stores agreed to 
     serve all ``properly dressed and well behaved people'' 
     regardless of race;
       Whereas on from April 15-17, 1960, with an $800 grant, 126 
     delegates from 58 student sit-in centers and from 12 
     different States, from the North and the South gathered at 
     Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and formed the 
     Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which lead 
     to the national sit-in effort, and helped lead the ``Freedom 
     Rides'' in 1961 and the historic March on Washington in 1963;
       Whereas SNCC was advised by Ella Baker, who was a former 
     member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and 
     worked as a field secretary and director of branches for the 
     National Association of the Advancement of Colored People 
     (NAACP);
       Whereas Ella Baker listened to the students and she 
     encouraged their nonviolent efforts as a quiet leader of a 
     grass-roots effort;
       Whereas SNCC learned from great planners like Jim Forman 
     and A. Philip Randolph, and were inspired by Jim Lawson and 
     Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and developed an unique, agile, 
     determined, and organized approach to nonviolent action, that 
     ultimately forced the desegregation of the South;
       Whereas by the end of April 1960, a sit-in had occurred in 
     every southern State;
       Whereas by August 1961, one and a half years after the 
     inception of the sit-ins, the movement had attracted over 
     70,000 participants and generated over 3,000 arrests;
       Whereas in addition to its goal of desegregating places of 
     public accommodation, SNCC engaged in a voter registration 
     program in some of the most segregated areas of the country;
       Whereas SNCC's voter registration program culminated in 
     1964 with the Mississippi Summer Project, sponsored by the 
     Council of Federated Organizations (SNCC, Congress of Racial 
     Equality (CORE) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
     (SCLC)), during which hundreds of volunteers, Black and 
     White, from the North and South, coordinated and participated 
     in voter registration projects and the formation of Freedom 
     Schools;
       Whereas SNCC organized Freedom Schools which endeavored to 
     eradicate fear and to educate African-Americans about their 
     right to vote and participate in the democratic process;
       Whereas in 1964, SNCC helped organize the Mississippi 
     Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the 
     legitimacy and seating of Mississippi's officially recognized 
     Democratic Party;
       Whereas the national party decision-makers promised 
     expansion of gender and racially based restrictions;
       Whereas in 1972 racially and gender based restrictions were 
     formalized into the McGovern Rules, which outlawed explicitly 
     racist local party affiliates;
       Whereas SNCC facilitated the organization and 
     implementation of the nonviolent protests against 
     segregation;
       Whereas SNCC worked with the NAACP to push the passage of 
     the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and
       Whereas the enthusiasm of the students and the support they 
     garnered for their pacifism in the face of hatred, led to the 
     beginning of integration within the United States and the 
     enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Now, therefore, 
     be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
       (1) recognizes the 50th anniversary of the founding of the 
     Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC);
       (2) recognizes and commemorate the significance and 
     importance of SNCC and its role in organizing the national 
     sit-in movement and the role that they played in the 
     desegregation of United States society and for creating the 
     political climate necessary to pass legislation to expand 
     civil rights and voting rights for all people in the United 
     States;
       (3) encourages the people of the United States to recognize 
     and celebrate the legal victories of the national sit-in 
     movement that sought to eradicate segregation in United 
     States society; and
       (4) aspires to work with the same courage, determination, 
     dignity, and commitment exemplified by those pioneering 
     students who dared to challenge a segregated society by 
     addressing modern-day inequalities and injustice.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee.


                             General Leave

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and add 
extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Student Nonviolent 
Coordinating Committee, better known as SNCC, one of the organizations 
that served as the very foundation of the civil rights movement, the 
movement that brought America closer to its purpose, its established 
goals in the Declaration of Independence, which we had been striving to 
achieve and are still striving to achieve, as a place where there is 
equal opportunity for all people.
  It was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that was 
responsible for conceptualizing and implementing the sit-in movement. 
College students came together in the name of justice and equality to 
desegregate lunch counters and other public places through nonviolent 
demonstrations.
  I recently read a copy of the Smithsonian magazine in which there was 
an article about the sit-in movement. There was an interview with 
Joseph McNeil, one of the four students from North Carolina A&T who 
participated in the sit-ins at Woolworth's department store in 1960. 
While studying engineering physics at North Carolina A&T, Mr. McNeil 
would take the bus from New York to North Carolina and personally 
experience the shift in his status as he went from north to south. As 
an African American, he saw the differences in America traveling those 
distances, differences that should not have been allowed.
  He is quoted in the article saying, ``In Philadelphia, I could eat 
anywhere in the bus station. By Maryland, that had changed.'' And in 
the Greyhound depot in Richmond, Virginia, McNeil couldn't buy a hot 
dog at a food counter reserved for whites. He further explained, ``I 
was still the same person, but I was treated differently. To face this 
kind of experience and not challenge it meant we were part of the 
problem.''
  Well, the problem was America, and America needed changing. SNCC was 
one of the groups that came forth to change America and see that Thomas 
Jefferson's words weren't just words on paper as they were established 
in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence, but the practice of 
America, and that all

[[Page H6442]]

men were created equal and had those inalienable rights.
  In honor of those students' heroic efforts, I would like to make 
three observations regarding their actions and their implications.
  First, these sit-ins and other forms of nonviolent protests changed 
the climate and character of our country forever. As a direct result of 
SNCC sit-ins, protests, and boycotts, cities around the country, the 
South in particular, began to integrate their businesses in 1960, and 
thereafter, paving the way for the entire country to do so.
  SNCC's work was not limited to integration of places of public 
accommodation. SNCC worked with the NAACP to achieve the passage of the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation not only at places 
of public accommodation, but also in schools, in hiring, and in voting 
registration. Shortly thereafter, in the wake of these achievements, 
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  Second, despite SNCC's plethora of victories, their work was not 
easy, uncontroversial, or even safe. Those dedicated students faced 
clubs, tear gas, and high-pressure fire hoses at peaceful marches. Many 
faced harassment and beatings from racial dissenters, and many were 
arrested and even jailed despite their nonviolence. Some lost their 
lives.

                              {time}  0020

  These challenges posed by opposition did not stop SNCC. They 
continued to march, sit in, boycott, and to raise awareness for equal 
treatment and opportunities regardless of race--all shown on 
television--raising America's consciousness in seeing that morality was 
the future of this country.
  For example, in Louisiana, student protesters were expelled from 
schools and were barred from the State's public colleges and 
universities. After the State barred these students from receiving the 
education they deserved, their peers boycotted classes for years.
  The sit-in movement spanned across many States, including my State of 
Tennessee. The Nashville sit-in movement led to its being the first 
major city to begin the desegregation of its public facilities on May 
10 of 1960. In Memphis, students from Le Moyne College and Owen Junior 
College also organized sit-ins at the main public library and local 
department stores.
  Lastly, as I reflect on these important changes of the students that 
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee brought about in our 
country to bring it closer to the democratic ideals on which it was 
founded, I cannot help but be reminded of how far our country still has 
to go to achieve the goals that were set out in the Declaration of 
Independence.
  Glaring inequality still exists in education, housing, health, 
marriage, and other civil rights. America still has a distance to go.
  It is critical that we look to the accomplishments of the SNCC as an 
inspiration to work harder for civil rights that have not yet been met 
and not as a pacifier to convince ourselves that we truly live up to 
the name ``free country.''
  With that said, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Student 
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the sit-in movement that it 
sparked, which really sparked the justice movement in our Nation, I 
urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FORBES. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I support House Resolution 1566. This resolution 
recognizes and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Student 
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which is also known as SNCC, and the 
national sit-in movement in the 1960s.
  The SNCC was a key contributor to the civil rights movement in the 
1960s. The nonviolent aims of the SNCC helped bring about 
desegregation, civil rights, and voting rights for all Americans.
  The SNCC formed under the leadership of Ella Baker at Shaw University 
in Raleigh, North Carolina, in April 1960. A conference was held for 
students to share experiences and to coordinate activities with regard 
to racial equality. As sit-ins occurred throughout the South, the SNCC 
grew into a large organization. By August of 1961, the movement had 
attracted more than 70,000 participants.
  The SNCC's nonviolent sit-ins, boycotts, and protests helped bring 
about the desegregation of places of public accommodation. The SNCC was 
also one of the leaders of the Freedom Rides in 1961 and of the 
historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. SNCC Freedom 
Riders put themselves at great risk by traveling in racially integrated 
groups throughout the South. More than 400 people took part in these 
Freedom Rides throughout the spring and summer of 1961.
  Robert Parris Moses helped transform the SNCC from a student protest 
group to a community-based political organization for the rural poor. 
He led a voter registration project in Mississippi in 1961 that became 
a springboard for similar SNCC activities from 1962 to 1966.
  The SNCC's voter registration efforts culminated in 1964 with the 
Mississippi Summer Project, which was sponsored by the SNCC, by the 
Congress of Racial Equality, and by the Southern Christian Leadership 
Conference. Hundreds of black and white volunteers from the North and 
South participated in voter registration projects.
  The SNCC also organized Freedom Schools for the purpose of 
eradicating fear and educating African Americans about their right to 
vote and to participate in the democratic process.
  Finally, the SNCC worked with the NAACP to bring about the passage of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  It is clear that the nonviolent sit-ins of the students who began the 
SNCC in 1960 inspired others later to take historic steps toward the 
building of racial equality in America, so I urge my colleagues to join 
me in supporting this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                          ____________________