1964Reputable sourceWell documented
Freedom Summer
On the timeline · around 1964 ·
What happened
In the summer of 1964, civil rights organizations brought hundreds of volunteers, many of them white college students, to Mississippi to register Black voters and run 'freedom schools.' The campaign met fierce violence, including the murder of three activists — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Why it matters
Freedom Summer exposed the violence used to deny Black Americans the vote and built national pressure for federal voting-rights protection.