This historical marker commemorates the April 1960 meeting of student civil rights leaders at Shaw University that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The meeting was a response by students under the leadership of Ella Baker in response to the Greensboro Sit-In that began on February 1, 1960. With the success of this sit-in, which eventually led to an end to the Woolworth's lunch counter's policy of racial discrimination, other protests spread throughout North Carolina and other Border South communities. Many of the students who participated in the formation of SNCC became leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, school environments changed. The Supreme Court decision in the Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education played a crucial part in integrating the school systems not only in North Carolina, but in the nation. However, some people, both Black and white, were reluctant. With the help of the NAACP, the African Americans in the Charlotte area and its surroundings became a focal point in the movement to equal rights. The battle to desegregate in North Carolina was not easily won, through the many plans and protests, the Supreme Court made the final decision.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination of African Americans in the workplace often took place. In the case of Griggs versus Duke Power, the cause for action came when Duke Power was administering intellectual tests and demanding high school diplomas in order for initial hire. This was not new to the South, who until 1964, got away with giving difficult tests as a way to monitor who gained employment and who did not. Throughout the case, many times were the plaintiffs told there was nothing that could be done because the defendant was acting under legal laws. However, when it was brought before the Supreme Court, those rulings were turned upside down.

This community organization was established by Van Jones and Diana Frappier in 1996 to support initiatives that would advance racial and economic justice and create opportunities for low-income people and people of color. The Center is named in honor of civil rights leader Ella Baker who was the lead organizer of Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the founding organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC and SCLC were two of the most influential civil rights organizations in American history.