SNCC and Anti-Racism in Arkansas

In 1962, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as “snick,” sent white Ohioan Bill Hansen to Little Rock. By 1963, most of Little Rock’s downtown stores and public facilities had desegregated. Hansen was director of SNCC’s Arkansas Project that pursued voting rights and black community empowerment from bases in Pine Bluff, Gould, Helena, and Forrest City. You can find out more about SNCC in Arkansas in my book Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas, co-edited with Jennifer Jensen Wallach, and published by the University of Arkansas Press. The book informs a new five-part series currently being broadcast on sister station KUAF in Northwest Arkansas titled “Anti-Racism in Arkansas.” The series can also be downloaded as a podcast.