Civil rights movement

=== Freedom Summer, 1964 ===
{{Main|Freedom Summer}}

In the summer of 1964, [[Council of Federated Organizations|COFO]] brought nearly 1,000 activists to Mississippi{{mdash}}most of them white college students from the North and West{{mdash}}to join with local black activists to register voters, teach in "Freedom Schools", and organize the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP).<ref name="crmvet.org">[http://www.crmvet.org/disc/mfdp.htm The Mississippi Movement & the MFDP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424084752/http://www.crmvet.org/disc/mfdp.htm |date=April 24, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

Many of Mississippi's white residents deeply resented the outsiders and attempts to change their society. State and local governments, police, the [[White Citizens' Council]] and the Ku Klux Klan used arrests, beatings, arson, murder, spying, firing, evictions, and other forms of intimidation and harassment to oppose the project and prevent blacks from registering to vote or achieving social equality.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/docs/msrv64.pdf Mississippi: Subversion of the Right to Vote] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505032056/http://www.crmvet.org/docs/msrv64.pdf |date=May 5, 2010 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

[[File:FBI Poster of Missing Civil Rights Workers.jpg|thumb|[[Missing persons]] poster created by the [[FBI]] in 1964 [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|shows the photographs]] of [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], [[James Chaney]], and [[Michael Schwerner]]]]

On June 21, 1964, [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|three civil rights workers disappeared]]: [[James Chaney]], a young black Mississippian and plasterer's apprentice; and two [[Jewish]] activists, [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]], a [[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College]] anthropology student; and [[Michael Schwerner]], a [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] organizer from [[Manhattan]]'s [[Lower East Side]]. They were found weeks later, murdered by conspirators who turned out to be local members of the Klan, some of the members of the [[Neshoba County, Mississippi|Neshoba County]] sheriff's department. This outraged the public, leading the U.S. Justice Department along with the FBI (the latter which had previously avoided dealing with the issue of segregation and persecution of blacks) to take action. The outrage over these murders helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

From June to August, Freedom Summer activists worked in 38 local projects scattered across the state, with the largest number concentrated in the [[Mississippi Delta]] region. At least 30 Freedom Schools, with close to 3,500 students, were established, and 28 community centers were set up.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McAdam |first=Doug |title=Freedom Summer |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-19-504367-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomsummer00mcad }}</ref>

Over the course of the Summer Project, some 17,000 Mississippi blacks attempted to become registered voters in defiance of the red tape and forces of [[white supremacy]] arrayed against them{{mdash}}only 1,600 (less than 10%) succeeded. But more than 80,000 joined the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP), founded as an alternative political organization, showing their desire to vote and participate in politics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carson |first=Clayborne |title=In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1981}}</ref>

Though Freedom Summer failed to register many voters, it had a significant effect on the course of the civil rights movement. It helped break down the decades of people's isolation and repression that were the foundation of the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] system. Before Freedom Summer, the national news media had paid little attention to the persecution of black voters in the Deep South and the dangers endured by black civil rights workers. The progression of events throughout the South increased media attention to Mississippi.<ref name="crmvet1">[http://www.crmvet.org/vet/vethome.htm Veterans Roll Call] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080423070052/http://www.crmvet.org/vet/vethome.htm |date=April 23, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

The deaths of affluent northern white students and threats to non-Southerners attracted the full attention of the media spotlight to the state. Many black activists became embittered, believing the media valued the lives of whites and blacks differently. Perhaps the most significant effect of Freedom Summer was on the volunteers, almost all of whom{{mdash}}black and white{{mdash}}still consider it to have been one of the defining periods of their lives.<ref name="crmvet1" />