In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak, with African Americans across the country campaigning for equal rights and an end to segregation. There was support for the movement in liberal groups and prominent leaders, but they met fierce resistance from groups such as the Klu Klux Klan. And despite all the gains that had been made, African Americans still had not secured one of the most basic constitutional rights—the right to vote. Therefore, in 1964, a project called Freedom Summer or the Mississippi Summer Project, spearheaded by equal rights groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), turned to the polls in an attempt to mobilize black voters.
The need for Freedom Summer was rooted in the ways that the white south had managed to circumvent the 15th Amendment and prevent blacks from utilizing their Constitutional right. Things such as literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and plain violence and intimidation were used to dissuade blacks from political participation. These methods were effective; during the 1962 midterm elections, not even 7% of eligible blacks in Mississippi were registered to vote. Due to this particularly low voter turnout (even for the south), Mississippi was chosen to be the location for Freedom Summer. The plan was that the organizations would recruit volunteers, mostly white college students from the north, to work in Mississippi for the summer and register as many black voters as they could. Additionally, they set out to establish Freedom Schools, which were educational centers to teach African Americans reading, writing, math, history, and civics, as well as how to be active political participants in the government.
Sadly, Freedom Summer was not very successful in its original goals. Out of the 17,000 blacks who tried to register to vote, only 1200 were ultimately successful. They did manage to create 40 Freedom Schools and educate around 3000 students. Volunteers and residents were met with extreme violence from white protesters and the KKK. On the very first day of the project, three volunteers, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman disappeared. About a month later, their bodies were found inside a dam in Philadelphia, having been lynched by members of the KKK. While Schwerner and Goodman had been shot once in the chest, Chaney, the only African American, had been shot multiple times and savagely beaten. Many volunteers’ homes were firebombed and more were beaten by the police or white mobs.
However, the violence and cruelty of the white resistance to Freedom Summer made national headlines, stirring up sympathy and support for the Civil Rights Movement by the public. Despite not registering a huge amount of Mississippians, national attention was brought to the issue of black disenfranchisement. This lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the crowning achievement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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It's very sad that sometimes tragic events need to take place in order for change to occur. As you mentioned, the lynchings and murders brought national attention to the issues and helped gain support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. By 1969, 61% of eligible African Americans were registered to vote, compared to 23% prior to its passage. While it is horrible that so many lives were lost during Freedom Summer, it played a crucial role in the battle for Civil Rights.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/news/african-american-voting-right-15th-amendment
Your blog post was very informative and I enjoyed reading about the Civil Rights movements during the volunteer campaign, Freedom Summer. I liked how you explained what Freedom Summer was - being an organization to fight against voter discrimination. These summer volunteers began training at Western College for Women and with 1,000 volunteers, the majority were white college students with middle-upper class backgrounds. They hoped to register black voters, but as you said, violence, poll taxes, and more were put in place as an obstacle for black people to achieve their voting rights.
ReplyDeletesource - https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/freedom-summer
This was a very interesting and informative blog post. In class, we learned that many white supremacists/members of the KKK did everything in their power to prevent black people from voting despite their legal right. I did not know that there was an actual "movement" called Freedom Summer. After doing some more research on the impact of Freedom Summer, I learned that it even caused a divide within the group of supporters of the Civil Rights Movement. Apparently, due to the violence that was used during that time, activists began to divide into a group that believed non-violence was the best policy and a group that believed violence was the best policy (it made them think peace could never be achieved without physical violence). While there is still discrimination in our country today, I believe that the policy of non-violence was successful in the end and helped civil rights make great strides.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-summer