Freedom Summer Thesis

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was founded in 1963 to counter the Mississippi Democratic Party which only allowed participation by whites. The party was developed during the Freedom Summer Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, of which Hamer was the vice-chair. In 1964, 40 percent of the population was black, yet they were not allowed to participate in the political system (Bramlett-Solomon 1991, 515). The party registered 60, 000 black voters in the state of Mississippi and after that effort party delegates were sent to the 1964 Democratic Convention.

Freedom Schools sprang up all around Mississippi educating children and adults on black history and the movement. The Freedom Summer of 1964 opened the nations eyes and brought an enormous amount of attention to the injustice, discrimination, violence, and brutality many African Americans faced in Mississippi. SNCC, CORE, and NAACP leaders headed Freedom Summer. They recruited hundreds of black and white college students from the North to work in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. Their main goal?

“Long, hot summers” of rioting arose and many supporters of the African American movement were assassinated. However, these movements that mused stay ingrained in America’s history and pave way for an issue that continues to be the center of

All throughout the beginning half of the 20th Century, Blacks, who were still in the full-fledged war against oppression, were finally starting to make some progress. By the year 1941, through legal battles, blacks were able to organize individuals on the ground, Executive order 8802(first federal action to promote equality and prohibit employment discrimination) and even the educational system had begun to desegregate. Despite the fact that there was a huge push back against Jim Crow through legal action, the south was not willing to concede. With new legislation in place, that was designed to promote equality, individuals are known as the Freedom Riders entered the south to challenge segregation at its very core.

After the Civil War in 1865, Republicans in Congress introduced a series of Constitutional Amendments to secure civil and political rights for African Americans. The right that gave black men the privilege to vote provoked the greatest controversy, especially in the North. In 1867, Congress passed the law and African American men began voting in the South, but in the North, they kept denying them this basic right (“African Americans,” 2016). Republicans feared that they would eventually lose control of Congress on the Democrats and thought that their only solution was to include the black men votes. Republicans assumed that all African American votes would go to all the Republicans in the North, as they did in the South and by increasing the

In the book,”The Program.” by Suzanne Young, Young begins with the protagonist,a seventeen year old named Sloane Barstow, who witnesses her classmate, Kendra Phillips, being taken away by a handler during school. Kendra Phillips is terrified and barely hanging on to reality. Two years ago, Sloane's brother, named Brady, committed suicide and six weeks earlier, her friend Lacey was taken by “The Program” as well as her father because she was “sick” In an attempt to manage with the constant monitoring of their reactions to all of this, Sloane, James Murphy, and their friend Miller try to cover their emotions and act normal.

The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

Freedom Summer, this was the year 1964. In the year of 1964 this day become popular because of the African American 's fighting for their freedom and for their rights to vote. The African American already had the right to vote, but then when it came to the women of the African Americans they didn 't have the rights to vote and that was the reason why freedom summer was made. Freedom Summer was a movement for the African American women so they can have their rights to vote. The men and women of the African Americans wanted to help as well and wanted to help get everyone their rights to have freedom.

More specifically, he argues that the common goals freed slaves faced between 1830 and 1860—racial animus and Southern planters’ resistance— resurfaced again in the early 1900s. The planter class used their financial and political wherewithal to subjugate black laborers in a state of perpetual servitude—ex. sharecropping. “Keep the Negroes in the South and make them satisfied with their lot.” In response, the Negro Rural School Fund employed industrial supervisors to teach black educators. James Anderson also recounts the urbanization of the South and its impact upon the public education landscape. He sheds light upon the absence of black high schools in rural areas in the years following Reconstruction.

But, when these officials were elected to Congress, they passed the “black codes” and thus the relations between the president and legislators became worst (Schriefer, Sivell and Arch R1). These so called “Black Codes” were “a series of laws to deprive blacks of their constitutional rights” that they were enacted mainly by Deep South legislatures. Black Codes differ from a state to another but they were stricter in the Deep South as they were sometimes irrationally austere. (Hazen 30) Furthermore, with the emergence of organizations such as the Red Shirts and the White League with the rise of the Conservative White Democrats’ power, efforts to prevent Black Americans from voting were escalating (Watts 247), even if the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S constitution that gave the Blacks the right to vote had been ratified in 1870.

To accomplish social equality and justice has been a long controversial issue in U.S. history. Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be understood as a tremendous accomplishment today because it not only represent a symbol of the triumph of fighting social injustice, but also open the first gate for African American and minority to strive for more political power in order to create a “great society.”

In May 1961, a diverse group of people set out to change the segregation throughout the United States, especially in the South, where segregation was at its highest peak. These diverse people were known as the Freedom Riders. Their purpose and there goals were to bring the idea and movement of the group to the South, in the hopes that it’ll stop the raging war between races in those Southern states. The Freedom Riders also hoped to grab political attention, from their current President at the time, John F Kennedy. They wanted his attention because at the time he was highly focused on world problems such as the Cold War.

For the next few months, the African American students attended school under armed supervision. Even so, they faced physical and verbal abuse from their white peers’’(Source B).This demonstrates how people got together and protested along with the African American students on how the segregationists were being racist and treating them like they were nonexistent. This also shows how the segregationists were ignoring the fact that others were disagreeing with them, but they were mainly focused on being inconsiderate and treating the ‘’Little Rock Nine’’ poorly because they were Negros. After All, the Little Rock Showdown displayed how the segregationists treated the Negro students unequally because they were just as qualified to go to school with white

Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.

Many people were brutally beaten and there were also some that lost their lives, because of it. Lyndon B Johnson begins his speech his by convincing his listener that he will flight for what is owed to the Negros. That is the equal right to vote regardless of your race. The speech “We Shall Overcome”, speech gets to the core of the problem within the Legislation itself. He wants to see that everyone will abide by the 15th Amendment that gives Negros the right and the privilege to vote without any recourse, without worrying