“How bad could it be?”
That’s the question Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons asked herself as she applied to be a volunteer in a summer project that became known as Freedom Summer. It was 1964 and 20-something Gwendolyn defied her worried family, ramped up her determination, and joined nearly one thousand young people heading to Mississippi, the state synonymous with racial hatred and oppression.
Unlike Gwendolyn, most of the students going south for Freedom Summer were white middle class college students like the many Boston area volunteers, including then Harvard graduate studentBarney Frank. Civil rights organizers aggressively recruited the white students believing their participation would draw heightened interest from their families, especially from white America.
Freedom Summer’s central focus was voter registration. Back then 45 percent of Mississippi’s residents were black, but only 7 percent were registered voters. In often violent standoffs, black citizens were routinely turned away from registration sites. If they were allowed in, they were required to answer questions even the test administrators themselves could not answer.
The volunteers went door-to-door trying to persuade poor black residents to register to vote. This was hazardous duty, though as some volunteers recall they were too naïve to understand how hazardous. They quickly learned. Just one week after they arrived in Mississippi three volunteers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner, left to investigate a church bombing and disappeared.
Volunteers stayed with the campaign despite their fear, a fear singer Nina Simone chronicled in the lyrics of her song about Mississippi:
"I think every day’s gonna be my last.”
Many law enforcement officers were known to be members of the Ku Klux Klan, but the powerful Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, whose members were businessmen and political leaders, orchestrated a covert reign of terror. Recent unsealed documents detailed their nasty work, and identified some of their prime targets--- the white Freedom Summer volunteers who dared to work for and live among black people.
By August, Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner’s bodies were discovered in a shallow grave, and the nation witnessed the horror of anti-segregationist anger. Much more would occur before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965. Voting rights are once again a political hot button issue since a Supreme Court ruling last year, which eliminated a major portion of that ‘65 law.
Now, young people inspired by the Freedom Summer volunteers are leading legal and grass roots battles to stop the effort to undercut voting rights.
What happened during Freedom Summer 50 years ago stands as a testament to the power of engaged young people willing to put it all on the line for a cause bigger than themselves. New Hampshire writer and publisher Jim Kates reminds today’s young people that getting involved requires no special expertise. Kates, who himself volunteered just after his freshman year at Wesleyan, says “One of the most important things about that summer was that it showed how ordinary people can change society by working together.”
Callie Crossley is the host of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley.
Join Callie Crossley at the Strand Theater on June 23 for a special preview and discussion of the new American Experience film, Freedom Summer. More info here.
