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Freedom Summer
In June 1964, over one thousand volunteers--most of them white, northern college students--arrived in Mississippi to register black voters and staff "freedom schools" as part of the Freedom Summer campaign organized by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Within ten days, three of them were murdered; by the summer's end, another had died and hundreds more had endured bombings, beatings, and arrests. Less dramatically, but no less significantly, the volunteers encountered a "liberating" exposure to new lifestyles, new political ideologies, and a radically new perspective on America and on themselves.
Films such as Mississippi Burning have attempted to document this episode in the civil rights era, but Doug McAdam offers the first book to gauge the impact of Freedom Summer on the project volunteers and the period we now call "the turbulent sixties." Tracking down hundreds of the original project applicants, and combining hard data with a wealth of personal recollections, he has produced a riveting portrait of the people, the events, and the era. McAdam discovered that during Freedom Summer, the volunteers' encounters with white supremacist violence and their experiences with interracial relationships, communal living, and a more open sexuality led many of them to "climb aboard a political and cultural wave just as it was forming and beginning to wash forward." Many became activists in subsequent protests--including the antiwar movement and the feminist movement--and, most significantly, many of them have remained activists to this day.
Brimming with the reminiscences of the Freedom Summer veterans, the book captures the varied motives that compelled them to make the journey south, the terror that came with the explosions of violence, the camaraderie and conflicts they experienced among themselves, and their assorted feelings about the lessons they learned.
Films such as Mississippi Burning have attempted to document this episode in the civil rights era, but Doug McAdam offers the first book to gauge the impact of Freedom Summer on the project volunteers and the period we now call "the turbulent sixties." Tracking down hundreds of the original project applicants, and combining hard data with a wealth of personal recollections, he has produced a riveting portrait of the people, the events, and the era. McAdam discovered that during Freedom Summer, the volunteers' encounters with white supremacist violence and their experiences with interracial relationships, communal living, and a more open sexuality led many of them to "climb aboard a political and cultural wave just as it was forming and beginning to wash forward." Many became activists in subsequent protests--including the antiwar movement and the feminist movement--and, most significantly, many of them have remained activists to this day.
Brimming with the reminiscences of the Freedom Summer veterans, the book captures the varied motives that compelled them to make the journey south, the terror that came with the explosions of violence, the camaraderie and conflicts they experienced among themselves, and their assorted feelings about the lessons they learned.
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 16, 2024
At the crest of the 60s liberal wave, hundreds of children of race and class privilege took to Mississippi. Ivy-league educated and leaders of the first US youth market as part of the post-war boom, their initial naivety and optimism is striking. Comparing the applications of no-shows and volunteers, McAdam attempts to uncover the driving factors for participation in high-risk activism. However, he finds little difference. The greatest indicators are having participated in low-risk activism, knowing others going down, and most importantly, being affiliated with a group (teachers, leftism, religion…). Yet the summer radicalised its participants far beyond their no-show counterparts. From the shock of orientation at Oxford, Ohio, volunteers left Mississippi unable to re-enter the world they left behind. Finding themselves at once isolated from white friends and family but equally removed from northern African Americans, many note the discomfort of returning home and a life-long search for a similar “freedom high”. Many abandoned their studies, realising their new-found identity as activists in action. Others broke up with partners, no longer the same person as when they had left. And several write of feeling like soldiers returning from war, unable to control their emotions or answer well-intentioned questions about their time there.
The Freedom Houses had become symbolic centres of a new emotive community which combined personal liberation and political organisation. According to McAdam’s interviews, sex was most prevalent between white women and black men as it was considered a lived expression of ideology. This intersection of personal development and social change came to characterise the New Left. However, though the summer shaped the women’s liberation movement, Vietnam protests, and later counterculture, the liberal highpoint it marked was soon lost. The liberal-left coalition split among growing calls for Black separatism and repudiation of non-violence.
I’m still finishing Clayborne Carson’s In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s and Cleveland Sellers’ The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC but it is fascinating to compare how the change volunteers’ enacted once home coexists with SNCC’s split and collapse.
The Freedom Houses had become symbolic centres of a new emotive community which combined personal liberation and political organisation. According to McAdam’s interviews, sex was most prevalent between white women and black men as it was considered a lived expression of ideology. This intersection of personal development and social change came to characterise the New Left. However, though the summer shaped the women’s liberation movement, Vietnam protests, and later counterculture, the liberal highpoint it marked was soon lost. The liberal-left coalition split among growing calls for Black separatism and repudiation of non-violence.
I’m still finishing Clayborne Carson’s In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s and Cleveland Sellers’ The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC but it is fascinating to compare how the change volunteers’ enacted once home coexists with SNCC’s split and collapse.
November 28, 2016
This is less a study of the American civil rights movement and more a study of how a period of intense stress and close social bonds can radicalize individuals, break down social norms, impact their political and personal lives, and build new social networks and political organizations that form the basis for future political action.
The ‘Freedom Summer’ project brought a collection of predominantly northern white college activists to Mississippi over a few months the summer of 1964, where they partnered with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s field staff to carry out voter registration drives to challenge the entrenched segregationist political system and established “Freedom Schools” to challenge the segregated school system. The main strategy behind the initiative appears to have been to focus national media and political attention on the situation in Mississippi through the presence of upper-middle class whites — something that became a point of tension with black SNCC organizers and, the author suggests, foreshadowed its shift to black power and the exclusion of white activists. There’s a certain degree of assumed knowledge here about the overall parameters and players of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, but again the primary focus of the book is on the social and psychological impacts this experience had on the activists, not the broader political dynamics.
The author’s access to a remarkably detailed archive of project application materials allowed him to track down both participants of the program and those who applied to the program but ultimately did not participate — a rare natural experiment with control group. Compared to their peers who did not take part in the summer campaign (with whom the only significant differences prior to entry into the project were their degree of social connections to the SNCC or other civil rights organizers), participants in the program were found to be consistently more political active in the subsequent decades, as many deferred traditional educational or career paths in favor of a continued commitment to activism (one which they often struggled to find their own way in, as there was little structured activity for them following the end of the summer).
The author notes that participants in the Freedom Summer project played significant roles in the formation of the women’s rights movements, a number of significant student movements, the anti-war movement, and the late 60s counterculture. The fairly narrow focus on the Freedom Summer project participants might obscure to a degree just how significant these participants were relative to other players in the formation of these other organizations, but the general argument that “not only did the Summer Project give early expression to elements critical to the emerging counterculture [and New Left activism], but it also provided a crucial means by which those elements could be diffused to a much larger population” seems to ring true.
The discussion of the various factors that made this experience so transformative for the participants are discussed more descriptively than through comparative analysis (among other factors, the clear threat of violence, direct exposure to poverty/dislocation from the socio-economic environment they had grown up in, and communal living settings all appear to have played a part), so other works are probably necessary to fully consider when situations do or do not produce this kind of personal radicalization. There are strong parallels here — made explicit by a number of the interview subjects — to combatants’ experiences in wartime, and I think there is a broader body of literature there worth delving into on this subject.
The ‘Freedom Summer’ project brought a collection of predominantly northern white college activists to Mississippi over a few months the summer of 1964, where they partnered with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s field staff to carry out voter registration drives to challenge the entrenched segregationist political system and established “Freedom Schools” to challenge the segregated school system. The main strategy behind the initiative appears to have been to focus national media and political attention on the situation in Mississippi through the presence of upper-middle class whites — something that became a point of tension with black SNCC organizers and, the author suggests, foreshadowed its shift to black power and the exclusion of white activists. There’s a certain degree of assumed knowledge here about the overall parameters and players of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, but again the primary focus of the book is on the social and psychological impacts this experience had on the activists, not the broader political dynamics.
The author’s access to a remarkably detailed archive of project application materials allowed him to track down both participants of the program and those who applied to the program but ultimately did not participate — a rare natural experiment with control group. Compared to their peers who did not take part in the summer campaign (with whom the only significant differences prior to entry into the project were their degree of social connections to the SNCC or other civil rights organizers), participants in the program were found to be consistently more political active in the subsequent decades, as many deferred traditional educational or career paths in favor of a continued commitment to activism (one which they often struggled to find their own way in, as there was little structured activity for them following the end of the summer).
The author notes that participants in the Freedom Summer project played significant roles in the formation of the women’s rights movements, a number of significant student movements, the anti-war movement, and the late 60s counterculture. The fairly narrow focus on the Freedom Summer project participants might obscure to a degree just how significant these participants were relative to other players in the formation of these other organizations, but the general argument that “not only did the Summer Project give early expression to elements critical to the emerging counterculture [and New Left activism], but it also provided a crucial means by which those elements could be diffused to a much larger population” seems to ring true.
The discussion of the various factors that made this experience so transformative for the participants are discussed more descriptively than through comparative analysis (among other factors, the clear threat of violence, direct exposure to poverty/dislocation from the socio-economic environment they had grown up in, and communal living settings all appear to have played a part), so other works are probably necessary to fully consider when situations do or do not produce this kind of personal radicalization. There are strong parallels here — made explicit by a number of the interview subjects — to combatants’ experiences in wartime, and I think there is a broader body of literature there worth delving into on this subject.
November 2, 2009
I'm read this book for my social movements course, but it's no text book. It's fascinating - - a little history, a little sociology, but overall a great read. I might even go so far as to say that it's the best book I've read in grad school so far. It epitomizes the kind of scholar I aspire to be!
February 22, 2025
What an amazing book. McAdam has done an in-depth study of the volunteers who participated in the Freedom Summer Project to register black voters in Mississippi in 1964. The book traces the way the project affected both the volunteers themselves and the history of activism in the 1960s. The research is meticulous, with plenty of insightful quotes and well-designed statistics to support the central findings.
It is a truly fascinating book that gives deep insight into both how political activism can change lives and how inspired networks of people can influence history.
It is a truly fascinating book that gives deep insight into both how political activism can change lives and how inspired networks of people can influence history.
July 25, 2012
"Freedom Summer", by Doug McAdam, is a moving, emotional, thought-provoking book describing the attempt of over 1000 volunteers to travel to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to help improve the suppression and voting rights abuses of poor rural blacks.
Historical in fact, but never dry, it's the story of many of the young people, most white college students from the north, taking their idealism south with them to bring freedom and justice to sharecroppers and the forgotten and forlorn members of that society. And it's a story of hatred and violence and prejudice, and overcoming adversity as well. Since it's a story from fifty years ago, only Social-Security eligible citizens may remember much about this time. For others, it may be a new or an untold story about American society and the ending of 'Jim Crow'.
My knowledge of the story is based mostly on a Gene Hackman movie titled "Mississippi Burning" from the late 1980's. The movie is centered on the disappearance (murder) of three of these young civil rights workers. While included in the book, the story is much more encompassing than this tragic crime. The description of black life, the KKK, the reforms of the Civil Rights legislation under President Johnson, and the reforms of society are an important lesson of history for us all, and provide a good background in understanding political and societal issues which to some extent, remain to this day. Taunts of "communist influences" by "outsiders" and arguments of "States rights vs. Federal Government intrusion" and "the desire to maintain our Christian values" are voiced in policy debates to this day, but have parallels and legacy originating from this period and as told in in McAdam's story. It's also a story of inspiration and hope and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, and how a few strong individuals, willing to make sacrifices, can bring about big changes.
As the book jacket states, "It is must reading for anyone seeking to understand the legacy of the '60s".
Historical in fact, but never dry, it's the story of many of the young people, most white college students from the north, taking their idealism south with them to bring freedom and justice to sharecroppers and the forgotten and forlorn members of that society. And it's a story of hatred and violence and prejudice, and overcoming adversity as well. Since it's a story from fifty years ago, only Social-Security eligible citizens may remember much about this time. For others, it may be a new or an untold story about American society and the ending of 'Jim Crow'.
My knowledge of the story is based mostly on a Gene Hackman movie titled "Mississippi Burning" from the late 1980's. The movie is centered on the disappearance (murder) of three of these young civil rights workers. While included in the book, the story is much more encompassing than this tragic crime. The description of black life, the KKK, the reforms of the Civil Rights legislation under President Johnson, and the reforms of society are an important lesson of history for us all, and provide a good background in understanding political and societal issues which to some extent, remain to this day. Taunts of "communist influences" by "outsiders" and arguments of "States rights vs. Federal Government intrusion" and "the desire to maintain our Christian values" are voiced in policy debates to this day, but have parallels and legacy originating from this period and as told in in McAdam's story. It's also a story of inspiration and hope and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, and how a few strong individuals, willing to make sacrifices, can bring about big changes.
As the book jacket states, "It is must reading for anyone seeking to understand the legacy of the '60s".
June 10, 2012
WOW! This is a history book, about my generation, that reads like a novel. I was in college at the time and pretty naive about the discrimination faced by poor blacks in Mississippi and the deep south. But, more than 700 idealistic and courageous college students traveled to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 and changed our country forever.
Bruce Watson introduces us to students who arrived the day that three volunteers were murdered. Though frightened, they stayed through arrests, fire bombings and beatings as they created freedom schools. rebuilt churches and worked on voter registration and empowerment.
It is amazing how much they accomplished in just 2 short months. Mississippi in 1964 was completely segregated. No blacks were registered to vote, allowed in coffee shops or educated in decent schools. Violence against blacks was accepted and never recorded. So, while the Klan was shooting at volunteers and blacks, they were bragging about being the state with the lowest crime rate.
When SNCC brought an alternate contingent to the 1964 Democratic convention, LBJ was absolutely freaked. Morally, he knew he had to seat them but worried that it could cost him the entire south in the next election.
The book ends with the election of President Obama and shows how much the country has changed. We all owe a great deal to these unbelievably courageous kids who are now senior citizens
Bruce Watson introduces us to students who arrived the day that three volunteers were murdered. Though frightened, they stayed through arrests, fire bombings and beatings as they created freedom schools. rebuilt churches and worked on voter registration and empowerment.
It is amazing how much they accomplished in just 2 short months. Mississippi in 1964 was completely segregated. No blacks were registered to vote, allowed in coffee shops or educated in decent schools. Violence against blacks was accepted and never recorded. So, while the Klan was shooting at volunteers and blacks, they were bragging about being the state with the lowest crime rate.
When SNCC brought an alternate contingent to the 1964 Democratic convention, LBJ was absolutely freaked. Morally, he knew he had to seat them but worried that it could cost him the entire south in the next election.
The book ends with the election of President Obama and shows how much the country has changed. We all owe a great deal to these unbelievably courageous kids who are now senior citizens
December 3, 2016
Beside being an important analysis of race relations in America, this reminded me of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age in another way. Like it, there is a lot of dry, scientific, textbook like data analysis. Heck you can get the Logint Regression details in an appendix! Good stuff, really - very good that that is all here. What comes through is the work of the volunteers up to and including the 1964 Freedom Summer in voter registration and other efforts in racially tense Mississippi. Some things I learned is about how this spawned the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as a threat to the traditional Democratic Party. This, for me, shades LBJ's motivation - SNCC and company were really shaking up the establishment! Also, the sexual mores of volunteers in the trenches, their radicalization, and the impact they had taking their commitment and organizing skills to other areas is detailed. The core data here is with over 200 volunteers that participated and some that applied but did not participate.
September 27, 2012
Definitely one of the most engaging books I've been assigned to read this semester. A great analysis of the Freedom Summer volunteers, and what their biographies and motivations might tell us about activism in general. I found it far more depressing than inspiring--don't be an activist kids, because you'll probably just act racist and thus alienate the organization you're trying to work for, and then you'll spend the rest of your life futilely chasing after the fleeting feelings of community and empowerment that you experienced for one summer, and your need to keep activism in your life will ruin your marriage, career, and any chance of finding a permanent family! Um, my own past experiences might be coloring my judgment here, but seriously, McAdam painted a super bleak picture.
July 22, 2018
A mighty book. I was a college student in the summer of 1964, with no clear picture of what the volunteers and their hosts were doing and enduring. I would not have been able to do and endure what they did, and our country is better for it. Important work on the history of civil rights and social justice in America, the book on which is still being written (perhaps unwritten) fifty years later.
Especially good was the discussion of how the Freedom Democrats tried to gain a voice at the Dem Convention. They were pushed aside by the realpolitician LBJ who was convinced (right? wrong?) that if the Freedom Democrats were seated he would lose the support of all southern Dems and the presidency would go to to Barry Goldwater.
Especially good was the discussion of how the Freedom Democrats tried to gain a voice at the Dem Convention. They were pushed aside by the realpolitician LBJ who was convinced (right? wrong?) that if the Freedom Democrats were seated he would lose the support of all southern Dems and the presidency would go to to Barry Goldwater.
June 25, 2010
An excellent introduction and overview to some of the implications and themes of Freedom Summer and how other social movements grew out of the tensions among volunteers and within the community. I'd rate this more favorably, but simply had the misfortune of not reading this book in college, when it was recommended to me; before I got neck deep in the more theoretical dimensions of Sixties social movements, and dissecting the structure of racial inequalities between women involved in the movement.
September 29, 2017
If you want to understand the Sixties, you want to read this book. And it is also crucial reading if you want to understand the development of political movements. The leaders do successful political movements sometimes go through crucible periods in which the power and necessity of action becomes clear. The Freedom Summer was such a period for the movements of the Sixties: Free speech, anti war, feminist, communalist all gained impetus from the volunteers who emerged from this grueling, exciting, and liberating summer of activism in Mississippi.
March 17, 2011
We read this in my social movements class and for that purpose it was a great book. When it comes to dissecting a social movement and the workings therein, this book was fabulous. However, I wasn't excited about the writing style and the argument seemed a little far fetched and unrealistic. The content, was worth reading but I think there are much better books out there to read about events in the 50's and 60's advocating civil rights.
October 25, 2020
Sociological/political study of the volunteers who went to Mississippi in 1964 to work on voter registration projects sponsored by SNCC. McAdam draws on participant testimony to document the dynamics within the project, highlighting the difficulties created by dropping mostly affluent, mostly white volunteers into black Mississippi communities. His discussion of the impact of Freedom Summer on later Sixties movements is particularly useful.
April 12, 2014
Excellent historical account of that summer and the years following.
March 3, 2015
A fascinating generational analysis.
March 2, 2015
By far the best book on the historic Mississippi Summer Project. True heroism at its core.
June 4, 2017
History is brutal.
February 12, 2018
Was a really good read to gain an understanding on how many of the social movements that took place in the 20th century came into being. Also read it for a sociology movements class
July 3, 2018
Always wanted to read this book. Really good read about the role of college students. Still tough to read though, just all the cruelty.
April 3, 2020
I liked it. It's not a typical non-fiction. It's not a gripping page turner. It's not a traditional story line of most non-fiction. It reads like an in-depth investigative report. A fascinating report. It's intent was to study the effect of a Summer in which hundreds of mostly students went to Mississippi on a program to work for civil rights and racial justice in Mississippi. It was dangerous work. As someone who grew up in a very white neighborhood/city/school, I don't think I ever recognized how incredibly oppressed blacks were in Mississippi. Even living with a host family was dangerous, and many were harmed.
The book looks at the effect of Freedom Summer on the Civil Rights movements (racial justice, women's movement, LGBTQ movement, after Freedom Summer was over. It also looked at the effect on the individuals who participated in the program - comparing the volunteers to a control group of people who initially applied and signed up, but then could not attend. The differences are remarkable, and interesting. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes discouraging and sad.
The book looks at the effect of Freedom Summer on the Civil Rights movements (racial justice, women's movement, LGBTQ movement, after Freedom Summer was over. It also looked at the effect on the individuals who participated in the program - comparing the volunteers to a control group of people who initially applied and signed up, but then could not attend. The differences are remarkable, and interesting. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes discouraging and sad.
August 31, 2025
Definitely more on the academic side of things,
The book asks the question, “How did participating in the 1964 Freedom Schools campaign, affect participants’ lives 10 years later”
Drawing on an unusually comprehensive set of data, McAdams is able to follow interesting threads. Reading it in 2025, I spent a lot of time trying to think about how effectively the framework applies to my generation of people trying to make change.
The nerd in me was very happy
The book asks the question, “How did participating in the 1964 Freedom Schools campaign, affect participants’ lives 10 years later”
Drawing on an unusually comprehensive set of data, McAdams is able to follow interesting threads. Reading it in 2025, I spent a lot of time trying to think about how effectively the framework applies to my generation of people trying to make change.
The nerd in me was very happy
June 29, 2020
While sometimes bogged down by the author's own internalized prejudices, this is nonetheless an informative analysis of the tactics used in the titular Freedom Summer to advance civil rights through voter registration, nonviolent action, education, and intentional mobilization of college-educated middle- and upper middle-class white people.
October 12, 2023
read this for my social justice class. this book was okay. not a big fan of how some of the events were portrayed but overall had a good message and definitely taught me not to blindly believe every “scholarly” thing that you read!
August 1, 2019
I cried
Read
September 17, 2023read for social change + movements in the 60s !!
May 22, 2024
*2.5 stars
read for my social movements class (fall semester junior year)
read for my social movements class (fall semester junior year)
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews