It’s 1963 in Mississippi. Black people are paying poll taxes, taking literacy tests, losing their jobs, and facing threats and violence — all for trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote. To make matters worse, local, state, and federal governments are doing far too little to protect Black communities from this violence and discrimination.
These were the conditions faced by Black Mississippians — and many Black voters throughout the South — as they sought to cast their ballots in the 1950s and 60s. And these deeply troubling experiences are what sparked the launch of the Freedom Summer Project of 1964, a voter registration and education campaign that challenged centuries of disenfranchisement and systemic racism against Black voters in the United States. This year marks six decades since this critical movement and offers an opportune time to examine its legacy and enduring impact, both for the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and for Black political participation nationwide.
Although Mississippi had the highest Black population of any state in the 1960s, only 6.7% of eligible Black voters were registered to vote by 1964. Of course, this wasn’t due to a lack of interest in voting. Instead, it was largely the result of the above-described violence and voter suppression efforts intended to severely repress Black political participation. To counter these measures, a coalition of civil rights organizations began planning for the Freedom Summer Project in 1963, which was set to take place the following year. These organizations included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), along with the other members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO): the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the NAACP.
The project, also known as simply Freedom Summer, was meant to draw national attention to the persistent voter intimidation and dilution happening in Mississippi and to directly counter the false narrative that Black people in the South were not registered to vote, says David Dennis, who spoke with LDF in an interview for this article. Dennis was a member of CORE who led COFO’s voter education committee alongside SNCC leader Robert (Bob) Moses. Dennis, Moses, and their respective organizations had collaborated on various voter campaigns for years prior to Freedom Summer — and their work made it clear that Black voters in the South wanted to vote, but it was nearly impossible to exercise this right.
In an interview for this piece, LDF Voting Rights Special Counsel and Black Voters on the Rise Manager Amir Badat describes the Freedom Summer Project as one of the most “daring confrontations against white supremacy in this nation’s history, led by Black organizers in Mississippi and fueled by volunteers from around the country.” Many organizers, like civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, pushed for an integrated movement as a way to bring national attention to the violence and disenfranchisement plaguing Black communities in the South. Out of the 1,000+ volunteers who came to Mississippi to support the work of local advocates and civil rights leadership, the majority were white college students from the north.
Freedom Summer’s impacts were far-reaching. Local Black organizers and volunteers set up polling stations throughout the state and helped register voters and advise them of their rights. They worked in dozens of counties and towns, paying particular attention to historically underserved rural areas.
In total, Freedom Summer launched over 44 projects, including various “Freedom Schools” that focused on empowering Black youth. These schools offered reading instruction, a humanities curriculum that included creative writing, a general mathematics and science curriculum, and even French lessons. They also taught subjects the public schools did not, including Black history and constitutional rights. The schools covered the civil rights and freedom movements — and encouraged students to become agents of social change in their own communities. More than 3,000 students of all ages attended the Freedom Schools that summer.
While the volunteers’ work drew national attention and advanced Black voter participation in Mississippi, Dennis attributes much of Freedom Summer’s success to the dozens of local families who housed, fed, and took care of the volunteer youth like their own. Often overlooked, he stresses that the movement could not have existed without the pivotal contributions of local community members. Notably, many local participants had already been formally and informally organizing around voter education and registration, and their participation in Freedom Summer was a natural continuation of these efforts.
Along with the volunteers and on-the-ground organizers from the local NAACP branch, CORE, and SNCC, the local participants were, as Dennis recounts, the “underground movement that paved the way.” He emphasizes, “People talk about the Freedom Summer and all the accolades toward the young people who came down, but the people there had to live through this after the rest of us left … they understood what the movement was about.”
Badat echoes this sentiment, adding, “Freedom Summer didn’t happen overnight — it was the culmination of years of strategic organizing and infrastructure building by Black Mississippians.”
Freedom Summer emphasized the power of collective, multiracial, and intergenerational organizing and the imperativeness of working alongside local community members to advance justice. And it further illuminated how and why building Black political power will always be a cornerstone of civil rights work.
LDF also played a critical part in Freedom Summer. Per LDF’s Archives Department, the organization was part of a coalition composed of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, local NAACP branch-affiliated lawyers, and the National Lawyers’ Guild that provided legal resources, support, and protection for volunteers and staff during Freedom Summer.
Jess Brown, Carsie A. Hull, and Jack H. Young, LDF cooperating attorneys and the only Black civil rights attorneys in Mississippi at the time; Marian Wright Edelman, the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi bar and the director of LDF’s then-office in Jackson, Mississippi; and 150 lawyers from other organizations got involved with the initiative, with many traveling from northern cities and using their vacation time to offer legal support.
This support was essential, as volunteers seeking to register Black voters often encountered resistance not only from local white residents, but also from state officials and local law enforcement. Throughout the project, hundreds were detained without just cause, or on intentionally vague charges such as criminal syndicalism or illegal distribution of pamphlets. Moreover, many endured beatings or were denied access to phone calls or counsel once detained, as research from LDF’s Archives Department details.
LDF assumed responsibility for over 100 cases in Mississippi and represented over 250 Freedom Summer workers in cases involving everything from welfare rights to demanding equitable schools for Black children. The organization also worked to increase the allocation of lawyers and money to Mississippi and provided seminars, office spaces, and law books to support Freedom Summer efforts.
Dennis recounts the immense support LDF provided, which helped push the movement forward. He emphasizes that LDF’s backing was critical to ensuring the organizers and volunteers accomplished their goals.
Although the Freedom Summer Project only ran during the summer of 1964, civil rights organizations’ commitment to building Black political power continued for decades afterward — and to the present day. Freedom Summer highlighted the power of mass mobilization in securing and protecting Black political power. As Dennis stresses, this work took courage: courage from everyone, but especially the local Black residents in Mississippi who risked everything to vote and support the movement.
Moreover, for many volunteers, that summer laid the foundation for lifelong journeys in social and racial justice work. More than 200 volunteers decided to stay in Mississippi, with some even leaving their jobs or schooling to continue the work of advancing Black political participation.
Among other civil rights movement initiatives, Freedom Summer put pressure on local, state, and federal officials to address the rampant discrimination and violence endured by Black communities in the South as they sought to exercise their right to vote. Freedom Summer undoubtedly played a role in building the momentum that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the latter of which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
This advocacy, and the laws that resulted from it, had an almost immediate impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new Black voters had been registered. By 1967, almost 60% of Mississippi’s Black voting eligible population was registered to vote. Black voter turnout and Black representation in elected offices increased as Black people finally were able to more fully exercise their right to vote.
As an organization with so much history embedded in the civil rights movement, LDF recognizes the importance of honoring the past and using it as a guiding force for shaping the future. In June, LDF did just that when staff attended the SNCC Legacy Project’s 60th commemoration of Freedom Summer in Indianola, Mississippi. The event brought together many of the individuals who organized, rallied, and volunteered that summer, including Dennis, to reflect on how the project’s takeaways can be used for freedom movements today. For Dennis, the conference highlighted the importance of bottom-up work and grassroots organizing, especially when it comes to listening to, working alongside, and supporting local communities in their voting advocacy and civil rights work today.
At its core, Freedom Summer was about building Black political power, especially in the South. This mirrors one of the fundamental tenets of LDF’s work, in which it has engaged for the past 84 years. Moreover, just as it did during Freedom Summer, LDF prioritizes long-term, community-driven, and coalition-led work when it comes to countering voter suppression and supporting Black political participation.
In fact, LDF’s voting rights team focuses on expanding voting rights and Black political engagement across the South. The team monitors, tracks, and responds to voter suppression efforts in seven target states: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, and Florida. And it employs many of the same organizing techniques utilized during Freedom Summer.
As Badat describes, “Our work is year-round, multi-year, and local partner driven, because we know that revolutionary moments like Freedom Summer can only be achieved through sustained investment and leadership by those who are most impacted.”
LDF Voting Rights Attorney Leah Wong similarly emphasizes the power of working with partners and coalitions. For example, she notes that during Freedom Summer, SNCC was “integral in providing guidance about analyzing sociopolitical dynamics, including the continued discrimination against Black voters, devising a multi-part integrated advocacy strategy, and executing a response campaign all within a matter of months.”
This epitomizes why LDF continues to prioritize coalition-based work today. Wong adds, “We are lucky to learn from many of the civil rights activists from that summer to this day, and hope that current and future generations of civil rights leaders can be inspired to adopt a similar playbook so that every Mississippian’s [and individual’s] voice is heard.”
Indeed, voting at its core is a local function. So, much like it did during Freedom Summer, today LDF serves as a resource for local community partners, connecting them with resource teams to assist in combatting suppressive voting measures using a variety of tactics. These include public exposure, media coverage, advocacy efforts — like calls, letters, and petitions — targeting local decision makers, and, when applicable, litigation.
Over half a century after Freedom Summer, voting rights, particularly those of people of color, are still under attack, and have even regressed after decades of progress. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which significantly weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opened the door for a wave of suppressive voting laws that have severely harmed Black political power over the last decade.
Moreover, states have increasingly been passing laws that restrict what students can learn about American history, including Black history and movements like Freedom Summer. Furthermore, reproductive care, housing access, LGBTQ+ rights and disability rights, and the freedom to live and learn as one’s full self are being increasingly infringed upon, reflecting a concerning incursion into hard-won civil rights. Voting is one of the best ways to counter these infringements.
Dennis, like many of the organizers and volunteers that summer, was a college student when he decided to join CORE and head to Mississippi to lead voter registration work. The Freedom Summer youth were the up-and-coming generation of civil rights leaders at the time. Just as it was in the 1960s, it is again imperative to prioritize youth-led movement building when it comes to advancing Black political power. Young people are the future: They are the next generation of activists and civil rights leaders.
In fact, come November 2024, Gen Z and Millennial voters will make up around 49% of eligible voters in the country. Moreover, Black voters are projected to account for 14% of the eligible voting population and, as of 2022, around 8.1 million Black eligible voters lived in three of LDF’s target states: Texas, Georgia, and Florida.
Who has the power to shape the future of our democracy? The resounding answer is: Everyone does. The real question becomes: How can you harness this power into direct action? Freedom Summer made clear that voting and making your voice heard — and ensuring that every eligible voter can do the same — is one of the best forms of direct action. So, make sure you vote this year, in every single election. Make sure your friends and family vote. Learn about the candidates and issues that will be on your ballot. And, beyond elections, learn how you can get involved in your local community.
This is one of the best ways to honor the incredible progress made by Freedom Summer and carry its legacy forward.
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