Hands on the Freedom Plow

Fifty-five stories of dedication, terror, rage, and faith make up Hands on the Freedom Plow. These narratives by women, black and white, describe their devotion to the activist Civil Rights work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC—“snick.” I found myself powerfully drawn to accounts with which I was familiar—door-to-door organizing, singing meetings in the hot Mississippi summer, police and Klan assaults, jail time, but above all the solidarity of women (and men) fervent about the cause of achieving “freedom now.” Brief historical overviews of legendary 60s campaigns knit these accounts, as do the short bios that trace the… show more.

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) represented the youthful vanguard of the civil rights movement, those high school and college students who dared to envision a different future and risked their lives daily to make it a reality. In this powerful collection of edited oral histories, fifty-two female SNCC veterans reflect on their experiences. Readers gain a sense of what it felt like to participate in the movement across many distinct locations as well as their perspectives on its most iconic moments and the internal debates among movement activists and organizations. Overall, these testimonies enrich our awareness of women’s civil… show more.