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• 1 2020-04-03T21:33:03+00:00 SNCC and the Spread of Global Freedom (Kyle Yuan) 30 plain 2020-04-17T00:09:52+00:00

  Introduction:

  While the Civil Rights Movement is mostly taught in classes with a primarily national scope, the international aspect of the Civil Rights Movement is integral to understanding the true complexity of the movement. Nikhil Pal Singh, a critical American studies scholar, argues in his book Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy for this international scope. He claims, “… the heterogeneous patterns and epistemologies of intranational racial differentiation were recast by [World War II] at new scales of association and influence. Black activists and intellectuals subsequently embraced new national and global conceptions of black struggle with surprising intensity, unanimity, and radicalism” (Singh 118, Ftn. 1). Singh argues that after World War II, black freedom dreamers looked through an international scope in order to fight for freedom.
  
  However, Jill Lepore, a prominent American historian at Harvard, is another historian participating in the debate between whether to focus on a global perspective of history, or to emphasize a national perspective. She argues in her article “A New Americanism” for a composite nation and the importance of looking at American history through the spreading of democratic ideals, albeit at only the national scope. The idea of a composite nation that Lepore focuses on was brought up by Frederick Douglass and emphasizes that while the United States is uniquely diverse with different races and ethnicities, the composite nation encourages inclusivity. Although a singular national identity based on race and ethnicity is impossible due to the diversity, a national identity supporting democratic ideals would bring all different races and ethnicities together under a single identity. She cites Carl Degler’s book Out of our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern History in her article as a primary example of how American history should be written. She states that the book was heavily influenced by W.E.B. Du Bois, and “placed race, slavery, segregation, and civil rights at the center of the story, alongside liberty, rights, revolution, freedom, and equality.” (Lepore, Ftn. 2).
  
  Although Singh and Lepore are on opposite sides of the historical debate between emphasizing the national vs international perspectives, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) practiced ideas presented by both historians during the Civil Rights Movement. While taking pride in being a grassroots movement in the American South emphasizing a national spread of democratic ideals, it also focused on global freedom dreams and spreading these democratic ideals over a large, global scope.

  Document 1:

  The first document is a written statement by SNCC denouncing American involvement in the Vietnam War. The statement addresses Samuel Younge, a Vietnam Navy veteran and SNCC worker who was shot and killed after attempting to use a whites-only bathroom. The day of his death, Younge led 40 other men into a local courthouse to register to vote, but was stopped by two registrars who took out knives and threatened to stab them to death. More can be learned about Samuel Younge on the SNCC digital gateway. This written statement by SNCC demonstrates how the organization viewed the Civil Rights as a global movement by connecting the black experience with the Vietnamese experience. “We believe the United States has been deceptive in its claims of concern for the freedom of the Vietnamese people, just as the government has been deceptive in claiming concern for the freedom of colored people in such other countries as the Dominican Republic, the Congo, South Africa, Rhodesia, and in the United States itself. This quote represents SNCC’s fight for freedom and democratic ideals on both the national scope and the international scope, connecting it to Singh’s idea of global freedom, but also connecting it to Lepore’s idea of fighting for democratic ideals in the United States itself.
   

  Document 2:

  
  The second document depicts police officers dragging the chairman of SNCC, John Lewis, after he “arrested himself” after police officers arrested 21 other people during a meeting with Kenyan minister of home affairs Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence. Mr. Odinga was given a tour of Atlanta while visiting the United States just after Kenya’s new membership to the United Nations. James Foreman, a prominent Civil Rights activist involved with SNCC, recalls the meeting that took place between SNCC and Mr. Odinga in Timothy Lovelace’s article Making the World in Atlanta’s Image. He states, “A group of us went to the Peachtree Manor where he [Mr. Odinga] was staying, brought him gifts, sang freedom songs and chanted ‘Uhuru’ –freedom– with him.” During the meeting, they went on to a Toddle House and Forman states, “However,… the Toddle House was a racially segregated establishment. The Toddle House refused to serve the SNCC activists and Odinga, and twenty-one protestors… were arrested.” After this event, Mr. Odinga called American race relations “very pitiful” and stated that the United States “practices segregation– which is what we are fighting in Africa.” This shows how the Civil Rights Movement occurring in the United States was a part of a greater, and larger global freedom struggle. SNCC’s involvement with Mr. Odinga once again emphasizes their commitment toward achieving democratic ideals within the nation, but also shows the global influence on the Civil Rights Movement.

  Teaching:

  Reading and interpreting these two documents reveals why both Singh and Lepore’s arguments are necessary in teaching history. Although Singh and Lepore do have contradictory arguments, SNCC’s involvement in the Civil Rights Era demonstrates how both perspectives are important toward understanding the Civil Rights Movement in all of its complexity. Without one or the other perspectives, key information would be missing about the Civil Rights Movement, which could lead to a skewed perspective of race relations, especially in contemporary politics. Additionally, SNCC demonstrates that at the core, Singh’s global black freedom dreams and Lepore’s liberal nationalism essentially argue for the same thing: the spread of freedom and democratic ideals. SNCC was able to effectively bridge the gap between these two perspectives by using the influence of foreign nations to help the fight for freedom and democratic ideals within the United States. SNCC viewed the Civil Rights Movement as a global freedom struggle and used that fact to further advance the freedom struggle locally in America, demonstrating elements of both Lepore and Singh’s arguments. The importance of both perspectives is crucial to teaching and understanding our own history as a whole.

  Notes:

  Digital Research Process