Civil Rights Movement -- History & Timeline, 1964 (Freedom Summer) Toggle navigation Home Search New! Movement Photo Album Major Topics Movement History Documents Reports & Letters Articles & Speeches Nonviolence Voting Rights Poetry Frequent Questions Activists Roll Call In Memory Our Thoughts Our Stories Our Discussions Poetry Speakers List Video/Audio Resources Speakers List For Teachers Web Links Bibliographies Topic-Specific Resources Archives & Museums How to Use Us For Teachers Additional Resources About Us Bay Area CRM Vets About Us Annual Reports Using Us Contents Copyright Privacy Submissions Terminology 1964 (Jan-June) 1964 (July-Dec) Civil Rights Movement History Mississippi Freedom Summer Events Photos "We Shall Overcome!" Note: This history of Freedom Summer has been compiled into a 108-page pamphlet in PDF format titled Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964. [Terminology — Various authors use either "Freedom Summer" or "Summer Project" or both interchangeably. This article uses "Summer Project" to refer specifically to the project organized and led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). And we use "Freedom Summer" to refer to the totality of all Movement efforts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida over the summer of 1964, including the efforts of medical, religious, and legal organizations (see Organizational Structure of Mississippi Freedom Summer). In this discussion, we use the term "volunteer" to refer to those from out of state who came to Mississippi (or Louisiana or Florida) for Freedom Summer, though of course, the many thousands of local Afro- Americans who participated were also unpaid volunteers.] Mississippi Summer Project (June-Aug) [Sidebar] Organizational Structure of Freedom Summer Lynching of Chaney, Schwerner & Goodman (June) Freedom Schools (Summer) The Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) The McGhees of Greenwood (July-Aug) McComb — Breaking the Klan Siege (July '64-March '65) MFDP Challenge to the Democratic Convention (Aug) Wednesdays in Mississippi (1964-1965) The Human Cost of Freedom Summer Freedom Summer: The Results See also: Freedom Summer. (Multiple articles) Freedom Schools. (Multiple articles) Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman Lynching, (Multiple articles) Freedom Summer Documents, (Multiple original documents) Mississippi Summer Project Photos See Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Founded for preceding events. Contents: The Situation The Dilemma Pulling it Together Mississippi Girds for Armageddon Washington Does Nothing Recruitment & Training 10 Weeks That Shake Mississippi Direct-Action and the Civil Rights Act Internal Tensions [Sidebar: Organizational Stucture of Freedom Summer] The Situation According to the Census, 45% of Mississippi's population is Black, but in 1964 less than 5% of Blacks are registered to vote state-wide. In the rural counties where Blacks are a majority — or even a significant minority — of the population, Black registration is virtually nil. For example, in some of the counties where there are Freedom Summer projects (main project town shown in parenthesis): Whites Blacks County (Town) Number Eligible Number Voters Percentage Number Eligible Number Voters Percentage Coahoma (Clarksdale) 5338 4030 73% 14004 1061 8% Holmes (Tchula) 4773 3530 74% 8757 8 - Le Flore (Greenwood) 10274 7168 70% 13567 268 2% Marshall (Holly Spgs) 4342 4162 96% 7168 57 1% Panola (Batesville) 7369 5309 69% 7250 2 - Tallahatchie (Charleston) 5099 4330 85% 6438 5 - Pike (McComb) 12163 7864 65% 6936 150 - Source: 1964 MFDP report derived from court cases and federal reports. To maintain segregation and deny Afro-Americans their citizenship rights — and to continue reaping the economic benefits of racial exploitation — the white power-structure has turned Mississippi into a "closed society" ruled by fear from the top down. Rather than mechanize as other Southern states have done, much of Mississippi agriculture — particularly the Delta cotton plantations — continues to rely on large-scale use of cheap Black hand-labor. But with the rise of the Freedom Movement, the White Citizens Council is now urging plantation owners to replace Black sharecroppers and farm hands with machines. This is a deliberate strategy to force Blacks out of the state before they can achieve any share of political power. The Freedom Movement is in a race against time, if Blacks don't get the vote soon, it will be too late. In Washington DC, Mississippi's Congressional delegation of five Representatives plus Senators Eastland and Stennis are among the most racist and reactionary the entire nation. With Blacks disenfranchised, the undemocratic, "good 'ole boy," crony politics of the South return the same corrupt "Dixiecrat" incumbents to Congress year after year, allowing them to build seniority and amass enormous power. All legislation has to pass through the committees they control. They use that power to block civil rights legislation, prevent the federal government from defending racial minorities, and halt any national program or reform that might benefit the poor and working class regardless of race. As the new year of 1964 begins, everyone in the South, Black and white, understand that when Afro-Americans demand the vote they are defying a century of oppression — and that a cry for the vote is actually a demand for social and political equality with whites. For three hard years the Mississippi Freedom Movement has been trying to register Black voters against the adamant opposition of the white power- structure, the vicious terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, and the economic warfare of the White Citizens Council. Blacks who try to register still face intimidation, violence, and arrest at the Courthouse, a phony literacy test, tricks, and abuses from the Registrar. After leaving the courthouse, they face arrest on trumped up charges, Klan violence, and economic retaliation — evictions, firings, foreclosures, business boycotts, license revocations, credit denials, and insurance cancellations. And lest there be any doubt as to whom should be targeted for this retaliation, the names of those attempting to register are published in the local newspaper. With steadfast courage, freedom fighters have suffered and endured beatings, jailings, shootings, bombings, and assassinations in places like McComb, Jackson, Greenwood, the Delta, and Hattiesburg. They have built a broad and determined mass-movement, yet no more than a few hundred new voters have been added to the rolls. As 1963 ends, the number of Blacks registered by the Mississippi Movement is so small that at the end of 1963 the Voter Education Project (VEP) halts all further funding for COFO projects because they are simply not cost-effective, the money can be better spent elsewhere. Loss of the VEP grants is critically important, without them the Mississippi Movement faces financial starvation. Violent repression of Blacks is a traditional component of Mississippi's "Southern Way of Life." Since 1880, the state has averaged more than six racially-motivated murders per year in the form of mob lynchings and "unsolved" assassinations. After three years of sit-ins, Freedom Rides, pickets, rallies, marches, and thousands of arrests, the fundamental rights of free speech and assembly are still denied to Blacks in Mississippi — any act of defiance, any protest, any cry for freedom, is still met with violent state repression and immediate arrest. Despite their many public promises, neither Kennedy nor Johnson take any effective action to defend Black voters in the Deep South. Though laws are on the books making it a federal crime to interfere with voting rights, neither the FBI, nor the Department of Justice (DOJ), nor the federal courts enforce those laws. The FBI is able to track down and jail kidnappers and bank robbers, but when crimes against Blacks are committed right before their eyes they claim they are "only an investigative agency," with no power to make arrests. The DOJ files lawsuit after lawsuit, which they often win in court, but nothing changes and no Afro-American voters are added to the rolls because no action is taken against the politically well-connected officials who violate the law and flout the court rulings. Nor is there any relief in sight because LBJ has stripped out any meaningful voting rights protection from the draft Civil Rights bill being debated by Congress. While most of the national media covers dramatic, photogenic events such as the Freedom Rides and the Birmingham marches they either ignore the issue of Black voting rights or relegate coverage to small articles on the back pages — leaving most Americans unaware of the brutal political realities of the Deep South. The Dilemma By November of 1963, Movement activists in Mississippi are exhausted, frustrated, and discouraged. Their efforts and strategies have built a movement — but not increased the number of Black voters. But movements move, if one strategy fails you try another. Something new is needed, something dramatic, something bold. Structurally, the Mississippi Movement is led by COFO, the coalition of SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and SCLC. But CORE's attention and resources are primarily focused on the North, particularly at this time around protests at the New York World's Fair, and much of their small southern staff is concentrated in Louisiana. SCLC's participation in COFO is small, and its attention is on St. Augustine, Florida and the state of Alabama. The NAACP national leadership is mainly interested in legal cases and they are uneasy with the growing radicalization and militance of the young organizers of SNCC and CORE. SNCC provides most of the COFO staff, and with VEP funds cut off, SNCC is now shouldering most of the financial burden as well. So the decision of what to do falls largely on SNCC — as SNCC decides, so COFO will go. SNCC activists note that in October, the presence of northern white supporters at Freedom Day in Selma Alabama encourages Black turnout, draws national media attention, and restrains the normally vicious Sheriff Clark from the kind of violence and arrests previously inflicted on Blacks lining up at the courthouse to register. Even the notorious State Troopers are held in check. Will the same strategy produce the same results at the upcoming Freedom Day in Hattiesburg? SNCC leaders decide to find out. Similarly, they note the heightened FBI presence, extensive media coverage, and decrease in violence during the two weeks that white students from Yale and Stanford are in Mississippi to support the statewide Freedom Ballot. As SNCC/COFO leader Bob Moses later put it: "That was the first time that I realized that the violence could actually be controlled. Turned on and off. That it wasn't totally random. I realized that somewhere along the line there was someone who ... could at least send out word for it to stop. And it would. That was a revelation." [1] If the presence of a handful of northern whites can restrain Jim Clark in Selma, and if 80 white students can reduce violence in Mississippi for two weeks, what would happen if a thousand northern students, most of them white, came to Mississippi for the entire summer of 1964? In mid-November, the COFO staff meets in Greenville after the Freedom Ballot. They discuss the idea of a summer project involving a large number of northern white students. The debate is long and intense. Proponents — among them Fannie Lou Hamer, Lawrence Guyot, and CORE's Dave Dennis — argue that Mississippi's iron-grip of repression can only be broken by creating a crises which forces the federal government to seriously confront the state. Asking the sons and daughters of white America to join them on the front line of danger might do that. And if nothing else, it would focus national media attention on the realities of Black oppression in the Deep South. As SNCC Chair John Lewis put it: "Mississippi was deadly, and it was getting worse each day. Our people were essentially being slaughtered down there. If white America would not respond to the deaths of our people, the thinking went, maybe it would react to the deaths of its own children." [2] Moreover, bringing white supporters to share the dangers of Mississippi will prove to Black communities that they are not alone, that there are people across the country who stand with them. By breaking down the sense of isolation, fear can be reduced and participation encouraged. But many other dedicated and experienced COFO organizers — including Sam Block, Wazir Peacock, Hollis Watkins, Charlie Cobb, Ivanhoe Donaldson, and Macarthur Cotton — firmly oppose to the idea. Some argue that white volunteers will increase the danger to local Blacks because the presence of white "race traitors" will enrage the Klan and Citizens Council. And unlike Black activists, whites cannot blend into the community, instead they will be beacons drawing the attention of both KKK and cops. Others are concerned that recruiting an army of white students is an admission of racial dependence — that Blacks need whites to get anything done — and that whites urging Blacks to register to vote will simply reinforce traditional patterns of racial subservience. Ever since the sit-ins of 1960, Movement activists have confronted and opposed racism in whatever form, whenever and wherever they encountered it, but the strategic premise of the summer project is based on using the racism of a mass media that covers whites but not Blacks, and the racism of a federal government that has not protected Blacks, but which might protect whites. The proposal for a summer project appears to acquiesce in, and accommodate, the very racism they are trying to oppose. Moreover, many Black organizers are uneasy that whites — with skills and confidence born of privilege, Ivy League educations, and ingrained attitudes of superiority — will push aside both Black organizers and emerging local leaders. One long-time SNCC organizer expressed the worry of many, "The white volunteers who know more about office work such as organizing files and making long-distance calls will end up in charge, telling me what to do." Though it is not obvious at the time, when dedicated organizers doing serious work with real people passionately disagree, it is usually the case that both sides have valid points. When abstract issues are debated in coffee houses and university classrooms, choices may seem clear. But when you're actually on the ground there are often no ideal solutions to imperfect realities. The Greenville meeting ends with no decision. But as the discussion continues over the following weeks a central fact emerges — the local people who are the heart and soul of the Movement need and want all the help they can get. If northern students are willing to put their bodies on the line in Mississippi, local Blacks in the freedom struggle will welcome them no matter what color they are. The firm support for the summer project by local leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, and E.W. Steptoe carries great weight with field secretaries who are deeply committed to the principle of, "Let the people decide." As does Mrs. Hamer's argument that, "If we're trying to break down segregation, we can't segregate ourselves." The debate continues at COFO's meeting in December, ending with a tentative agreement for a very limited summer project of no more than 100 white students. At the end of December 1963, SNCC's Executive Committee weighs the pros and cons at length. The motion they adopt — "To obtain the right for all citizens of Mississippi to vote, using as many people as necessary to obtain that end" — implies a large project with many northern whites. The final decision comes down to the January COFO meeting held in Hattiesburg after Freedom Day which itself becomes an argument for the summer project. The presence of white clergymen on the line at the Forrest County courthouse not only restrains police violence and state repression of free speech rights, but encourages Blacks to try to register in large numbers — 150 on Freedom Day, more than 500 over the following weeks. The COFO meeting is interrupted by news from nearby Amite County — Louis Allen has been murdered. Bob Moses later recalled, "...it became clear that we had to do something, something big, that would really open the situation up. Otherwise they'd simply continue to kill the best among us. ... that's when I began to argue strongly that we had to have the Summer Project." A majority of the COFO staff agree. The concerns regarding large numbers of white volunteers remain serious and real, but something has to be done to confront white terror in Mississippi. The Summer Project — which grows and expands into Freedom Summer — is on. Pulling it Together Though the mass media seems to believe that Freedom Movement events simply occur spontaneously, in real life careful planning is essential and where planning is absent failure results. By March, the basic structure of Freedom Summer is coming into focus — recruitment and training of volunteers, voter registration, building the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), challenging Mississippi's all-white delegation at the Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City, Freedom Schools, community centers, and legal support. But as always, the devil is in the details and some of the issues are thorny. Finances. The Freedom Movement is always starved for funds, and with the loss of VEP grants the financial situation is desperate. The original (highly optimistic) plan calls for a large Summer Project budget, but by early May only $10,000 has been raised and there is not even $5 to fix the clogged toilet at COFO Headquarters in Jackson. Comedian and Movement stalwart Dick Gregory does a fund-raising tour that nets $97,000, but that is nowhere near enough, and on three occasions before summer SNCC is unable to pay its staff their munificent salary of $10 per week (equal to $75 a week in 2013). Nonviolence. The issue of nonviolence is troublesome. Some activists hold to Gandhian "philosophic" nonviolence, but most organizers in Mississippi are "tactically" nonviolent. They adhere to nonviolence on protests because anything else is both counter-productive and suicidal, but self-defense outside of demonstrations is a different matter. Most Blacks in Mississippi are armed, and they are determined to defend both themselves and Freedom Movement guests. But civil rights workers are caught in a "trick bag" — unarmed they cannot defend themselves from the Klan, but police frequently stop, harass, and arrest them, and possession of a weapon can be used as a pretext for charges carrying heavy prison sentences. If the stop occurs on an isolated rural road with no witnesses, there is nothing to prevent the cops from shooting the activist in cold blood and then claiming "self-defense" with the activist's gun as "evidence." In regards to firearms, some field secretaries adopt the self-defense philosophy of "Rather be caught with it, than without it," others who judge the danger of police assassination and prison to be greater rely on agile feet and a fast car to escape. Wi… truncated (219,956 more characters in archive)