Natchez included in Freedom Summer Commemoration

Top of the Morning column published in The Natchez Democrat (Sunday, March 31, 2024, page 4A)

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Top of the Morning

Natchez included in Freedom Summer Commemoration

By Roscoe Barnes III

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is launching an ambitious project this year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer. Natchez and other cities across Mississippi will participate in this important event that recognizes a pivotal period in American history.

MDAH’s project, which is titled, “Freedom Summer: 60 Years Later -- A Landmarks of American History Teacher Workshop,” will be held July 8 to12 and July 22 to 26, 2024. It is funded in part by a major grant awarded to MDAH by the National Endowment for the Humanities to present two workshops on teaching civil rights history.

According to MDAH, the project is part of the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of History and Culture Grant program. Its goal is to bring 70 teachers from across the nation to Mississippi to attend one or two of the weeklong workshops. They will start at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, and from there the teachers will travel to the parts of the state that played a major role in Freedom Summer.

Al Wheat, MDAH director of education, is spearheading the project. “This grant is an incredible opportunity for us to show how this landmark event goes beyond Mississippi history; it's truly a national event,” he said. “Bringing teachers from across the country to Mississippi to see our sites, analyze our primary sources, and visit locations where the history actually happened will make a positive impact not just on workshop attendees, but on their students." 

I’m happy to report that MDAH has enlisted me to participate here in Natchez. I will lead two workshops and guided tours on the second and fourth Thursdays of July 2024. The specific dates are July 11 and 25. The workshops will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on both days at Historic Natchez Foundation.

Think about it. Educators from across the country will come here to learn about the role that Natchez played in the history of Freedom Summer and the civil rights movement. As teachers, they will take what they learn and carry it back to their respective schools and communities. This means that their students, with their young and fertile minds, will become empowered with lifechanging history about the struggles in Mississippi.

Freedom Summer was a 1964 initiative that sought to increase Black voter registrations in Mississippi. At the time, more than 700 volunteers, most of whom were White, worked with Black communities to help them overcome voter intimidation and discrimination at the polls, among other things.

These volunteers included teachers, ministers, lawyers, and students. They created Freedom Schools and helped communities with research and training. Leaders of the movement believed the work of the White volunteers would help bring national attention to their struggle.

The activists had previously suffered beatings, threats, incarcerations, murder, and other violence at the hands white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, racist police, and hate-filled Whites throughout Mississippi. Unfortunately, these acts did not generate the national attention that they needed.

The work of the Freedom Summer activists eventually made a significant impact on the state of Mississippi. Not only did it result in national awareness of the struggle, but, as many believe, it was one of the factors that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It was during Freedom Summer that activist Dorie Ladner and other workers descended on Natchez to help increase voter registration in the Black community. Dr. Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, has correctly observed that “Ladner was a vital part of the grassroots effort to change Mississippi and America.” Unfortunately, Ladner passed on Monday, March 11, following a long illness.

Ladner was one of the first workers to come to Natchez in 1964 to help register Black voters, according to Bobby Dennis, executive director of the NAPAC museum. That was at a time of heightened violence by the KKK, he said.

From every indication, it seems that the impact of this Freedom Summer project will be felt for a long time. MDAH has noted: “Teachers will collaborate to develop inquiry-based classroom activities and lessons about Freedom Summer using primary sources found in MDAH’s archives and experiential, site-based learning at the Two Mississippi Museums and key civil rights sites across Mississippi.”

This is great news for Natchez and the entire state of Mississippi.

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ROSCOE BARNES III, Ph.D., is the cultural heritage tourism manager for Visit Natchez.