By Charissa Howard
Today in 2024, we find ourselves at the 60-year anniversary of some of the most influential few months of the Civil Rights Movement – Freedom Summer, 1964. The campaign involved hundreds of volunteers, almost all of them young people.
What was it?
In the run-up to 1964’s presidential election, Freedom Summer was a peaceful effort by civil rights activists, primarily young people, to register Mississippi’s Black residents to vote and help them learn about history/politics in Freedom Schools. It was primarily led by SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). The movement was met by a lot of violence, but the efforts ultimately helped to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It marks one of the final major interracial civil rights efforts of the 1960s.
Here’s a timeline of how the Freedom Summer movement unfolded.
September 1963 - Mississippi Voting Registration project proposed by Bob Moses (at 29 years old, SNCC director).
At this point, only 12,000 Black people in Mississippi were registered to vote
November 4 1963 – “Freedom Vote” where 83,000 people took part in mock elections to disprove the idea held at that time that Black people didn’t want to vote. Organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) which was a Mississippi coalition, but SNCC took a leading role. They endorsed Aaron Henry, “Mississippi’s most recognized Black leader” as the governor candidate and Rev Ed King (still living!) as his lieutenant governor. A platform was established that included voting rights for all Black people and a minimum wage increase. Press started paying attention when students from Yale + Stanford came to help.
Jan 1964 - Freedom Day in Hattiesburg - this was the second Freedom Day after Selma, where students helped to debut SNCC’s new slogan “One Man, One Vote” and 150 people registered to vote, despite only being allowed into county register’s office four at a time; final spark to Mississippi Summer Project
March 30 1964 - Freedom Summer Project Announced by COFO
March - April - Volunteers Recruited, Project Locations assigned – Freedom Summer included over 44 projects throughout the state that were grouped by congressional districts (projects “ranged in size and scope” depending on location; Hattiesburg had more than 50 volunteers, some projects had as few as 2 workers). Projects were mostly building on activity already existing within the movement.
June 14 1964 - Start of Freedom Summer Orientation - 2 week orientation practicing nonviolent self defense, learning about Mississippi geography/history and how to travel safely after dark. Volunteers were also asked to prepare by reading MLK’s Stride Toward Freedom, and Lillian Smith’s novel Killers of the Dream About 90% of the almost 1000 workers who went to Mississippi were white; many volunteers had been recruited from elite universities. The point was to get the gov’t + media to pay attention by putting white bodies at risk.
July 2 1964 - First Freedom Schools Open: all but 3 of the summer projects had Freedom Schools, where courses ranged from basic reading and math, to Black history, to French, to learning about modern Africa. More than 3,000 young Black students throughout the state would end up attending one of the 41 Freedom Schools.
Also July 2 - CR Act of 1964 signed, partially prompted by events out of Freedom Summer
Mid-summer - shift in project emphasis from just voter registration toward also challenging the all-white Mississippi Democratic party; Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation selected to challenge delegates at national Democratic convention in August.
August 4, 1964 - Bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner discovered; On June 21, the three young men had been attempting to investigate the burning down of Mt. Zion church, a site they’d been planning to use as a Freedom School when they got arrested for speeding in Philadelphia, Mississippi (the “other Philadelphia”). Local police had released the 3 men to the KKK, who’d murdered them.
August 8, 1964 - Freedom School convention held in Meridian, Mississippi where students reviewed summer and drafted resolutions
September 1964 - Some Freedom Summer project leaders taken to Guinea on a trip funded by Harry Belafonte
After the summer: While many of the university students went back to school, some elected to stay in Mississippi and continue the important work of fighting for Civil Rights with SNCC, which continued to operate through 1968. The presidential election was held in November of 1964. President Lyndon B Johnson, who had signed the Civil Rights Act due to pressure from Freedom Summer, won in a landslide.
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Charissa Howard is a student at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. She hails from the Philly suburbs and enjoys singing with The Inspiration, her Black a cappella group.
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