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Freedom Schools During the Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

My website will focus on a specific event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement: the Freedom Schools set up during the Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964. It will try to emphasize the variety of experiences of civil rights workers during that time. The website will be guided by the question: what factors accounted for the failure or success of the different freedom schools throughout Mississippi? The website will utilize maps, charts and graphs which include information about each county regarding the following: incidents of arson, workers arrested, bombings, murders, shots fired (occasions), non-lethal attacks/threats, and beatings. Besides incidents of violence, information will also be available on the number of students at each school, the size of the black population in the county, and the funds expended on the project in that area.

Moreover, the website will give the viewer an understanding of what daily experiences in freedom schools were like. Classroom materials, descriptions of the schools, letters, and student work will appear on the site. Also, the website will trace the development of freedom schools over time. It will look to the origins of the freedom school movement, the organizations which planned the event, recruitment and training of volunteers, the attempt to create an indigenous movement, and the failure to re-create the movement in the summer of 1965. Finally, the website will help visitors assess the degree to which each site achieved its goals (to encourage school attendees to continue their education, to join the movement, to gain better employment, to register to vote, and more). Through this website, viewers may come to understand the freedom schools in Mississippi were not monolithic. Each site faced different factors, went through different experiences, and achieved different degrees of success.