The Southern Student Organizing Committee:
Background Information and Additional Resources

The Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) emerged from a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee in April 1964. During this meeting, a handful of mostly white students from various southern colleges and universities adopted the statement against poverty, racial segregation and discrimination “We’ll Take Our Stand.”

According to a pamphlet published by the SSOC, its goals included:

- Not only an end to segregation and racism but the rise of full and equal opportunity for all;
- An end to personal poverty and deprivation;
- An end to public poverty which leaves us without decent schools, housing, parks, medical care, and communities;
- A democratic society where politics poses meaningful dialogue and choices which affect men’s lives;
- An end to man’s inhumanity to man;
- A world working towards the erasing of tensions of the Cold War with positive emphasis on peace, disarmament, and world-wide understanding.

The Constance W. Curry papers contain materials that provide insight into the formation of the SSOC and its relationship to other organizations, particularly the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Additional resources:

Other repositories/archival holdings:

Emory University, Richard Stevens Collection, 1964-1969
University of Michigan, Labadie Pamphlet Collection
University of Mississippi, Lucy Turnbull Collection, 1962-1970
Vanderbilt University, Nancy Hendrix Collection, 1964-1976
Vanderbilt University, SSOC Reunion artificial collection, 2002
Wisconsin Historical Society, David Nolan Papers, 1960-1987
Wisconsin Historical Society, Lynn Wells Papers, 1967-1975

 

Books:

Michel, Gregg L. Struggle for a Better South: The Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964-1969. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. LA229 .M46 2004.

 

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