The Albany Movement formed in 1961 in Albany, Georgia, as a collaboration between local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). It became the first major initiative of the civil rights movement to try to desegregate an entire city. In this excerpt from CBS News Eyewitness: The Albany Movement, broadcast on August 3, 1962, teenage demonstrators are arrested for singing and praying in front of the public library—the SNCC Freedom Singers originated in this movement—and SCLC’s executive director, Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker (b. 1929), discusses the intent of nonviolent direct action.

Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Courtesy of CBS News

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