March: Book Two

Lewis returns to Nashville, where the Nashville Student Movement is now pursuing fair employment practices. They’re joined by a wider array of activists who don’t always have the same nonviolent priorities as Lewis’s group have. Lewis singles out Stokley Carmichael, whom the central committee invites to continue his style of protest outside of Nashville.

Robert Kennedy suggests that the Nashville Students Movement turn away from direct action and toward registering Black voters; by the end of 1961, Dr. King also endorses this. SNCC decides to split into two factions, one devoted to direct action and the other to registration. Lewis identifies Mississippi as their biggest challenge: 90% of Black families there live below the poverty line, and 5% of eligible voters are registered.

A local Black farmer who is helping register voters is shot by a white member of the state legislature, who is found not guilty. Three SNCC members, both Black and white, lead a protest and are beaten and arrested. Lewis enrolls at Fisk University while continuing to work with SNCC. He notes that many of SNCC’s founding members are gone and he feels like an outsider.

SNCC’s second anniversary in April 1962 is hosted by its new leadership, many of whom argue that they should begin defending themselves.