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The Volunteers and the Freedom Schools: Education for Social Change in Mississippi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Mary Aickin Rothschild
Mary Aickin Rothschild*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
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Extract

From the beginning of direct action work in the South, the student civil rights movement constantly evolved new programs and tactics. While the goals of the programs were always to work toward desegregation and voter registration, the programs often stressed varied approaches to those goals and had different tactical components.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Winter 1982 , pp. 401 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. For more background on the Summer Projects, see Rothschild, Mary Aickin, A Case of Black and White: Northern Volunteers and the Southern Freedom Summers, 1964–1965 (Westport, Connecticut, 1982), Chapters 1–2. These characteristics and basic demographic facts apply to the approximately three hundred 1965 Mississippi volunteers as well, though, by 1965, ten per cent of the Mississippi volunteers considered themselves “radical.”Google Scholar

2. Otis Pease Prs, Seattle, Washington; Cobb, Charlie, “Prospectus for a Summer Freedom School Project,” COFO mimeo, April. 1964, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

3. State Historical Society of Wisconsin (hereinafter SHSW): Howard Zinn Prs.; SHSW: Staughton Lynd Prs.; Otis Pease Prs. Seattle, Washington. Interviews: Otis Pease, Seattle, Washington, 1967–1968; Howard Zinn, Boston, Massachusetts, 1969.Google Scholar

4. Otis Pease Prs, Seattle, WA: “Prospectus for a Mississippi Freedom School Program,” COFO mimeo, no date (probably April, 1964), includes original Cobb Proposal; Melish, Ilene Strelitz, Memoirs, Unpub. Mss. especially pp. 29–30; Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: Prospectus for the Mississippi Freedom Summer,” COFO ditto, no date (probably late April), includes only edited version of Cobb's proposal; Fusco, Liz, “To Blur the Focus of What you Came Here to Know: A Letter Containing Notes on Education, Freedom Schools and Mississippi,” ditto, undated (Spring, 1966), hereinafter Fusco, , “To Blur the Focus;” Liz Fusco “Issaquena Freedom: A Play Written in Jail in Mississippi,” mss., April, 1965, hereinafter Fusco, , “Issaquena Freedom;” SHSW: Howard Zinn Prs.: Letter: Dr.Zangrando, Robert L. to Zinn, Rutgers University, August 20, 1964, p. 3; SHSW: Elizabeth Sutherland Prs.; Unused and Uncatalogued Letters,” Letter Series “Judy” to parents and sponsor church in Denver, June 30, 1964 - August 11, 1964, Ruleville and Shaw, Mississippi; SHSW: Staughton Lynd Prs.: Powell, Kristy, “A Report, Mainly on Ruleville Freedom School Summer Project, 1964;” Howe, Florence, “Mississippi's Freedom School Summer Project, 1964;” Howe, Florence, “Mississippi's Freedom Schools: The Politics of Education,” Harvard Educational Review, 35 (Spring 1964): 144–160: Sutherland, Elizabeth, Letters from Mississippi, (New York: 1964), pp. 100–102 (hereinafter Sutherland, Letters); Interviews: Otis Pease, Seattle, Wash., 1967; Paul Lauter and Florence Howe, Seattle, Wash., June, 1972.Google Scholar

5. Otis Pease Prs, Seattle, Wash.: Mississippi Summer Project Staff (MSPS), “Memorandum: Overview of the Freedom Schools,” COFO ditto, May 5. 1964, Jackson, Mississippi, pp. 1–3; Lynd, Staughton and Bardanelli, Harold, “Dear Freedom School Teacher,” COFO ditto; May 20, 1964, Jackson, Mississippi; MSPS, “Dear Summer Project Worker,” COFO ditto, undated (Late May), Jackson, Mississippi; Note the subtle differences in tone and purpose between the MSPS memos and the Lynd and Bardinelli memo.Google Scholar

6. McCord, William, Mississippi: The Long Hot Summer (New York, 1965), p. 35. These are the figures for the local school district's expenditures per student which are matched, dollar for dollar, by the state. From the report of State Superintendent of Education as cited in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 15, 1962.Google Scholar

7. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: Day, Noel, “Remarks to the Freedom School Teachers about Methods,” “Notes on Teaching,” p. 5.Google Scholar

8. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: Stembridge, Jane, “Introduction to the Summer,” “Notes on Teaching,” p. 1.Google Scholar

9. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 39; SHSW: Lise Vogel Prs.: “Orientation Notes,” hand-written.Google Scholar

10. Fusco, Liz, “Deeper Than Politics,” Liberation, IX, no. 8 (1964), p. 18. SHSW: Howard Zinn Prs.: “Negro History Study Questions: 20th Century,” COFO ditto, undated (Spring/Summer 1964), p. 1.Google Scholar

11. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 95.Google Scholar

12. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 97.Google Scholar

13. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: Pease, Otis, “The Development of the Negro in American Politics Since 1900,” COFO mimeo, undated (June 1964); Otis Pease Prs, Seattle, WA: Handwritten notes on July 16, 1964; Interviews: Otis Pease, February 13, 1967; March 23, 1967. Since that summer experience, Pease has always included a substantial component of black history in his courses. Previously, he did not.Google Scholar

14. Sutherland, , Letters, pp. 94–95.Google Scholar

15. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 94.Google Scholar

16. Interviews: Otis Pease, February 13, 1967; March 23, 1967; Shideler, Sally, February 15, 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 92.Google Scholar

18. SHSW: Elizabeth Sutherland Prs.: “Unused and Uncatalogued Letters;” Interview: Pease, Otis, 1967.Google Scholar

19. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: “Freedom School Data,” including “The Declaration of Independence by the Freedom School Students of St. John's Methodist Church, Palmer's Crossing, Hattiesburg, Mississippi,” COFO ditto, p. 6.Google Scholar

20. WSHS: Lise Vogel Prs.: Letter from Bonnie Guy to “Friends,” July 18. 1964, Shaw, Mississippi, p. 1.Google Scholar

21. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 100.Google Scholar

22. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 101.Google Scholar

23. SHSW: Lise Vogel Prs.: Guy, Bonnie, “Letter to Friends,” July 18, 1964, Shaw, Mississippi, p. 3.Google Scholar

24. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 102.Google Scholar

25. Sutherland, , Letters, p. 102.Google Scholar

26. Howe, Florence, “Mississippi's Freedom Schools.” 148. Interviews: Howe, Florence and Lauter, Paul, June. 1972, Seattle, Wash.; Florence Howe, Series, Summer 1974, Seattle, Washington.Google Scholar

27. Sutherland, , Letters, pp. 104–105.Google Scholar

28. Fusco, Liz, “Deeper Than Politics,” Liberation, IX, p. 18; SHSW: Howard Zinn Prs.: “Freedom Schools–Final Report, 1964,” undated (about August 20, 1964).Google Scholar

29. SHSW: Howard Zinn Prs.: “Freedom Schools—Final Report, 1964,” undated (about August 20, 1964); Staughton Lynd, Mississippi Freedom Schools: Retrospect and Prospect,” July 26, 1964, draft mss.,; SHSW: Staughton Lynd Prs.: Zinn, Howard, “Educational Frontiers in Mississippi,” draft mss.Google Scholar

30. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: “Proposal for a Freedom Education Program,” Xerox of typed mss., p. 3. I am indebted to Ms. Jan Hillegas of the Mississippi Freedom Information Service of Tougaloo, Miss. for allowing me access to her private files.Google Scholar

31. Mary Rothschild Prs, in possession of author: Fusco, Liz, “To Blur the Focus,” p. 9.Google Scholar

32. Fusco, Liz, “To Blur the Focus,” pp. 1–4.Google Scholar

33. Mary Rothschild Prs in possession of author: Fusco, Liz, “To Blur the Focus,” “Outlook for the Mississippi Community Center Program,” Xerox of typed mss., a position paper, March, 1965; Position papers for COFO Re-evaluation, November-December. 1964, ditto. Again I am indebted to Hillegas, Jan Ms. of the Freedom Information Service for giving me a complete packet of these papers just as they were given to all the staff members before the meeting. Interviews: Davis, Nancy, October, 1973, San Francisco; Linda Davis, October, 1973, Washington, D.C.; Hamer, Fannie Lou, November, 1969, Ruleville, Mississippi, Charles Horwitz, November, 1969, Jackson, Mississippi, Barbara Rosen, January, 1967, Seattle, Washington.Google Scholar

34. SHSW: Staughton Lynd Prs.: Powell, Kristy, “A Report, Mainly on Ruleville Freedom School, Summer Project, 1964,” pp. 10–11; Howe, Florence, “Mississippi's Freedom Schools:” 155–157. Watters, Pat, Down to Now: Reflections on the Southern Civil Movement (New York: 1971), p. 302.Google Scholar

35. This boycott-Freedom School tradition continues in the Amite, Mississippi, school boycott over sex-segregation in the Amite schools, which integrated under federal mandate in 1969, but which kept the sexes separate so white girls would not be in the same classrooms as black boys. The boycott began in September of 1977 and is not yet completely resolved. Newsweek (September 19. 1977): 97.Google Scholar

36. Mary Rothschild Prs in possession of author: Fusco, Liz, “Tommy Jr., A SNCC Poster (For Food, For Freedom) and some questions,” mss., p. 3. Underlining in original mss. Fusco, Liz, “Issaquena Freedom,” pp. 5–9, Fusco, Liz, “To Blur the Focus,” p. 14.Google Scholar

37. Jacobs, Paul and Landau, Saul, The New Radicals, A Report with Documents (New York, 1966), pp. 131–35.Google Scholar

38. SHSW: R. Hunter Morey Prs.: Box 5, COFO Staff, “Fifth District's COFO Staff Meeting,” April 14–17, 1965, Waveland, Miss., “Freedom School Joint Meeting with 3rd Dist.,” pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

39. KZSU Interview, Stanford University: 0356, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

40. Grant, JoAnne, Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analyses, 1619 to the Present (Connecticut, 1968), pp. 415–16, “The War on Vietnam,” A McComb, Miss. Project. Interview: Smith, Dorothy, January 24, 1979, Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar

41. Grant, JoAnne, Black Protest, p. 415, footnote explanation of the background of the statement.Google Scholar

42. McLemore, Leslie B., “The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party: A Case Study in Grass Roots Politics.” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1971), p. 237. Quoted from Bonney, James, “Letters Author Recalls Praise of FDP Leaders,” Greenwood Commonwealth (Mississippi), August 4, 1965.Google Scholar

43. See the discussion of the Amite boycott, footnote 35. Interviews: Hamer, Fannie Lou, Nov. 2. 1969, Ruleville, Mississippi; Kirksey, Henry, Nov. 11, 1969, Jackson, Mississippi; Smith, Dorothy, January 24, 1979, Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar