Primary Sources: The 1960s: Freedom Summer (1964)

"Access over 40,000 pages of official records of organizations, personal papers of movement leaders, letters, racist propaganda, diaries, images, newsletters and more."

"University of Mississippi's Civil Rights Archive contains digitized versions of small (generally one box or less) collections related to the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi and the American South. Collections date from Reconstruction to the late 20th century. Major topics represented include the Freedmen's Bureau, school integration, voter registration, labor, and religious activism."

"In the summer of 1964, hundreds of predominantly white college students answered the call from civil rights leaders to volunteer for Freedom Summer. They participated in voter registration efforts, taught in freedom schools and worked in community centers in towns throughout racially segregated Mississippi. In this collection of video segments from Iowans Return to Freedom Summer, participants reflect on their experiences during this historic period."

"The collection consists of correspondence, a voter registration plan, photographs, and newsclippings from Thomas Foner's work as a volunteer with the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964. The collection documents his work with the project and contains substantial information about the conditions faced by volunteers during the summer."

"The Freedom Summer Digital Archive began in 2009 with a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council, the Miami University Libraries, and through the generous support of Catherine Ross-Loveland, a 1952 graduate of the Western College for Women. The archive is split into two collections: the Freedom Summer Text & Photo Archive, and the Freedom Summer A/V Collection. Curriculum guides are also available."

"In this recording of Fischer's raw interviews, she speaks with a number of citizens from Mississippi. The audio starts with a recording of a teacher in one of the Freedom Schools set up to help bring a better education to the young black children and black adults in rural areas of Mississippi. Fischer then speaks with Jack Tannehill, editor of the Neshoba Democrat, the weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, MS. Mr. Tannehill talks about the blacks in Mississippi registering to vote..."

"The Freedom Summer Digital Archive began in 2009 with a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council, the Miami University Libraries, and through the generous support of Catherine Ross-Loveland, a 1952 graduate of the Western College for Women. The archive is split into two collections: the Freedom Summer Text & Photo Archive, and the Freedom Summer A/V Collection. Curriculum guides are also available."

"More than 25,000 pages from the Freedom Summer manuscripts -- enough to fill several file cabinets -- are available online. In them you will find official records of organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); the personal papers of movement leaders and activists such as Amzie Moore, Mary King and Howard Zinn, letters and diaries of northern college students who went South to volunteer for the summer; newsletters produced in Freedom Schools; racist propaganda, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and brochures, magazine articles, telephone call logs, candid snapshots, internal memos, press releases and much more. The digital collection will continue to grow as more manuscripts are added in coming months."

"One of Freedom Summer's strategic objectives was to raise national awareness of southern realities, demand Federal action, and mobilize political support for the MFDP. All the summer volunteers were urged to write frequent letters to family, friends, teachers, and ministers about the Freedom Movement and their experiences. Many volunteers arranged to have their letters published in local newspapers, school or church bulletins, or reproduced and distributed to informal networks. This was before the era of cheap photocopy machines, so letters had to be retyped with carbon copies, or mimeographed from hand-typed stencils, often by parents who just days or weeks earlier had been desperately pleading with their daughters and sons not to to to Mississippi." Civil Rights Movement website

"Mark Levy was a volunteer in the Freedom Summer project of 1964 serving as co-coordinator and teacher at the Meridian Freedom School in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. He is a Queens College, City University of New York alumnus (B.A. in Sociology 1964, M.S. in Social Studies Education 1973), former Student Association President (1962-1963), and former SEEK Program faculty member (1968-1973). Starting in 1973, he was a union organizer and representative for United Electrical Radio, and Machine Workers of American (UE), Local 1199/NY (United Drug, Hospital and Healthcare Workers Union), and then at the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU) from 1981 to 2008. The collection contains correspondence, clippings, photographs, printed materials and miscellanea documenting the Mississippi Summer Project, the Meridian Freedom School, and Queens College student activism in the 1960s, as collected by Mark and his wife, Betty Bollinger Levy."

"The Mississippi Civil Rights Project is an interactive, evolving repository of information about the civil rights movement in Mississippi, cross-referenced by county, by topic, and by person."

MDAH Digital Archives include:
electronic records received from government agencies and officials; donated and acquired electronic resources; digital copies of original materials from MDAH collections, including paper documents, photographs, maps, audio, and video

"The Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) is an award-winning archive of 200+ oral history interviews conducted with veterans of the civil rights movement and notable residents of the Mississippi Delta."

Items in the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries' Digital Archive related to the Freedom Schools.

"The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of civil rights organizations that formed in Mississippi in 1962 to coordinate voter registration efforts and broader equal rights reforms. In 1964, COFO launched Freedom Summer, in which thousands of local black Mississippians and hundreds of black and white students from out of state operated "Freedom Schools" and registered black voters. Though volunteers faced violent reprisals, their efforts crucially drew the attention of the nation on the obstacles black voters faced in the Deep South, which in turn led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

"From 1964: CBS News Looks inside the Mississippi voter registration effort, with activists teaching volunteers how to respond to police beatings and arrest. Anchored by Walter Cronkite."

Website for radio program that includes interviews.

"Robert Masters graduated from Queens College in 1966; at age 20 he spent seven weeks in Greenwood, Mississippi as a volunteer in the Freedom Summer of 1964. As a volunteer he canvassed door-to-door on behalf of the new Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), enlisting support among the African American community for the party's challenge to the established, all white-delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. During his time in Greenwood, Masters was arrested twice and spent time in jail for his organizing activities. The collection includes newspaper and magazine articles, color snapshots, letters in which Masters describes his work in Greenwood, and a 1964 Mississippi license plate from Leflore County."

"A copy of the Security Handbook given to participants in the "Freedom Summer" campaign in Mississippi in 1964 highlights the dangers that young civil rights workers were exposed to. Tragically, the precautions suggested by the handbook proved insufficient; three young volunteers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were abducted and killed by Klansmen within the first weeks of the campaign."

Documents provided by the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website.

"Susan Nichols was a volunteer in the Mississippi Freedom Project in 1964-1965. A graduate of Southern Illinois University, (B.A. in Psychology, 1983) and Boston University (Masters in Social Work, 1984). She worked for civil rights and social justice organizations, such as the Freedom Democratic Party, Caesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, Let Cuba Live, Cuba Solidarity and Pastors for Peace. The collection contains incident reports and affidavits on violence, memos, institutional documents, pamphlets, handbooks, booklets, published articles, newspapers, newsletters from COFO, SNCC, the Freedom Democratic Party, Freedom Schools and personal correspondence"

Chude Pam Parker Allen
Holly Springs, Mississippi, July 1964

Designed to make "research quality digital collections of texts, images, and audio materials" available for scholars.