This summer marks the 52nd anniversary of Freedom Summer, the movement to register and educate black citizens in Mississippi. The campaign, though fraught with violence and not as successful as was hoped by its leaders, was nevertheless a lynchpin in the Civil Rights Movement, and brought the plight of black Americans in the deep South directly into the newsrooms and homes of the American people.
The idea was to flood Mississippi, long known to be one of the most violent and racist states in the South, with volunteers from the North, who would canvass the state and register voters, with the aim of establishing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which would travel to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City at the end of the summer. Other volunteers were tasked with the building of Freedom Schools which would educate the children in black history and constitutional rights, among other things.
Before setting out, volunteers attended a training program run by The Council of Federated Organizations co-director Bob Moses. The volunteers were cautioned many times to be prepared for extreme hostility and violence from the local population of the cities in which they would spend the summer. They were not to respond in kind, they were told, but were to take whatever was thrown at them and move on. They were not there to fight hand to hand in the streets, but to “fight” in the schoolrooms where they would teach, in the churches, front porches, and fields where they would canvass for voters, and in the courthouses, where the black citizens would register.
Almost before the summer even began, things were off to a terrible start. Three volunteers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, were sent to investigate the burning of a black church. As they were leaving the area, they were pulled over by Deputy Cecil Price and taken to the Philadelphia jailhouse, where they were held until nightfall. After their release however, they vanished. Their disappearance triggered a manhunt involving both the Navy and the FBI. Their faces appeared on front pages and television screens across the nation, bringing more focus to Mississippi.
The volunteers who were stationed in the state were sobered by the news, but not broken. “Whenever an incident like this happens… everyone reacts the same way. They become more and more determined to stay in the state and fight… “Said a volunteer. They certainly had a fight on their hands. The white locals were none too happy with the situation and made their feelings very clear. A resident described the volunteers as being viewed with “some curiosity, but mostly resentment.” That summer, 50 volunteers were beaten and over 1,000 arrested. Still, they refused to quit, and continued to canvass for voters and run Freedom Schools.
By summer’s end, 60,000 had registered for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), and a delegation was sent to convention in Atlantic City. The hope was that the party would be picked to represent the state. Instead, they were given two seats at large, which enabled them to observe, but not weigh in on, the proceedings. Fannie Lou Hamer, a prominent member of the MFDP, summed this disappointment up perfectly. “We didn’t come all this way here for no two seats when all of us is tired.” While they did not achieve their primary goal, the struggle and plight of black Mississippi, which had been largely ignored before this, was covered widely the press, not just at the convention, but throughout the entire summer.
As the summer drew to a close and the volunteers departed, back to their respective schools and jobs, it was hard for them to see the fruits of their labor. For all appearances, the state remained as it had at the start. Violence against the black locals still raged on, with no way for them to protect or defend themselves. Segregation still ruled, leading many to remain as poor, downtrodden and uneducated as ever before. But that summer, through their courage, their effort, their refusal to back down in the face of hatred and violence, they had started something. They had forced the rest of the nation to sit up and take notice, to demand an answer as to why their fellow men were being treated in such a deplorable fashion. They had given the black population of Mississippi the power to use the voice they had had all along. They had shown them that they deserved to be treated like anyone else, and had the right to demand that consideration from the powers that be. They had shown them kindness and friendship. The work they did that summer lay the foundation for all that was to come. In time, Mississippi would elect more black officials than any other state.
Freedom summer was a heady mixture of hope, fear, ideology and courage that carried all those it affected through the heat, the violence and the struggle: carried them far beyond that incendiary summer and catapulted them into history. They became a story among many, showing that when some men rise to do evil to others, there is another kind of man, one who rises in peace and kindness to stand together with the victims, to empower them to reach out and grasp for themselves a better future – one where all they dreamed of has come to pass.
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Watching all the violence unfold this summer, I couldn’t help but think of that summer. A big part of me felt hopeless, downtrodden. I thought that all these people who had sacrificed and risked their lives must feel that their efforts had been in vain. It’s easy, looking around, to believe this.
But a movement like Black Lives Matter couldn’t exist today without Freedom Summer, and all the people involved with it. Change is built upon change, progress upon previous progress. The protesters today are the ideological children of the civil rights activists of the past. The Freedom Riders, everyone who participated in the sit-ins, the march on Washington: it would be easy to look at how far we still have to go and say none of it mattered, that it was in vain. I have been tempted, many times, to think so, that human nature can’t be changed for the better, no matter what.
But it can be. We’re still fighting, still struggling. We haven’t just given up. In the struggle alone, there is virtue. All those years ago, eulogizing Chaney, another man killed for no reason other than the color of his skin, Dave Dennis, a civil rights activist, told all those assembled at the funeral. “We’re still fighting. Don’t bow down anymore: hold your heads up. We want our freedom now! We’ve got to stand up.”
It will take all of us standing up together, rejecting violence, to make a change.
