Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

== 1963 Washington and the Leesburg Stockade ==
===March on Washington===
[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Leaders of the march) - NARA - 542056.jpg|thumb|[[John Lewis]] representing SNCC at the [[Civil Rights March on Washington]] in 1963]]
{{see also|Civil Rights March on Washington}}
Although it is an event largely remembered for King's delivery of his "I Have a Dream" speech, SNCC had a significant role in the 1963 [[March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom]]. But it was at odds with the other sponsoring civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, all of whom were prepared to applaud the Kennedy Administration for its Civil Rights Bill (the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]).

In the version of his speech leaked to the press [[John Lewis]] remarked that those marching for jobs and freedom "have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here—for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages...or no wages at all." He went on to announce:
<blockquote>In good conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights bill. This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses when engaging in peaceful demonstrations. This bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia who must live in constant fear in a police state. This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on trumped-up charges like those in Americus, Georgia, where four young men are in jail, facing a death penalty, for engaging in peaceful protest. I want to know, which side is the federal government on? The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy is trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy, the black masses are on the march for jobs and for freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won't be a "cooling-off period."<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963mow March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive. (N.B.: This text must be from a different source; at least three versions of the speech were written, and this is the earliest of those three, before "we cannot support" was changed to "we cannot wholeheartedly support" and then later "we support with reservations". See James Forman, ''The Making of Black Revolutionaries'' (1971; 1997), pp. 334–37.)</ref></blockquote>

Under pressure from the other groups, changes were made. "We cannot support" the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964#1963 Kennedy civil rights bill|1963 Kennedy Civil Rights Bill]] was re-scripted as "we support with reservations". In the view of the then SNCC executive secretary, [[James Forman]], those who had pushed the change were selling out to the cautious liberal politics of labor-movement leadership and the Catholic and Protestant church hierarchy. "If people had known they had come to Washington to aid the Kennedy administration, they would not have come in the numbers they did."<ref>Forman (1971). p. 335.</ref>

=== Sidelining of women ===
A feature of the march itself, was that men and women were directed to proceed separately and that only male speakers were scheduled to address the [[Lincoln Memorial]] rally. Together with [[Coretta Scott King]] and other the wives of civil  leaders<ref name=":8">{{Cite magazine |last=Scanlon |first=Jennifer |date=2016-03-16 |title=Where Were the Women in the March on Washington? |magazine=The New Republic |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/131587/women-march-washington |access-date=2023-10-12 |issn=0028-6583}}</ref> SNCC staffer and Ella Baker protégé [[Casey Hayden]] found herself walking up Independence Avenue while the media recorded the men marching down Constitution Avenue.<ref>Harold Smith (2015). "Casey Hayden: Gender and the Origins of SNCC, SDS, and the Women's Liberation Movement". In Turner, Elizabeth Hayes; Cole, Stephanie; Sharpless, Rebecca (eds.). ''Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives''. University of Georgia Press. pp. 359–384. {{ISBN|9780820347905}}. p. 374</ref> 

Despite protesting behind the scenes with [[Anna Hedgeman]] (who was to go on to co-found the [[National Organization for Women]]), women were to be featured as singers, but not as speakers.<ref name=":8" /> In the event, a few women were allowed to sit on the [[Lincoln Memorial]] platform and the NAACP's  [[Daisy Bates (activist)|Daisy Bates]], who had been instrumental in the integration of [[Little Rock Central High School]], was permitted a brief tribute to “Negro Women Fighters for Freedom”.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Engel |first=Keri Lynn |date=2022 |title=The Role of Women In the 1963 March on Washington |url=https://amazingwomeninhistory.com/women-in-the-march-on-washington/ |access-date=2023-10-12 |website=amazingwomeninhistory.com |language=en-US}}</ref>  From their “bitterly humiliating” experience in Washington, [[Pauli Murray]], who later coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the double handicap of race and sex, concluded that black women "can no longer postpone or subordinate the fight against discrimination because of sex to the civil rights struggle but must carry on both fights simultaneously.”<ref name=":8" />

=== Leesburg Stockade ===
{{see also|Leesburg Stockade}}

The previous month, July 1963, SNCC was involved in another march that eventually made headlines. With the NAACP in [[Americus, Georgia]], SNCC organized a protest march on a segregated movie theater that concluded with the arrest of upwards of 33 high-school girls. The "Stolen Girls" were imprisoned 45 days without charge in brutal conditions in the Lee County Public Works building, the [[Leesburg Stockade]].<ref name="walb">{{citation|title=Stolen Girls remember 1963 in Leesburg|date=July 24, 2006|publisher=WALB|url=http://www.walb.com/story/5190050/stolen-girls-remember-1963-in-leesburg}}.</ref><ref name="gpb">{{citation|url=http://gpbnews.org/post/girls-leesburg-stockade|title=The Girls Of The Leesburg Stockade|first1=Bradley|last1=George|first2=Grant|last2=Blankenship|date=July 19, 2016|work=GPB News|publisher=[[NPR]]|access-date=December 17, 2019|archive-date=June 16, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200616151447/http://gpbnews.org/post/girls-leesburg-stockade|url-status=dead}}.</ref> It took SNCC photographer [[Danny Lyon]] smuggling himself into the Stockade to publicize the case nationally<ref name="gpb"/><ref name="walb"/><ref name="seeger">{{citation|title=Everybody Says Freedom: A history of the Civil Rights Movement in songs and pictures|first1=Pete|last1=Seeger|author1-link=Pete Seeger|first2=Bob|last2=Reiser|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|year=1989|isbn=9780393306040|page=97|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IgWcpONqgGgC&pg=PA97}}.</ref>