More than 1,000 out-of-state volunteers participated in Freedom Summer alongside thousands of Black Mississippians. Local civil rights workers and volunteers, along with students from northern and western universities, organized and implemented the mock election, in which tens of thousands voted. Edwin King of Tougaloo College and Aaron Henry, from Clarksdale, Mississippi.
#Freedom summer registration#
After registering on a simple registration form, voters would select candidates to run in the following year's election. The registrars ruled subjectively on the applicant's qualifications, and decided against most Blacks, not allowing them to register.Īlso, in 1963, volunteers set up polling places in Black churches and business establishments across Mississippi. The Mississippi voting registration procedure at the time required Blacks to fill out a 21-question registration form and to answer, to the satisfaction of the white registrars, a question on the interpretation of any one of 285 sections of the state constitution. In 1963, SNCC organized a mock "Freedom Vote" designed to demonstrate the will of Black Mississippians to vote, if not impeded by terror and intimidation. Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from the SNCC. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations ( SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and SCLC). The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local Black population.įreedom Summer was built on years of earlier work by thousands of Blacks, connected through their churches, who lived in Mississippi. Its launch was to register as many Black voters as possible in Mississippi.īlacks had been cut off from voting since the turn of the century due to barriers to voter registration and other laws. Sometimes called the Mississippi Summer Project, it was a volunteer campaign against voter suppression in the United States. *Freedom Summer is briefly described on this date in 1964.
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