Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

===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>