[Everything about this moment cries out for a bold intervention
like SNCC knew they had to make in 1963. Their clarity and creativity
offers a major lesson to our current stalemate between the multiracial
democratic forces and the MAGA authoritarians.]
[[link removed]]

HOW MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER 1964 CAN INSPIRE US IN 2024  
[[link removed]]


 

Eddie Wong
January 12, 2024
Convergence
[[link removed]]


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_ Everything about this moment cries out for a bold intervention like
SNCC knew they had to make in 1963. Their clarity and creativity
offers a major lesson to our current stalemate between the multiracial
democratic forces and the MAGA authoritarians. _

, © Ted Polumbaum, used with permission. Thanks to the Civil Rights
Movement Archive.

 

Just over 60 years ago, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
[[link removed]] (SNCC), the young, militant component of
the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), led the organization
towards a bold strategy to confront entrenched white supremacy in
Mississippi. COFO, which also included the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
launched the Mississippi Summer Project. The project was known for the
1,000 volunteers who went to Mississippi, the bastion of white
supremacy and virtually a police state. Most of them were white, but
some northern Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans also signed on.
They came to not only register voters but to establish Freedom
Schools. Smaller Freedom Summer projects were also undertaken in
northern Florida and northern Louisiana by CORE.

Southern racists vilified the project as a Communist invasion and some
in the civil rights establishment met it with a lack of enthusiasm or
downright hostility. But SNCC and CORE demonstrated decisive
leadership, bold vision, and grim determination to carry out the
campaign despite the murders of CORE workers James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman and Michael Schwerner that took place right as the campaign
kicked off in June 1964.

As I read about the deliberations that surrounded the controversial
decision to recruit hundreds of white students and place them and
their Black host families in great danger, I was impressed by SNCC’s
ability to analyze the situation, devise a multi-part strategy, and
execute the campaign all within a matter of months. Their clarity,
creativity and boldness offer a major lesson that can be applied to
our current stalemate between the multiracial democratic forces and
the MAGA authoritarians. We can learn from the success of Freedom
Summer organizers in building a united front with labor, liberals,
progressive clergy, and national foundations. Lastly and most
importantly, we can note the critical significance of the established
base in the Black community that Freedom Summer drew on. 

Engaging the base: the Freedom Vote campaign

Black Mississippians who sought to become registered voters faced many
obstacles: poll taxes and a “literary” test where registrars asked
applicants to read one of 285 sections of the Mississippi Constitution
and interpret it to the registrar’s satisfaction. Ordinary citizens
who went to register faced the violent response of the white city and
town officials and the Ku Klux Klan. People who marched in front of
local courthouses (the site of many city registrars) were beaten and
arrested by police. Those who survived the registration process had
their names published in the local newspaper which was quickly
followed by the loss of their jobs. Out of the 425,000 eligible Black
voters in Mississippi, only 12,000—5% of them—were registered to
vote in 1963. The white establishment used this fact to say that
Blacks weren’t interested in voting, and for many African Americans
voting just wasn’t worth the suffering that would result for having
one’s life and livelihood jeopardized. There had to be a way to
break the chain of fear that shackled Black Mississippians and to
demonstrate to the nation and federal authorities that Black people
wanted to vote.

Give light and people will find the way.

—Ella Baker

In many ways, this short and memorable phrase by Ella Baker, who
worked with the NAACP and SCLC and then joined SNCC, captured the
spirit she fostered, i.e., people can lead themselves once they are
given the tools for their own liberation. In 1963, SNCC turned on the
light. They took local voter registration drives and developed a
statewide campaign which engaged thousands of Black Mississippians and
made the national headlines.

In summer 1963, COFO decided to launch Freedom Vote and register Black
Mississippians to vote for its own slate of candidates for governor,
lieutenant governor and other county offices in a community-run
election. At a statewide convention in October, regional delegates
nominated Aaron Henry, state NAACP chair, for Governor and Rev. Ed
King, Chaplin at Tugaloo College as Lt. Governor, creating the first
bi-racial slate in Mississippi history. The convention also drafted a
progressive program that included raising the minimum wage, creating a
farmer loan program, and guaranteeing voting rights for all Blacks.

SNCC and other civil rights activists fanned across the state telling
folks that registering to vote in Freedom Vote simply entailed going
to a polling site—a church, a beauty parlor, a barbershop —between
Nov. 2 and 4 to cast a ballot. Aaron Henry spoke from one end of the
state to the other and drew huge crowds, including a crowd of 1,000
people in Hattiesburg.

Freedom Vote was also the first time that large numbers of white
students from Yale University and Stanford University were asked to
come to Mississippi. Over 100 students answered the call and arrived
to distribute leaflets and work in COFO offices. The white students
who were leafletting in Jackson, Columbus, and Indianola soon
experienced the same harassment SNCC and COFO workers had always
faced; they got arrested for “racial disturbance” and had to be
bailed out. These arrests naturally attracted press coverage and
focused attention on the repressive measures Blacks faced in order to
vote.

Over 80,000 Black Mississippians voted and gave the Henry/King ticket
90% of their votes. There could be no doubt that a mighty collective
voice had refuted the lie that Blacks weren’t interested in
voting. Moreover, this organizing drive demonstrated that there was a
deep base of support for COFO and the civil rights struggle. This
statewide campaign brought new activists into the movement and gave
them vital skills that would be applied in subsequent campaigns.

Facing the stalemate

Freedom Vote also led to a wider debate about bringing in more white
students. Bob Moses, leader of SNCC’s voter registration drive, had
proposed recruiting 1,000 white students from the north to do voter
registration work in Summer 1964. At a Nov. 14 COFO meeting attended
by seven white staff and 35 Black SNCC field secretaries (full-time
organizers who were paid $10/week), the proposal was presented and
hotly debated. Some SNCC veterans argued that the infusion of a large
number of white students would take the focus away from local Black
leadership. Others such as Fannie Lou Hamer responded, “If we’re
trying to break down the barriers of segregation, we can’t segregate
ourselves.”

The debate continued until December. “There was little possibility
that the white population would make any real changes in the status of
the Negro voluntarily, and that it would not accept any substantial
changes in the ‘power structure’ without federal intervention,”
Bob Moses argued at a SNCC conference. “SNCC’s job is to bring
about just such a confrontation.” White students from liberal
colleges in the North, Midwest, and West would become the shock troops
and their participation would elicit northern concern from
middle-class and upper-class white parents and bring extensive media
coverage.

When a final decision to bring in 100 white students was approved that
month, the response was so great that in the end 1,000 students from
the North, Midwest and West were recruited by COFO. Similar
recruitment efforts resulted roughly 100 white students coming to
CORE’s northern Florida and northern Louisiana summer projects.

Bringing the resources

Once the decision was affirmed, a rigorous recruitment process was
established to ensure that the northern volunteers would follow Black
leadership, adhere to security and mandated social practices, and
learn from the local communities. They did not want people with a
white savior complex or unstable people who could become violent in
face of provocations.

With recruitment in motion, a vigorous fundraising campaign launched
in February 1964. Responsibility for that fell upon the Friends of
SNCC chapters on campuses and cities. SNCC’s Freedom Singers, which
was composed of Bernice Reagon, Cordell Reagon, Rutha Mae Harris,
Chuck Neblett, and Bertha Gober, traveled around the country giving
concerts; they raised $5,000 per week. A fundraising Town Hall event
at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. drew a packed house. By
the end of March 1964, SNCC had raised $97,000. Additional funds to
meet the estimated $200,000 budget came from labor unions, religious
organizations, and individuals.

Volunteers went through a week-long training in Oxford, OH where they
practiced non-violent resistance and learned about how to work with
the COFO staff, which mainly consisted of SNCC and CORE workers. They
were dispatched throughout the state of Mississippi from the hill
country to the verdant Mississippi Delta. Greeting them were thousands
of Black Mississippians who worked alongside the white volunteers.
They sheltered them in the Black community and in some cases the host
families provided armed security to protect them against night riders.
Many direct accounts written about Mississippi Freedom Summer testify
to the danger and tension in the air as white racists did all they
could to deter their voter registration efforts. But there are also
many accounts of the joy in solidarity and for a brief moment the
experience of being in a beloved community.

What did Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964 accomplish?

The organizing efforts that were part of MS Freedom Summer
accomplished many of the key goals articulated by Bob Moses and other
SNCC leaders.

First, bringing white students did attract massive press coverage. The
white students often wrote to their hometown and college newspapers.
Their accounts of the drive-by shootings and bombing directed at them
and the local Black community by the KKK and other white racists made
people aware of the civil rights struggle on a personal level.

National press coverage focused on Mississippi from June to August
1964 after the disappearance of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and
Michael Schwerner, who went to investigate the firebombing of Mt. Zion
Baptist Church near Philadelphia, MS. After weeks of searching, an
informant directed officials to an earthen dam on a farm where their
bodies were exhumed on Aug. 4, 1964. Their murders are remembered to
this day as a prime example of the police’s collusion with the Ku
Klux Klan. 

Secondly, the organizing drive exposed the horrible conditions of
poverty and institutional neglect and suppression that the state of
Mississippi enacted upon Black Mississippians. Volunteers set up
health clinics, legal aid, and Freedom Schools, with support and
donations from outside the South. By the end of Freedom Summer, 40
Freedom Schools in 20 communities had been established. They served
2,000 students, including adults who sought literacy education.

Sandra Adickes, a schoolteacher in Prince Edward County, Virginia,
taught at a Freedom School in Hattiesburg, MS and she made the
following observations in an oral history interview in _Mississippi
– A Documentary History _(University of Mississippi Press, 2003):

_They (the Black high school student_s) _were furious at the
inequity. .. they couldn’t use the public library. They had a little
room downtown where they could go where all the cast-off books were
kept. _

_ There was a sense of ‘Here, we know what a school is finally. We
have teachers who respect us, who want to hear what we have to say,
who care about us, who want something for us in this life.’ Having
tasted what school was… it changed their aspirations._

Clarence Johnson, who is the pastor of Mills Grove Christian Church in
East Oakland, CA, was 14 years old when he attended the Freedom School
in Greenwood, MS.

_“We did math, English and Spanish. Wendy (Klein) was a Spanish
speaker and I remember, ‘Me llamo, Lorenzo.’ That’s as close as
we could get to Clarence in Spanish. We had a good time. We would also
sing songs and share some of our experiences about those things that
were important to us. We also did writing. I wanted to be a writer
like Richard Wright, and I wrote about him being one of my favorite
authors… We had dramatic presentations from time to time. They (the
Free Southern Theater directed by John O’Neill) came to do Waiting
for Godot and Ossie Davis’ play Purlie Victorius.”_

The Freedom School movement led to the formation of the Child
Development Group of Mississippi that started 84 summer school centers
that served 5,600 children in July 1965. This became the precursor of
the Head Start program for early childhood education.

Third, voter registration drives succeeded in bringing 17,000 people
to the courthouses where the vast majority were refused the right to
vote on spurious grounds. Although 1,600 new registrants were accepted
in the official channels, tens of thousands demonstrated their desire
to vote via COFO’s 1963 Freedom Vote campaign. Concurrent with the
recruitment of students to help with voter registration work and to
establish Freedom Schools was the formation of the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party (MFDP), which was organized out of the momentum
created by Freedom Vote. MFDP’s goal was to attend the national
Democratic Party convention in August in Atlantic City and ask that
their slate of 68 delegates be seated instead of the official party
delegation, which only represented white voters

Volunteers from Mississippi Summer Project helped the MFDP sign up
80,000 members. Although MFDP did not succeed in its bid to be seated
as the official Mississippi delegation to the DNC—they rejected a
compromise offer to seat just two of the MFDP delegates—an
impassioned speech by Fannie Lou Hamer before the Democratic Party
Rules Committee was broadcast nationally on television. MFDP also held
several rallies on the Atlantic City boardwalk to decry the terrible
violations of civil rights and the exploitation of Black people in
Mississippi.

The MFDP continued to organize in Greenwood, the largest town in the
Mississippi Delta; Sam Block, who had been SNCC’s representative in
Greenwood since 1962 helped organize the Greenwood Voter’s League in
1965. Organizing around the state continued throughout the mid to late
1960s, highlighted by James Meredith’s March Against Fear in June
1966.

CORE’s Freedom Summer project in northern Louisiana brought in 31
volunteers from the North to set up voting rights clinics in rural
counties to teach literacy to hundreds of Black plantation workers.
However, when applicants went to the courthouse to register to vote,
they faced violence, i.e., a man shot at civil rights workers near the
St. Francesville, LA courthouse. They escaped unharmed and held a
100-person rally that night at the Masonic Temple at Laurel Hill. Once
more, shots were fired at the gathering. In face of intimidation,
local residents and the northern volunteers, carried on the work.

Nearly 10,000 new Black voters sought to become registered in CORE’s
Freedom Summer project in Alabama. After Freedom Summer ended, a Civic
Interest Group was established in Gadsden, AL and a Voter’s League
was set up in Jefferson, AL.

This work and more undertaken by COFO, SNCC, Mississippi NAACP,
National Council of Churches and CORE aided the larger push for the
passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act, signed on Aug. 6,
1965, mandated federal oversight of state elections, the removal of
the poll tax and literacy tests, and provided for federal review of
the drawing of legislative district lines. Black voter registration
climbed from 35% of eligible voters to 65% by 1969.

Personal and societal transformation

Perhaps the most profound outgrowth of MS Freedom Summer was the
personal transformation it brought for the students and the local
residents alike. The experience would reverberate throughout their
lives, as it did for Carl Imiola Young,
[[link removed]] 
[[link removed]] a
Chinese American volunteer from Honolulu, HI who went to Hattiesburg,
MS.

This was the first time that some Black Mississippians interacted with
sympathetic whites, and it was the first time some white students had
worked closely with Black people. The experience of being under fire
for civil rights activities during Freedom Summer marked them deeply:
1,063 civil rights workers were arrested, 80 Freedom Summer volunteers
were beaten, 37 churches were bombed or burned, and Chaney, Goodman
and Schwerner were murdered.

Many of the white students were struck by the sacrifices made by their
local hosts. Veteran organizer and progressive leader Heather Booth
[[link removed]] 
[[link removed]]spoke with
me about Andrew and Mary Lou Hawkins, who hosted her and three others
in Shaw, MS.

As she shared her experiences with the Hawkins family, the rising
indignation in her voice underscored the hardships Black
Mississippians faced.

_“They took in four students and all of us slept in the same bed. I
didn’t realize that we were in the parents’ bed, they were
sleeping on the couch. The__y had four little kids in this little
house. They fed us and cared for us… I learned that Mr. Hawkins
challenged the town of Shaw in a lawsuit over how in the Black part of
town there were no streetlamps, there was no sewer system, there were
no paved roads, no indoor plumbing. In the white part of town, they
had a tennis court and a swimming pool. Following that (lawsuit) his
home was firebombed twice and in the second firebombing his son
Andrew, Jr. and two of his grandkids were killed.”_

Like many of the northern volunteers, Booth had to learn to live with
fear and steadfastly carry out the day-to-day work of registering
voters and teaching in a Freedom School.

_When we crossed the Mississippi state line, there was a hush on the
bus. I remember literally the symbolism of crossing the state line. We
were warned about having mixed race groups and of how you’re
jeopardizing people’s lives in that way. And I took it very
seriously. Our first stop was in Ruleville, MS and we met with Mrs.
Hamer and her friends. She was as remarkable as everyone has said. She
brought a moral honesty and clarity even in the smallest things. I was
an 18-year-old who didn’t know which end was up. And she was caring
and respectful towards me._

Booth also recounted the daily pressure civil rights workers
encountered in Shaw, MS.

_Stokely (Carmichael) was our regional director and at one point there
was a decision that our project would break up. We had threats to the
project and one night we had night riders coming around the Freedom
House when we were having a mass meeting. We had to lie down on the
concrete floor for hours. People were saying ‘we’re going to kill
you,’ and they’re throwing lit gasoline filled bottles at the
house. _

_The impact on me was profound both just seeing the reality of the
horrors of what life is like, of what desperate poverty means and
seeing the incredible generosity of people in hard circumstances. And
also learning about other cultures, the music of the Spirit, the joys
of being together and seeing the level of political strategy, that it
wasn’t just random action. Black people outnumbered whites but you
gotta get registered and vote to change the laws._

Freedom Summer also transformed the lives of young Black
Mississippians, not only via the enrichment opportunities in the
Freedom School but the encouragement to become political activists.
Rev. Clarence Johnson remembered it clearly:

_“It was probably around mid-day that we would go to Freedom School.
There were probably 15 or 20 of us in the session that I attended. But
it was from that group that they were able to recruit some of the
youngsters to be part of those marches around the courthouse. And
that’s when some of us were arrested. We also went with some of them
(the northern volunteers) to do voter registration work. We would
watch as they would interview people, talking about the importance of
being registered voters. We would accompany them. They had very
serious security measures to follow and I just remember feeling really
great walking for the first time down the streets of my hometown with
some whites, and we were holding hands. We were friends. It was just a
magnificent feeling to be able to do that in Greenwood, Mississippi in
1964.”_

Rev. Johnson too was mindful of the risks the Freedom Summer
volunteers were taking:

_“The thing that was important to me was that those young people who
came to Greenwood that summer, even the SNCC workers (who had already
been in town since 1962) were so young – 18, 19 20, 21, 22, and 23
years old. The youths who came put their lives on the line to create
opportunity for us to go to school and to get jobs and to be able to
buy homes …Things have changed tremendously but Mississippi is still
at the bottom in terms of economics. They have a gerrymandered
legislature. There has to be some work done there. We have to tip our
hats to those who were courageous enough to put their lives on the
time at such a young age like Bob Moses.”_

Freedom Summer calls us to step up

What does the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 mean for us today as
we face an election that could return a racist, misogynist
authoritarian to the White House? Everything about this moment cries
out for a bold intervention like that SNCC knew they had to make in
1963.

We must assess what it would take to change the equation in
battleground states that were won narrowly by Biden in 2020 and which
could easily fall back to Trump if progressive voter turnout is low.
We must have sufficient numbers of election monitors to secure a fair
election. And we must provide counseling and education on reproductive
rights to combat continued attempts to make the federal ban on
abortion even more punitive.

There is no single organization on the current scene that is
positioned to fulfill SNCC’s role, i.e., rally support from
progressive allies, build a fundraising effort, recruit and train
volunteers, find host families, and carry out a sophisticated strategy
that employed multiple programmatic aspects. But there are several
national organizations and state-based groups which are concerned
about maximizing voter registration, voter education, and turnout in
the battleground states. Many of them have recruited volunteers to
join their field operations in past elections. But 2024 will be
different because the stakes are so much higher and the MAGA forces
are determined to deter voters from going to the polls.

We need to scale up to meet the massive challenge of registering new
voters in the face of voter suppression laws. We need to motivate
people to vote, especially younger people whose politics are
progressive but who also feel that Biden has betrayed them on key
issues. Nor can we afford a dip in voter turnout among African
Americans who have been consistently the most progressive segment of
the electorate. With the MAGA right-wingers now unabashed followers of
white Christian nationalism (Speaker Mike Johnson flies the New
Apostolic Reformation
[[link removed]] 
[[link removed]]flag
outside his office), this election will determine if we will live in a
multiracial democracy or under an authoritarian, white supremacist
regime. It’s time to get busy.

There are several national groups active in the field,
including Black Voters Matter [[link removed]],
Progressive Turnout Project, Seed the Vote
[[link removed]], Swing Left and others. Several national
organizations and coalitions such as the Working Families Party
[[link removed]] and People’s Action
[[link removed]] have state-based organizing and they run
campaigns throughout the year, not just at election time. Lastly,
there are groups such as House Majority Forward that are affiliated
with the Democratic Party.

Several organizations focus on expanding the growing Latinx and Asian
Pacific American vote. The Southwest Voter Registration Education
Project [[link removed]], League of United Latin American
Citizens, Voto Latino, and Mi Familia Vota all run non-partisan voter
registration drives in Latinx communities. The Asian Pacific Islander
American Vote and AAPI Civic Engagement Fund
[[link removed]] support voter education and registration
activities in diverse APA communities. The Native Voter Fund
[[link removed]] via the Movement
Voter Project [[link removed]] directs funds towards
Native American voter mobilization efforts in Arizona, Alaska, and
Montana.

There is no shortage of efforts that conduct voter engagement work.
Having them issue the kind of urgent call that came from SNCC in 1963
will be critical in growing the volunteer force needed to enlarge the
electorate, educate them to become life-long progressive voters, and
deliver victories on election day. It is the spirit of moral courage
and steely determination that characterized Mississippi Freedom Summer
1964 that should inspire us today.

_ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
AND FREEDOM SUMMER_:

* [link removed]  Civil Rights Movement Archive by Bay
Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement
* [link removed] Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee Digital Archive.

_An earlier version of this article appeared on _East Wind E-Zine
[[link removed]];
Convergence _and_ The Forge _co-published this version._

_EDDIE WONG is a longtime political activist and cultural worker
(photography, film and writing) in the Asian American Movement.  He
is a contributor to Convergence and edits and publishes East Wind
[[link removed]] ezine._

_CONVERGENCE is a magazine for radical insights. We work with
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multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic economy._

_Today our movements continue to grow, but so too does the threat from
the racist, authoritarian right. We believe we can defeat them,
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new governing majority that is driven by a convergence of grassroots
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_Join us._

_Donate to Convergence [[link removed]]_

_EAST WIND EZINE is an online publication focused on political and
cultural issues of Asian Pacific Americans. Our goal is to inform our
readers about critical issues such as immigration, civil and human
rights, and identity and culture and to inspire greater participation
in movements for social change._

_Many of the volunteers for East Wind ezine also worked on East
Wind: Politics and Culture of Asians in the U.S., which was published
twice a year from 1982 to 1989 by Getting Together Publications.
Although many of us are now in our retirement years, we continue to be
active or have renewed our activism in the face of the rightwing and
racist policies of the current administration. Furthermore, we wish to
build bridges with younger generations of activists to forge a
stronger movement._

_If you are interested in submitting articles or artwork or have
suggestions for topics we should cover, please write to East Wind
ezine via the contact us page on the website.
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_East Wind ezine is an all-volunteer effort led by Eddie Wong,
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and Pam Matsuoka, graphic arts consultant._

_Donate to East Wind ezine
[[link removed]]_

_The mission of THE FORGE is to elevate the strategy and practice of
organizing through the sharing of ideas, methods, history, and
inspiration, and by building connection and community among organizers
and between sectors of the progressive movement._

_The Forge is a community built by and for organizers. Your
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_Donate to The Forge [[link removed]]_

* mississippi freedom summer
[[link removed]]
* SNCC
[[link removed]]
* MFDP
[[link removed]]
* U.S. history
[[link removed]]

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