The Mississippi Freedom Summer was an attempt to bring the nation to Mississippi, to open up the state and the South and bring the dirt of racism and violence from under the rug so all of America could see and deal with it. People were taught how to pass the so-called literacy tests, how to read and write, in order to register to vote. After the mock election, we began to recruit students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, ministers and others to come to Mississippi and spend the summer working in the Freedom Schools. Some whites had argued that blacks in Mississippi didn’t want to participate in the democratic process.Īt times, all conceivable means were used to keep blacks from registering to vote. Over a two-day period, almost 200,000 black citizens throughout the state gathered in churches, community centers, barber and beauty shops to cast their votes for Aaron Henry, a leader of the NAACP in the state, “for governor,” and the Reverend Edwin King, a white chaplain at Tougaloo, a predominantly black college, “for lieutenant-governor.” This mock election did point out the fact that if black people could vote, they would. In the fall of 1963, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) conducted a mock election in Mississippi to dramatize the fact that there were only about 22,000 black people registered out of a black voting-age population of more than 450,000. The sit-ins, freedom rides, and the civil rights movement in Birmingham where Police Commissioner Bull Connor met peaceful demonstrations with fire hoses and snarling police dogs, and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi had created a moral and political climate demanding meaningful legislative action. It was a period of hope but also of pain and suffering, of crisis and confrontation. ![]() The America of 20 years ago experienced one of the most moving and exciting times in our nation’s history. He is today a member of the City Council of Atlanta, Georgia. ![]() John Lewis was one of the early leaders of the civil rights movement, and especially active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). John Lewis in 1964 (Marion S Trikosko/PhotoQuest/Getty Images) In memory of John Lewis, we feature his 1985 reflections on the Mississippi Freedom Summer in Dissent.
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