Northern Student Movement

Launched in the fall of 1961 by Peter Countryman and a committee of the Student Christian Movement in New England, the Northern Student Movement (NSM) grew from a loose group of campus organizations raising funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its student-led civil rights initiatives in the South, to student-run tutorial programs in blighted urban areas accessible to college campuses in the Northeast, and to a federation of community action projects in the black ghettos of eight Northern cities. William Strickland succeeded Countryman as executive director in September 1963.

NSM encompassed the tutorial programs and community groups it joined or helped foster. By the fall of 1963, it had a staff of fifty fulltime activists and more than 2,500 student volunteers. Its year-round tutorial programs, with some 4000 tutors and 5000 elementary and high school students, emphasized one-on-one instruction. Its community action projects, including the Boston Action Group, the North End Community Action Project in Hartford, the NSM Freedom Library in Philadelphia, the Harlem Action Group in New York and the Adult Community Movement for Equality in Detroit, organized consumer boycotts against companies that discriminated against blacks; led rent strikes and civil rights demonstrations; organized "Freedom Libraries," leadership training programs for high school dropouts, and African-American history workshops to foster black pride; helped launch several community newspapers, and enlisted local youth to transform vacant lots into neighborhood parks and playgrounds.

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