Black SNCC members had been dealing with the harshness of Mississippi racism for years. They had been constantly bombarded with brutality by their white neighbors while in other states, atleast some progress was being made for the fight for equality.
Everyday these members saw death and threats and it affected them greatly. They no longer trusted white people, and I really cannot blame them considering the things they had to deal with. When white members of SNCC offered to help with the cause of Freedom summer. The black members were bitter towards them. They no longer felt the hope that they had at the beginning of their protests, their spirits had literally been beaten down. As McAdam says "How can one withstand the type of virulent racism endured by these workers without hating a bit oneself?" (33)
Yet the white members were key in making all of America recognize the horrific events that were caused by such ignorant racism. McAdams puts it nicely when he says "The logic ran as follows: if the murders, beatings, and jailings SNCC workers had endured in Mississippi had not been enough to stir public attention, perhaps America- and, in turn, the federal government- would take notice if those being beaten and shot were the sons and daughters of privileged white America.
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Your comment gets at exactly why the strategy of the SNCC workers was so effective in gaining public attention, and in attempting to generate some sort of momentum for direct action on broader scale in a very difficult situation. These activists ultimately to involve all levels of government in finding solutions to end the violence, and make democracy a reality, by creating that democracy. That is, their work on voter registration projects and on alternative schools was designed with equipping black Mississippians with the knowledge they needed to have a voice in their government and society, to truly make them participants, because on the state level, they were the majority population. This simple demographic fact explains why the battles for simple inclusion were so fierce in Mississippi. The whole state was being run--economically, politically, socially--for the benefit of a few wealthy whites, and they did not want to give up their power at all. They did not even want the basis on which they exercised power to be questioned, and even more so, used the idea of white supremacy to have working-class and poor whites act against their own economic interests by promoting violence. An enormous gap in all this controversy and violence is the absence of native white middle-class Southerners, who could have provided some voice of reason and at least moderation, if they had not let themselves be intimidated into maintaining the status quo. The student volunteers stepped in where their Mississippi peers were afraid to act.
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