"I've waited 80 years for you to come," the gray-haired son of a slave told one volunteer. Freedom Summer was a key turning point in racism in America. It wasn’t until after that summer had ended that blacks had stopped enduring as much discrimination especially in Mississippi, it changed how they were treated and how they are viewed and appreciated now.
Washington had one of the largest populations of blacks yet less than 5% of them were registered to vote. Not a single black was registered in some counties. (Gannett News Service,) Mississippi was also where not quite 7% of blacks could vote, shotguns blasted the shacks of the ones who dared to register, and a sniper’s bullet had felled an NAACP leader Medgar Evers. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+) In the U.S., only 52 percent of all blacks had full-time, year-round work, and a public education. (Dissent, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 101-103) Workers from the SNCC went north to large areas to recruit volunteers. They soon gathered an army, many of whom white college students, went to Oxford Ohio to be trained in nonviolent protests. (Gannett News Service,) Many volunteers were children of people with high stakes jobs, but just as many were children of others. Many came from big cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but the rest of them came from everywhere else. The SNCC volunteers went through a part education, part shock treatment training in Ohio. They participated in workshops led by already SNCC members, studied southern history, debated about nonviolence, and learned to get beaten, by falling on the ground and assuming the fetal position. They were shocked by what they would be facing, told by SNCC’s accounts. Volunteers that were raised learning “the policeman is your friend”, learned about law enforcement practices in the state: “They take you to the jail, strip you, make you lay on the floor, and beat you until you’re close to dead.” Those stories, a volunteer recorded in his journal, “just scared the crap out of us.” (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+) Bob Moses recruited a small group of young black SNCC workers and proceeded to make progress, yet their registration efforts were stalled. Many whites in Mississippi believed that Freedom Summer was an invasion. (Dissent, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 101-103) African Americans everywhere were discriminated against. Armed whites poured into Oxford because a black student was enrolled; Attorney General Robert E Kennedy sent federal marshals in troop trucks, which sparked an all-night riot that left dozens wounded, and two dead. The nations weak spot for violence was Mississippi. This was where 14-year-old Emmett Till, accused of wolf whistling at a white woman, was tied to the fan of a cotton gin and was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River. Police brutality was included in this violence. From the first moment Freedom Summer was announced, police had begun to stock up supplies, tear gas, shotguns, electric cattle prods. The state police force was doubled, and the legislature banned picketing, leafleting, and assembly. Before Freedom Summer began, “Mickey” Schwerner went to Mississippi to open the first Freedom House. His wife Rita, read stories to the kids, Schwerner gave the teenagers rides in his Volkswagen, speaking to them about freedom and a better future. A co-worker remembered, “More than any white person I have ever known, he could put a colored person at ease.” Schwerner was the only person the Klan intended on hurting. However, his friends got in the way. One of those friends was James Chaney, who was first introduced to Schwerner, because he dropped by the new Freedom House, and kept going back because he was encouraged by how sociable the Schwerners were. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+)
The Freedom Summer deaths in June 1964 drew the attention of national media. (Gannett News Service,) The entire following week, Americans watched nightly news reports that showed speed boats dragging in muddy water, and sailors dabbling in pungent swamps. Write Willie Morris recalled his feelings that his home state had “hit the bottom of the barrel with these three murders.” There was still no trace of the bodies. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+) The chances of many, if any, African Americans being able to vote was scarce. African Americans were forced to partake in many tests and taxes to even register to vote. The literacy tests were designed to keep African Americans from voting. Student activists were determined to fight against voter registration requirements — such as poll taxes and literacy tests — which were intended to keep blacks from voting. After Freedom Summer, from 1960 to 1968, registration among blacks jumped from 5.8% to 60%. (Gannett News Service,) Mississippians tried to protest peacefully but were met with brutality, and the rest of the country didn't seem to care. Martin Luther King Jr. was focusing his attention on the South, and Mississippi remained a neglected base of civil rights. It was too remote, too simmered with hatred to offer any hope in the slightest. Everyone knew it was too dangerous to mess with. There was still a lot of brutality in Mississippi but not much of it made headlines out of the state. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+) Before the summer was over, there would be thirty-seven black church burnings, eighty beatings, and more than a thousand arrests of civil rights (Dissent, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 101-103) Freedom Summer had ended, but its aftermath was just the beginning. As the “children that Moses led” expanded his lessons, the long arc of justice slowly expanded toward, and reached Mississippi. They (Mississippi) finally began to live down it’s cruelty to African Americans, segregation, lynching, night riding, and shotgun justice over the next few decades.“Freedom Summer injected a new spirit into the very vein of life in Mississippi and the country.” “It literally brought the country to Mississippi. People were able to see the horror and evil of blatant discrimination.” (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+)
Freedom Summer was a critical point in the civil rights movement, that helped drive the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and brought to the North what was going on in Mississippi. Voting rights drastically changed. In 1970 the state had 95 colored elected officials. That number went up to 950 in 2004. According to census data, in 2012 90% of Mississippian African Americans were registered to vote. (Gannett News Service,) Today, Mississippi has the highest number of African American elected officials out of all states. However, not all people are inclusive to African Americans. Fiver people formerly a part of the 1964 lynch gang, still roam free. Every June 1 in Meridian, Mississippi, marchers memorialize Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney by pressing for further prosecutions of those still free. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+)
Freedom Summer was a key turning point in how African Americans all over the country were discriminated against. It wasn’t until after that summer had ended that African Americans stopped enduring as much discrimination especially in Mississippi, it changed how they were treated and how they are viewed and appreciated now. Freedom Summer caused a lot of trouble in that time but had many lasting impacts that are still put in to use today. Many whites in Mississippi believed that Freedom Summer was an invasion. It changed many things including how many African Americans could vote and how they voted. There wouldn’t be a Barack Obama if not for the Freedom Summer veterans. (Watson, American Heritage, p.44+)