Background:
During the early 1960s, Mississippi was the poorest state
in the nation, with most non-white families living well
below the poverty line. Although African Americans made
up close to half of the population of this state, few
were registered to vote, and there were no African American
representatives in the Democratic Party. In 1964, a presidential
election year, civil rights organizations decided to focus
on four goals in Mississippi: to register more African
Americans to vote; to use the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party to challenge the Mississippi Democratic delegation
to the 1964 Democratic national convention; to set up
“Freedom Schools” for African-American children
to study reading, math, and history; and to establish
centers where African Americans could get legal and medical
help.
Approximately 1,000 people from all over the country
were trained and sent to Mississippi to help accomplish
these goals. They were to spend the summer traveling
throughout the state, registering people to vote, and
setting up schools and legal and medical centers in
African American communities. Some of these civil rights
workers were African American and from the Deep South,
while many were white college students, often from elsewhere
in the country. They were required to bring $500 for
bail as well as money to cover living expenses, medical
bills, and transportation home. The young people began
to arrive in Mississippi in June, 1964. On June 21,
not long after the arrival of the first group of 200
civil rights workers, three of them – an African
American from Mississippi and two whites from New York
City - disappeared. The bodies of James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were found on August
4. They had been murdered.
The murders testify to the danger that confronted
civil rights workers during that summer. They were constantly
harassed by people who did not agree with what they
were doing. But these civil rights workers practiced
nonviolence. They did not get into physical confrontations
with the people who harassed or threatened them. These
young people used song to build community, gather strength,
and to keep themselves from being overwhelmed by the
dangers of their work. Often the songs they sang were
modifications of nineteenth-century spirituals sung
by African American slaves or songs that had been composed
by anonymous African Americans immediately after the
slaves had been emancipated.
Materials:
Primary sources:
- chart paper and markers
- poem: “What Is Wrong?” (pdf)
- map of the United States (pdf)
- Freedom Summer 1964 Sheet (bottom folded to the
line under the first paragraph) (pdf)
- songs from www.HISTORYNOW.org jukebox
- copies of the lyrics of the songs from www.HISTORYNOW.org
jukebox
Objectives:
1. Students will interpret primary and secondary
sources in an effort to understand the struggle for
women’s suffrage in the U.S.
2. Students will demonstrate their understanding of
historical events by creating PowerPoint presentations
or writing individual essays.
Aim/Essential Question:
How did civil rights workers use songs to promote their
cause during the Freedom Summer of 1964?
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