Mike Miller: A SNCC veteran reflects on what strengthens community… and what can tear it apart.

Lynn Burnett: On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d86iAfbD-ZM&t=7s" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">our SNCC panel the other week</a>, you told a powerful story about <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/bob-moses/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Bob Moses</a>. You were talking with him shortly before he died, and he was reflecting on what might have kept SNCC together after the crushing defeat of the <a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/alliances-relationships/mfdp/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party</a> (MFDP). Can you talk about the sense of defeat and the bitterness and division within SNCC afterwards, and Bob’s reflections on that? Mike Miller: Well, as you said, the defeat of SNCC’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenge to the 1964 Democratic Party Convention was crushing. Most of us in SNCC at that time anticipated that we were going to win. We did not understand Lyndon Johnson’s power and his ability to peel off votes that we thought we had in the credentials committee. I personally think that our not knowing how to deal with defeat was even more important than our mistaken analysis of what would happen. <a href="https://burnett-lynn.medium.com/mike-miller-a-sncc-veteran-reflects-on-what-strengthens-community-and-what-can-tear-it-apart-a12f823e5bae">Visit Now</a>