![]() The majority of volunteers were white students from northern universities, but 254 were clergy funded by the National Council of Churches. They were led by 122 SNCC and CORE paid staff members who worked alongside them or at headquarters in Jackson and Greenwood. Hundreds of African-American families welcomed northern volunteers into their households.Īlmost 1,500 volunteers worked on this project in offices located throughout Mississippi. More than 60,000 Black Mississippians sacrificed their life to attend local gatherings, select candidates and vote in a “Freedom Referendum” held concurrently with the usual 1964 national elections. Mississippi was selected as the location of the Freedom Summer project because of its historically poor levels of African American voter registration fewer than 7% of the state’s qualifying Black voters were registered to vote in 1962. Political reform in favor of human rights was slow and non-existent without recourse to the polls. They also intended to assist Black Mississippians in forming a progressive political party capable of competing with the existing Democratic Party until voting rights were won. They believed that national coverage would push the federal government to enforce civil rights policies that had been violated by city authorities. Leaders of SNCC and CORE agreed that bringing well-connected white volunteers from northern colleges to Mississippi would bring these conditions into light. African-Americans who threatened to speak out about these abuses were often murdered, tortured, abused, battered, imprisoned, dismissed by their employers, or evicted from their homes. Most were poor, indebted to white banks or plantation owners, and were held in place by police and white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Housing, colleges, workplaces, and public accommodations were all segregated, denying Black Mississippians political and economic power. had delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech in front of 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial during March on Washington.įor over a century most African-Americans in Mississippi were prevented from voting or seeking elected offices due to segregation. ![]() The previous year in August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. ![]() The Freedom Riders had spent 1961 riding buses through the segregated South and protesting Jim Crow laws that limited where Black riders could eat, drink and sit. The civil rights campaign was in full swing by 1964. Challenge Exclusionary Congressional Elections. ![]() Challenge the Democratic National Committee (DNC).Get the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party a reality (MFDP).WHAT WERE THE GOALS FOR FREEDOM SUMMER?. ![]()
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