US civil rights veterans pass torch to younger generation

Robert Moses, 75, a legendary leader and organiser in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement, was huddled with a dozen people discussing plans for a campaign to make quality education a constitutional right. On one side was his son Omowale, 38. Next to Omo was John Doar, 89, head of the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department in 1960-67 and prosecutor of the major civil rights cases of that era. The age differences were noticeable at the conference they attended this month in Raleigh, North Carolina, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It was a moment for the "elders" - as high school and college students at the conference called them - to pass the torch to a new generation of activists. SNCC, or "snick", as it was known, was founded on the campus of a black college, Shaw University in Raleigh, to coordinate the Southern student civil rights movement. A few months earlier, four black students had "sat-in" and demanded service at a lunch counter at a Greensboro, NC Woolworth's department store that reserved stools for whites. The management refused. On succeeding days, more students joined them. As word spread, other college students staged "sit-ins" around the South.