Mississippi Freedom Summer

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Mississippi Freedom Summer

• A 1964 CR campaign by SNCC and CORE
• Brought more than a thousand Northerners, black
  and white, to Mississippi.
• Along with Mississippians, worked on voter
  registration and community education.

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• Wanted to bring attention to Mississippi, the
  most segregated and violent state in the South
• Only 6.7 eligible Af Am voters registered.
• There is no state with a record that approaches
  in inhumanity, murder, brutality, and racial
  hatred. It is absolutely at the bottom of the
  list. Medger Evers

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Bob Moses, SNCC, Freedom Summer.
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Planning

• Freedom Summer volunteers were told that their
  job would not be "save the Mississippi Negro" but
  to work with local leadership.
• Included doctors, lawyers, ministers, and college
  students.
• Volunteers trained in Oxford, Ohio to prepare
  them for nonviolent action.

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Training activists in the practice of nonviolence
in Oxford, Ohio.
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• For many of you, this will be the first
  experience with a totalitarian state," he said.
  "In Mississippi, remember that your word isn't
  worth anything. You are an incompetent witness in
  your own case. You are presumed guilty.
  African-American lawyer, 1964

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(No Transcript)
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Students saying goodbye after Ohio training
session.
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Mississippi Reaction

• Called the invasion by Southern whites, who
  reacted with violence.
• Over the course of the ten-week project
• 4 CR workers killed
• 4 were critically wounded
• 80 Freedom Summer workers were beaten
• 1000 people were arrested (volunteers and locals)
• 37 churches were bombed
• 30 Black homes/businesses were bombed

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Mississippi Murders

• On June 21, 1964, James Chaney and Michael
  Schwerner, both CORE organizers, and summer
  volunteer Andrew Goodman were arrested.
• Released into a waiting ambush by Klansmen.
• Reported on TV and on newspaper front pages, the
  triple disappearance shocked the nation.
• All three were shot and bodies buried.
• Drew massive media attention to Freedom Summer
  and to Mississippi racism.

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Burned out car belonging to Chaney.
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James Chaney
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Andrew Goodman
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Michael Schwerner
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Summer Volunteers Thoughts After Murders

• Their disappearance, although might have been
  calculated to drive others away from the state
  had just the opposite effect on me and everyone
  else. Whenever an incident like this happensand
  they happen fairly often, although usually not
  this seriouseveryone reacts the same way. They
  become more and more determined to stay in the
  state and fight the evil system that people have
  to live under here
• Interviewer Are you scared?
• Yes, Im very much afraid. Everyone here is.

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Freedom Summer, 1964
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• "All my life Ive been sick and tired ," she
  shakes her head . "Now I'm sick and tired of
  being sick and tired. Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964
• SNCC staff member Dorie Ladner worked in a summer
  project office. She spent sleepless nights taking
  threatening phone calls from segregationists. She
  says she was so frightened, she vomited every
  night after supper. "I suffered from trying to
  dodge white men in pickup trucks, worrying about
  whether or not somebody was going to bomb the
  house where we were sleeping, whether or not we
  were going to get killed.

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Impact

• Before Freedom Summer, the media paid little
  attention to the harassment of black voters in
  the South.
• When white students lives were threatened, the
  media spotlight was turned on the state.
• Freedom Summer focused national attention on
  Mississippi and influenced the passing of the
  Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Mississippi Changing

• The nationwide shame created by Freedom Summer
  haunted Mississippi, but state made slow
  progress.
• It took a decade for black voting to become a
  reality.
• However, in the 1980s and 1990s, Mississippi
  elected more black officials than any other
  state.
• Today, nearly every major city in Mississippi has
  a black mayor, black city councilmen, black
  policemen, judges, and other officials.