The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

In the historiography of the civil rights movement, no other state has received as much attention as Mississippi. In particular, the 1964 Freedom Summer project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which brought hundreds of white volunteers to the Magnolia State to register African American voters and to teach black children in so-called Freedom Schools, has been the subject of numerous studies. Yet, a few historiographical gaps remain, and the Freedom Schools is one of them. Jon N. Hale is to be applauded for authoring the first scholarly monograph on this important aspect of the Mississippi movement, since his study reveals that the Freedom Schools were just as important as voter registration drives in SNCC efforts to foster local black activism and develop black leadership. Hale argues that this educational initiative not only helped motivate thousands of black children and teenagers to join the movement but also influenced their activist careers well beyond Freedom Summer. Thus, he rightfully highlights the significant role that youth and education played in the Mississippi freedom struggle.