“SNCC: The New Abolitionists is a book by Howard Zinn that describes the early years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and their registering of voters in the rural south. This book describes the SNCC, focusing especially on the early years. Zinn details in particular the voting registration efforts by black activists in the most recalcitrant areas of the South, as well as the federal government’s failure to support their efforts. Zinn highlighted the role of civil disobedience as a countermeasure to state repression. Martin Duberman describes this book and its reception in his biography Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left. Duberman notes that Zinn received largely positive reviews at time of publication, and he describes the book as among Zinn’s best. Duberman writes that the book is passionately argued, intense, and persuasive, though it has a few peripheral problems. Duberman critiques the non-chronological structure of…