RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC, was one of the most effective organizations during the modern Civil Rights Movement. The group was formed to include students in the sit-in movement.
But had it not been for one North Carolina woman, Ella Baker, the group likely would not have existed.
At the oldest building at Shaw University, Estey Hall, 64 years ago a student hatched an idea that changed the world.
Dr. Valerie Johnson, Shaw University’s Dean of Arts, Sciences and Humanities said, civil rights leader Ella Baker was the architect of change.
“She comes from a middle-class family for the most part in Lillington NC,” Dean Johnson said.
Although born in Virginia, her family relocated to Tar Heel State.
“She came first to Shaw Academy, she did high school here,” Dean Johnson said.
She added, “To think of when she came to Shaw University, she was coming into an environment that was more urban than where she was raised.”
While a student at Shaw in Raleigh, during Easter weekend in 1960, Baker hatched an idea that became a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement for young people.
She recognized the importance of students in the sit-in movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — commonly called SNCC, was born.
“Born here… and one of the ways to understand that is to look at the faculty who influenced her. She had a faculty member who influenced her, Max Yergan, who was instrumental in opening the world up to her and helping her see internationally.” Dean Johnson said.
Baker had a vast network, having worked as executive secretary of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
She reportedly convinced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to donate the $800 needed to hold the founding conference for SNCC.
He did so, hoping they would join the SCLC. However, she encouraged the students to start their own organization.
Dean Johnson said, her inspiration came long before she walked this campus.
“That’s why it’s so important to understand the relationship with her mother.”
She said her mother really laid the groundwork for resistance.
“There was an instance where someone, a white man, came to her door and called her auntie. And she said, ‘I don’t recognize you as a part of my family, who’s son are you?’ And refused to accept that,” Dean Johnson said.
And that brave example led to the development of an organization that changed the world.
And it all began in Raleigh at Shaw.