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Letters from Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers and Freedom School Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer
“ Letters from Mississippi gives us a deeply personal look at one of the Civil Rights Movement’s key moments—and reminds us that change happens because regular people have decided they were willing to fight for it.”—Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund This expanded edition includes over forty pages of poetry by students in the Freedom Schools of 1964, adding the lively voices of local participants, mostly teenagers, to those of the volunteers from the North. The new edition also includes an additional dozen biographies, resulting in a wider resource for scholarship and for a general understanding of this critical moment in civil rights history.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionPoetry
400 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2007
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About the author
Julian Bond
61 books29 followersJulian Bond was an American civil rights activist, politician and the Chairman of the NAACP 1998-2010.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 5, 2024
What is striking in the 50th anniversary edition is that these letters are no longer just presented as being of historical value but are reshaped into a political mood to be emulated. Modern readers are urged to take inspiration, to seek desperately needed connection and, in so doing, to give rise to a similar political impetus. But these writings cannot be so easily transplanted – they are as much a product of their political situation as its architects. The feeling so many Freedom Summer volunteers struggled to capture in their letters home must be understood over the course of the summer.
On arrival in Oxford, Ohio the cream of America - the white, ivy-league educated, post-war boom generation - was for the first time confronted with danger, otherwise only an ill-defined picture at the back of the mind. Gradually reality dawned as several SNCC staff walked out during a film about a Southern voter registrar. What the volunteers had considered a crude caricature of Southern racism was an experience the seasoned SNCC staff were all too familiar with. Anxious for them to grasp the gravity of the situation, one volunteer remembers a staff member telling them: “If you don’t get scared, pack up and get the hell out of here because we don’t need any favors of people who don’t know what they are doing in the first place.” Fear builds but, as one notes, the embarrassment of going home before ever stepping foot in Mississippi was too great. For others, it only registered as they crossed state lines but, for all, there seems to be a difficulty in describing entry to a society at once recognisable from pictures and obscured by distance.
Black communities then housed the volunteers at great risk to themselves, forging deep, often quasi-familial, relationships. Aware of the true virulence of Southern racism and that the violence was only temporarily halted by heavy media presence, the fear of local hosts is often mentioned. An interesting conflict arose between SNCC’s non-violent ethos and the fact that every Black person in the Delta had a gun and kept it loaded. Though the volunteers were welcomed with open arms, even cheered by kids in the street in one account, many had a sense of underlying hatred. “But a white man never turns black in Mississippi. Sometimes you feel you’ve crossed the color line when a woman tells you about her fears and tells how she lies to the white folks but secretly hates them.” This new situation prompted many to reflect on the lives they had left behind. One girl writes to her mother how her relationship to love had changed into something simple and organic rather than over-intellectualised. Another writes how feeling pain, once a virtue, had to be dulled to survive in Mississippi.
Yet, volunteers were required to stay alert to their surroundings – scoping out an area in advance and carefully interpreting the mood of local whites. There is an interesting coexistence between vigilance, resilience and heightened visibility. One expression of solidarity that struck me was of a Black man who, washing the car of a white volunteer and noticing the out of state plates, smiled broadly and found an excuse to talk despite his supervisor lurking nearby. Seemingly minor acts of defiance give shape to a changing pattern of resistance. Freedom Schools were vital in building up this ability to voice frustrations and demand better. Despite the risk of bombings, far more students registered than was anticipated and the ensuing shortage of teachers led to concerns of having to stick to traditional methods of teaching. But, as is beautifully illustrated by the inclusion of students’ poetry in this edition, a new pedagogy was developed in which kids could express themselves. They learned languages, were introduced to literature, and even acted out courthouse scenes. A white teacher expressed concern over being cast as a segregationist, hoping that it wouldn’t reinforce their students’ uncertainty around them. Thankfully, it was understood to be separate.
Finally, many volunteers were torn between returning to the safety of their degrees and continuing to spearhead the movement. Those who did return home often wrote of feeling out of place, unable to talk to Northern Black people but feeling out of place among whites too. The political mood is therefore a cluster of often conflicting emotions – yes, accounts are permeated by intense bonds of love, but they don’t shy away from fear, hate, frustration, or disillusionment. When I read the first edition of this book, I was struck by a complexity impossible to distil into a neat narrative or short Goodreads review ;)
On arrival in Oxford, Ohio the cream of America - the white, ivy-league educated, post-war boom generation - was for the first time confronted with danger, otherwise only an ill-defined picture at the back of the mind. Gradually reality dawned as several SNCC staff walked out during a film about a Southern voter registrar. What the volunteers had considered a crude caricature of Southern racism was an experience the seasoned SNCC staff were all too familiar with. Anxious for them to grasp the gravity of the situation, one volunteer remembers a staff member telling them: “If you don’t get scared, pack up and get the hell out of here because we don’t need any favors of people who don’t know what they are doing in the first place.” Fear builds but, as one notes, the embarrassment of going home before ever stepping foot in Mississippi was too great. For others, it only registered as they crossed state lines but, for all, there seems to be a difficulty in describing entry to a society at once recognisable from pictures and obscured by distance.
Black communities then housed the volunteers at great risk to themselves, forging deep, often quasi-familial, relationships. Aware of the true virulence of Southern racism and that the violence was only temporarily halted by heavy media presence, the fear of local hosts is often mentioned. An interesting conflict arose between SNCC’s non-violent ethos and the fact that every Black person in the Delta had a gun and kept it loaded. Though the volunteers were welcomed with open arms, even cheered by kids in the street in one account, many had a sense of underlying hatred. “But a white man never turns black in Mississippi. Sometimes you feel you’ve crossed the color line when a woman tells you about her fears and tells how she lies to the white folks but secretly hates them.” This new situation prompted many to reflect on the lives they had left behind. One girl writes to her mother how her relationship to love had changed into something simple and organic rather than over-intellectualised. Another writes how feeling pain, once a virtue, had to be dulled to survive in Mississippi.
Yet, volunteers were required to stay alert to their surroundings – scoping out an area in advance and carefully interpreting the mood of local whites. There is an interesting coexistence between vigilance, resilience and heightened visibility. One expression of solidarity that struck me was of a Black man who, washing the car of a white volunteer and noticing the out of state plates, smiled broadly and found an excuse to talk despite his supervisor lurking nearby. Seemingly minor acts of defiance give shape to a changing pattern of resistance. Freedom Schools were vital in building up this ability to voice frustrations and demand better. Despite the risk of bombings, far more students registered than was anticipated and the ensuing shortage of teachers led to concerns of having to stick to traditional methods of teaching. But, as is beautifully illustrated by the inclusion of students’ poetry in this edition, a new pedagogy was developed in which kids could express themselves. They learned languages, were introduced to literature, and even acted out courthouse scenes. A white teacher expressed concern over being cast as a segregationist, hoping that it wouldn’t reinforce their students’ uncertainty around them. Thankfully, it was understood to be separate.
Finally, many volunteers were torn between returning to the safety of their degrees and continuing to spearhead the movement. Those who did return home often wrote of feeling out of place, unable to talk to Northern Black people but feeling out of place among whites too. The political mood is therefore a cluster of often conflicting emotions – yes, accounts are permeated by intense bonds of love, but they don’t shy away from fear, hate, frustration, or disillusionment. When I read the first edition of this book, I was struck by a complexity impossible to distil into a neat narrative or short Goodreads review ;)
July 22, 2008
This book humanized the courageous efforts of volunteers and workers in the movement. All too often, we label leadership as a quality or skill requiring extraordinary abilities. Not so. We all have the potential in us, we just have to retrain our eyes to recognize the ordinary acts of decency, courage, and compassion as a form of leadership.
Well worth the read...
Well worth the read...
March 14, 2009
a revolutionary moment in history - with stories told from the heat of the moment. it's a pretty incredible document about the not-so-remote past in thic country.
It paints a stark picture of what Mississippi was like, and yet does not hide the internal struggles and challenges faced by the volunteers who went south.
It paints a stark picture of what Mississippi was like, and yet does not hide the internal struggles and challenges faced by the volunteers who went south.
May 25, 2009
Betita brings us letters from SNCC and CORE volunteers who went down to Mississippi to register voters and open freedom schools during the summer of 1964. It was sad to reflect on how far we still have to go and humbling to hear stories of how people have resisted.
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May 14, 2009Its amazing how many volunteers had not told their family and how they knew how disappointed their family would be if they had told them they wanted to help deseggrate the deep south.
June 9, 2020
Great book but also bittersweet. I learned a lot about the conditions the people who not only came here but who lived here were living with. Freedom summer of 1964 would change not only the lives of the black communities of rural Mississippi but of the workers themselves who came to establish schools and help register those who wanted to vote.
September 12, 2023
An empowering book; Highly recommended
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews