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Project Connects Civil Rights Activists To Young Organizers Of Today

Duke University has teamed up with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Legacy Project to connect today’s young organizers with activists of the civil rights era. The project is called “SNCC Digital Gateway,” and its aim is to pass on informational wealth from the organizers of SNCC to the young people of today, to help inform their activism. Instead of solely taking information from the SNCC activists, researchers treated the activists as partners and fellow scholars in their collaboration on this project.Host Frank Stasio talks to Charlie Cobb, former SNCC field secretary, author and journalist, Wesley Hogan, SNCC scholar and director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, and Ajamu Dillahunt Holloway, student and young organizer, to talk about their collaborative project, 'SNCC Digital Gateway'.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Charlie Cobb, former SNCC field secretary and journalist. Cobb has authored multiple books, including “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible” (Duke University Press/2015). Cobb shares stories from his days in SNCC and outlines some common misconceptions about the civil rights movement.

Stasio also talks to Wesley Hogan, SNCC scholar and director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. She’s also a research professor at the Franklin Humanities Institute. And Ajamu Dillahunt Holloway joins the conversation to share his experience as a young organizer. Holloway is a junior at North Carolina Central University, a member of the Black Youth Project 100 Durham chapter, and an intern with the SNCC Digital Gateway Project. A two-day symposium about the SNCC Digital Gateway begins Friday, March 23 at Duke University. 

A 2015 conference between youth activists and SNCC. From left: Charlene Carruthers, Alicia Garza, Cristina Jimenez, Derrick Johnson, William Barber III, Phil Agnew.
Courtesy of SNCC Digital Gateway. /
A 2015 conference between youth activists and SNCC. From left: Charlene Carruthers, Alicia Garza, Cristina Jimenez, Derrick Johnson, William Barber III, Phil Agnew.
Charlie Cobb, 1962.
Courtesy of SNCC Digital Gateway. /
Charlie Cobb, 1962.
Charlie Cobb, 2017.
Courtesy of SNCC Digital Gateway. /
Charlie Cobb, 2017.

Copyright 2018 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Amanda Magnus grew up in Maryland and went to high school in Baltimore. She became interested in radio after an elective course in the NYU journalism department. She got her start at Sirius XM Satellite Radio, but she knew public radio was for her when she interned at WNYC. She later moved to Madison, where she worked at Wisconsin Public Radio for six years. In her time there, she helped create an afternoon drive news magazine show, called Central Time. She also produced several series, including one on Native American life in Wisconsin. She spends her free time running, hiking, and roller skating. She also loves scary movies.