Bruce Watson starts his book, Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 that Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy, with the murder of Herbert Lee, a black farmer who dared to vote: “Blacks did not vote in Mississippi–never had as long as anyone could remember…Seventy-some years had passed since Mississippi had crafted a clever combination of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other legalistic voodoo that, within a decade, slashed black voting rolls from 190,000 to just 2,000. Ever since, whenever a Negro had dared to register, terror had taken care of him. A trip to the courthouse register landed his name in the newspaper. Soon the ‘uppity n**r’ was beaten, fired, thrown off a plantation, or left trembling in the night by a shotgun fired into his shack. Herbert Lee knew the risks, but when he decided to face them, he did not know he was risking his life.” As in countless other cases of blacks killed by white people, no one was ever held responsible for his murder.
Spurred on by such injustices, in summer 1964, young SNCC leader Robert Moses (above) came up with a bold plan to register black voters in Mississippi, open freedom schools, and challenge the Democratic party to seat an all-black delegation at their national convention. To carry this out, he recruited young college student volunteers to go to Mississippi and live with local black families. The summer got off to a terrifying start with the disappearance of three SNCC volunteers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. Because Schwerner and Goodman were northern whites, this case finally drew the attention of the press, the FBI, and President Lyndon Johnson.
The book tells this incredible story by including portraits of the brave Mississippians and the volunteers who fought for civil rights amidst relentless terror. This story helps us understand many of the events roiling our country today. It shows how police forces and justice systems conspired to keep blacks in their place–the effects of which can be seen today in disproportionate arrests and sentencing of African Americans. It underscores the grave importance of giving access to the voting booth and preventing voter suppression–without leaders to represent them, African Americans in Mississippi were kept in poverty and terror. It also shows the difficulties of maintaining unity within political parties–LBJ purposely cut off the riveting testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer (pictured above), who represented the Mississippi Freedom Party as a challenge to the all-white delegation at the Democratic National Convention, as he did not want to lose the support of southern states.
Yet this powerful story also shows that collective efforts can work–the state of Mississippi has come a long way since that terrible summer. In 2020, 31% of the state legislative representatives are black (blacks comprise 38% of the population).1 But as recent police killings, Black Lives Matter protests, and controversies over voter manipulation demonstrate, there is still work to be done. For teachers, there are many rich stories and documents they can use to make these connections with students, as on this edutopia page: teaching a more expansive view of women’s suffrage.
1. From: https://mississippitoday.org/2020/01/06/a-slightly-more-african-american-female-legislature-convenes-for-2020/
The efforts to suppress voters has been an ongoing blot on the United States’ efforts to present itself as a champion of democracy. A few weeks ago, I was reading about Vernon Dahmer, whose house was burned down as a cruel protest for his work training SNCC activists to get out the vote and for paying “poll taxes” so that many, Mississippian African American folks could vote. Here are two links offering information about this brave man who dedicated himself to the very democratic principles his murderer wanted to eradicate.
https://snccdigital.org/people/vernon-dahmer/
https://snccdigital.org/events/vernon-dahmer-murdered/
I’ve added Watson’s book to my list of “need-to-reads” because I agree that it will help to contextualize ongoing movements for racial and social justice. I spent the last few minutes considering what I might have done if I was recruited by Robert Moses. I assume the students understood the risks involved, but I don’t know that I would have been brave enough to accept them. I think that kind of bravery to do what you believe is just and right in spite of the consequences deserves to be studied and acknowledged.
I’m reminded of Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” which details processes such as redlining as another example of a system designed to “keep Blacks in their place”.