Growing Tensions

GROWTH AND TURMOIL, 1948-1977 Growing Tensions

Resource:

Freedom Summer

Background

In 1964, a group of Black civil rights organizations led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) launched Freedom Summer. The public goal was to register thousands of Black voters in Mississippi. The private goal was to gain stronger national support for the civil rights movement.

Hundreds of mostly white college students from the North volunteered for Freedom Summer. SNCC’s leadership wanted all Americans to understand the harsh reality of Black life in the South. They hoped these eager volunteers would witness this reality and return home with a new purpose. If the federal government was tired of hearing from Black activists, perhaps it would listen to young, white, educated voters.

SNCC achieved national attention in a tragic way. Early in the summer, three participants disappeared. Their names were James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Six weeks later, their bodies were discovered. They had been brutally lynched by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were white college students from New York. SNCC leaders never intended to make white volunteers martyrs. However, their theory that the American public cared more about white activists was true. Extreme violence against Black civil rights activists was an almost daily occurrence in Mississippi. But the disappearance of white college students made national news. The media coverage of the incident motivated more people to become involved in the movement and placed pressure on the federal government. Less than one year later, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.

About the Document

Heather Tobis Booth was a politically active student at the University of Chicago. In the summer of 1964, she volunteered for Freedom Summer. While in Mississippi, she worked in a Freedom School and helped to register voters. That experience led her to pursue a career in civil rights organizing. In 2000, she was the founding director of the NAACP National Voter Fund.

Heather received this letter from her mother, Hazel Tobis, shortly after arriving in Mississippi. Prior to this letter, Heather’s parents tried to convince her not to go. The letter describes how a group of parents lobbied in Washington, D.C. to protect their children, who were Freedom Summer volunteers. The reference to the “missing boys” suggests that they were motivated by the disappearance of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

Vocabulary

• Attorney General: The chief legal ofcer of the United States, who gives legal advice to the president and the federal government. • Ku Klux Klan (KKK): A national organization that promoted an America made up entirely of white, Protestant, native-born Americans and was inspired by the KKK of the 1870s, a secret organization focused on terrorizing black citizens in the post-Civil War South. • lynching: The illegal execution of a person by a mob. • martyr: A person who sufers or dies for a cause. • Mr. White: Lee Calvin White, an advisor to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): A civil rights organization that was founded in 1909 to fght racial discrimination and still exists today. • Senator Kenneth Keating: A long-term Republican Senator from New York who supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): A national organization founded to recruit and organize young people interested in the civil rights movement.

Discussion Questions

• Why is Hazel Tobis in Washington, D.C.? Who is she traveling with, and what do they hope to accomplish? • Why are Hazel and other parents concerned for their children? • What kinds of reactions do the parents receive while in Washington, D.C.? • What does this letter tell you about the parents of white civil rights activists? • After reading the background information and letter, what do you think of SNCC’s strategy to recruit white volunteers from the North? • How do you think Heather felt receiving this letter? • Most Freedom Summer volunteers, including Heather, chose to stay in Mississippi after the disappearance of the three young men. What does this tell you about Heather and the other participants?