What was the full name of SNCC, the student-led civil-rights organization founded in 1960?

SNCC stood for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a student-led civil-rights organization founded in 1960.

The group emerged from a conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, in April 1960. Ella Baker helped encourage students involved in lunch-counter sit-ins to create an independent organization rather than simply join an older civil-rights group. The committee initially emphasized direct action, local leadership, and participatory democracy.

SNCC workers supported sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voter-registration drives, and Freedom Summer. The organization developed strong bases in the Deep South and helped train young activists who faced arrests, beatings, shootings, and other intimidation.

SNCC’s politics changed over time. Early work centered on interracial nonviolent organizing, while later leaders increasingly emphasized Black self-determination and Black Power. The organization remained an important force in the movement through the 1960s, even as its membership and strategies evolved.