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Freedom Summer Research Paper

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Pavithraa Sreekumar
Essay Topic #1

Freedom Summer was a nonviolent effort by civil rights activists to integrate Mississippi's segregated political system during 1964. It raised the consciousness of millions of people to the troubles of African-Americans and the need for change. Americans all around the country were shocked by the killing of civil rights workers and the brutality they witnessed on their televisions. For nearly a century, segregation had prevented most African-Americans in Mississippi from voting or holding public office. Segregated housing, schools, workplaces, and public accommodations denied black Mississippians access to political or economic power. Planning began late in 1963 when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) decided to recruit several hundred northern college students, mostly white, to work in Mississippi during the summer. Furthermore, the SNCC shunned the concept of powerful leaders. It made all its important decisions as a group, and conceived Freedom Summer as a grass-roots movement of people rising up to seize control of their own destinies. More than 500 individuals worked on the project full-time during the summer of 1964. One of those key individuals was Robert …show more content…

This organization brought about 1,000 northern students – mostly white, to Mississippi to register voters, help organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), and run Freedom Schools and community centers for local African American communities. Their challenge received national media coverage and highlighted the civil rights struggle in the state. Over the course of Freedom Summer at least three other civil rights workers were murdered and volunteers also experienced 1,000 arrests, 80 beatings, 35 shooting incidents, and 30 bombings of homes, churches, and

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