Civil Rights Leaders
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Freedom Summers
Many Blacks wanted to vote, but the worried and rightfully so, they might lose their jobs if they voted. In 1962, many blacks want to vote in Madison County, but only a few actually got to register. The white registrars and the state government made sure that the majority of blacks would not be able to vote by setting up many obstacles, so they would not succeeded. In the mid, 1900's the civil rights organizations came together to help register more blacks.
Amizie Moore, a local NAACP leaner in Mississippi and a SN worker, Robert Parris Mosses, worked together to bring many volunteer workers to the voter registration campaigns in the town of McComb. Many people, all ages, joined to participate in various activities. Even though, the freedom summer participants were frightened by the violence, they continued to work. Many of the participants did the door-to-door voter registration drives.
Others set up many "Freedom Schools" for children who had to work in the field alongside their parents. They also created "Freedom Kitchens." There was much violence that occurred during this period. Thirty-five activists were fired upon, eighty activists were beaten, thirty-seven churches were burned down and destroyed, six Mississippians with the connection to the civil rights movement were killed, and more that 1,000 activist and prospective voters were arrested. Event though the Freedom summer sacrifices only got 1,200 blacks (which is one black out of three-hundred and seventy-five,) their effort w not in vain.
The Freedom Summer touched the lives of the poor and black citizens of Mississippi and other states in many ways.