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Freedom Summer Photo Archives
Roland Duerksen, then on the faculty of
Purdue University, made contact with, and received helpful information from,
Oxford's Freedom Summer personnel before he and a colleague made an August,
1964, trip to Jackson, Mississippi, where he taught in a Freedom School and
participated in voter registration efforts. These pictures, which he took
during his stay in Mississippi, indicate the settings and involvements
experienced by Freedom Summer participants after they arrived in Mississippi.
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At entrances to many Mississippi towns in 1964, CITIZENS
COUNCIL signs such as this one, warned African-Americans that they had
better not make any moves toward equality. The inscription on the sign
is: CITIZENS COUNCILS-STATES RIGHTS-RACIAL INTEGRITY |
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Ten Years after the 1954 Brown v. Board
of Education Supreme Court decision, which struck down the
separate-but-equal concept, this inscription was still found on a
Jackson, Mississippi, school building. It reads: ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFICES, COLORED SCHOOL DIVISION, JACKSON MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCHOOL
DISTRICT. Some Jackson schools for African-Americans were quite
presentable on the outside, but the educational materials and
equipment on the inside were woefully inadequate. |
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One of the FREEDOM SCHOOLS in Jackson, Mississippi,
was conducted in this African-American church building. Some 100 students
(elementary school to high school age) were crowded in for the
classes, which covered subjects such as math, reading, and methods of
political actions. |
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A singer stopped by to entertain this 1964
FREEDOM-SCHOOL class in Jackson, Mississippi. |
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This modest store-front building served as headquarters
for the COUNCIL OF FEDERATED ORGANIZATIONS (COFO), which coordinated
freedom actions throughout Mississippi in 1964. Notice the green
chalkboard beside the front door. News of occurrences in various parts
of the state was written on the chalkboard each day - indicating what
had happened on the previous as well as the current date. Notice also
that, for safety reasons, there is no sign to identify the building
(located, ironically, on Lynch Street in Jackson). |
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This is a close-up of the chalk-board beside the front
door of the COFO headquarters building in Jackson, Mississippi. Here is
a transcription of what was written on the chalkboard this August day in
1964:
Yesterday - Negro woman
arrested in Hattiesburg for refusing to give her bus seat to a white
woman.
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400 attended mass meeting in Marks.
- Tallahatchie Co. - 24
people tried to register to vote in Charleston; at least one man
told he would lose his job as a result.
Today - 6 youths
arrested in Greenwood while singing in front of a store. One boy
reported beaten.
- Local girl missing since Sunday in Natchez
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$200 each bond paid by 2
SNCC workers arrested in Anguilla (Sharkey Co.) yesterday for
passing out vote leaflets.
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The FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY, which, under Fanny Lou
Hamer's leadership had a momentous nation-wide influence through its
courageous presence at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, was
headquartered in one-half of this Jackson, Mississippi, house. |
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ROBERT MOSES, director of the 1964 Mississippi Summer
Project and leader of the training program in Oxford, is shown here
during a break in a session which he conducted in Jackson, Mississippi,
to prepare African-Americans for politically effective action. |
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A MOCK POLITICAL CONVENTION was conducted under the
leadership of Robert Moses to help young people of Jackson, Mississippi,
understand the 1964 summer effort by the Freedom Democratic Party. |
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