When Students Ignited A Change In Racial Politics : NPR: In the 1960s, a group of student activists headed to the Mississippi Delta to help empower impoverished blacks cowed by the violence and oppression that dominated in the Jim Crow-era South.
'The Delta was the continuation of a feudal system that was a continuation of the aftermath of slavery,' says Lawrence Guyot, who registered black voters in the region during the civil rights era. 'That made it a difficult place to convince local blacks to step up. They were a majority of the population but had no political or economic power.'
Guyot's work was part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a group that turned students into community organizers. In the process, it became one of the most powerful forces of the civil rights movement, incubating national leaders including Georgia Rep. John Lewis and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. As the group marks its 50th anniversary this weekend, Guyot and other veterans of SNCC (known as 'snick') reflect on their efforts to revamp the politics of the Delta, the heart of the Deep South.
