Mitch Snyder papers

Mitch Snyder (1943-1990) is known mostly for his work advocating for the rights of homeless people and specifically as a leader of the Community For Creative Non-Violence (CCNV). CCNV began in the early 1970s as an anti-war group and evolved into an organization that provides food, clothing, shelter, and educational programs for the poor and homeless. Towards his goal of improving the lives of homeless people, Snyder employed non-violent confrontational protest tactics aimed at shocking the public and drawing media attention to this cause. These protest tactics included building occupation, construction of a tent city in Lafayette Park, vandalism, and hunger strikes.

During his time in prison, Snyder converted to Christianity and fully embrace a radical Catholic form of social protest. Snyder served two years in federal prison, 1970-1972, for violating the Dyer Act. While in prison at the Danbury Correctional facility in Danbury Connecticut, he met the radical anti-war Catholic Priest Daniel Berrigan and like Berrigan, Snyder became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and the treatment of prisoners in federal correctional facilities. His protest methods included prisoner work strikes and hunger strikes. The political and spiritual conversion he experienced in prison shaped his life.

In 1973, Snyder came to Washington, D.C. to work with CCNV as an anti-war protester. As the Vietnam war ended, CCNV began to administer a soup kitchen, two hospitality houses, and a medical clinic. The goal of CCNV became ". . . the task of securing adequate, accessible space, offered in an atmosphere of reasonable dignity, for every man, woman, and child in need of shelter." In 1978, Snyder began a hunger strike in an attempt to convince the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown to divert a portion of the money parishioners raised for building renovations to support the establishment of a homeless shelter. The Church did not make the commitment, but Snyder's hunger strike received media attention and opened the debate on the issue of homelessness in America. During his lifetime Snyder would participate in numerous hunger strikes. Snyder's celebrity as the leading advocate for the homeless reached its zenith in 1986 when Martin Sheen played him in the movie "Samaritan, The Mitch Snyder Story." Mitch Snyder died by suicide in 1990.