Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy

by Bruce Watson

A majestic history of the summer of '64, which forever changed race relations in America

In the summer of 1964, with the civil rights movement stalled, seven hundred college students descended on Mississippi to register black voters, teach in Freedom Schools, and live in sharecroppers' shacks. But by the time their first night in the state had ended, three volunteers were dead, black churches had burned, and America had a new definition of freedom.

This remarkable chapter in American history, the basis for the controversial film Mississippi Burning , is now the subject of Bruce Watson's thoughtful and riveting historical narrative. Using in- depth interviews with participants and residents, Watson brilliantly captures the tottering legacy of Jim Crow in Mississippi and the chaos that brought such national figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Pete Seeger to the state. Freedom Summer presents finely rendered portraits of the courageous black citizens-and Northern volunteers-who refused to be intimidated in their struggle for justice, and the white Mississippians who would kill to protect a dying way of life. Few books have provided such an intimate look at race relations during the deadliest days of the Civil Rights movement, and Freedom Summer will appeal to readers of Taylor Branch and Doug Blackmon.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Race, Social Justice, Audiobook

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2010

About the author

Bruce Watson is the author of "Light: A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age" (Bloomsbury, Feb. 2016). Starting with creation stories and following the trail of luminescence through three millennia, "Light" explores how humanity has worshiped, captured, studied, painted, and finally controlled light. The book's cast of characters includes Plato, Ptolemy, Alhacen, Dante, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Galileo, Newton, Daguerre, Monet, Edison, Einstein... The American Library Association's Booklist called "Light: A Radiant History" "a dazzling book."

Watson currently writes the online magazine The Attic (www.theattic.space.) With weekly articles about American Dreamers, Wonders, Wits, Rebels, Teachers, and more, The Attic promotes “a kinder,cooler America.”

Watson is also the author of four other well-reviewed books, including "Freedom Summer: The Savage Season that Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy," "Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders, and The Judgment of Mankind," and "Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream."

Watson has also written more than three dozen feature articles for Smithsonian. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, American Heritage, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Yankee, Reader’s Digest, and Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

At book club, a friend of mine told a story. He's a teacher, and he works in a very diverse school. He's white, but he's very sensitive to the racial dynamics currently at play in The United States. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner.

He asked a colleague of his - a black teacher - born in Mississippi in the early 60s what she thought about what's happening.

He said, "Do you feel like, 'Oh no. Here we go again.'"

Her response was, "Not, 'here we go again,' more like 'will it ever end?'"

It's difficult for those of us who have never been oppressed - genuinely oppressed to put ourselves into the shoes of those who have lived through long-term, systematic oppression.

And sure, we can talk about progress - and the progress has been good. But I remind myself of a quote by Malcolm: "You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me."

Above all, the book Freedom Summer did 2 things for me. It reminded me that the civil rights movement was expansive. And it reminded me that people can make a difference.

If you're up for it, take 30 seconds to close your eyes and list as many civil rights leaders as you can.

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Now, I don't know if you were able to list 2 or a thousand. I bet I can list more than most people because I'm a social studies teacher, but as in many areas of my life I feel like there is so much I don't know.

I bet Dr. King and Rosa Parks made the list. Did anybody else? Maybe Malcolm X? Maybe Ralph Abernathy? Maybe John Lewis? Definitely Martin Luther King, Jr. Definitely Rosa Parks. Maybe you saw Drunk History, so you know about Claudette Colvin. Maybe Bob Moses? Probably MLK, and Rosa Parks.

Here's the point: a movement isn't made of one or two people. It's made of thousands and thousands of people risking something. (Now maybe you say they weren't all (the thousands and thousands) leaders, and that's a fair argument. But it was more than Dr. King and his SCLC. It was more than SNCC.

This book narrowed in and focused on one small portion of the Civil Rights Movement: Freedom Summer. The 1964 voter drive in Mississippi.

Sometimes it's crazy to think about how far we aren't removed from segregation. From the racist policies of our past. My mother (who happens to be fantastic) drank from segregated water-fountains. She went to a segregated school. ...I should probably interview her about this sometime.

I'm only 33. I'm not talking about my great-grandmother. I'm talking about my mom. The one who made me peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and told me to go outside and play.

In 1964, an integrated group of people - mainly students - went into Mississippi to try to register African-Americans.

Suffice it to say, it was slow going.

They weren't well-received - at least, not by the establishment. The police were constantly harassing them. The Klan, with all it's klonfusing language klept after them. Burning klrosses in their yards, throwing Molotov Klocktails through the windows.

May I just interject here that I find that Klan language ridiculous? I realize this won't win me too many Klan friends, but I couldn't help but laugh at the parts that mentioned the Klaverns or the Klan Klongress and its Klonstitution. (Or whatever...)

Of course, this was a problem for the Northerns too. They'd gone down to help, and during training the volunteers were watching a CBS documentary on Mississippi disenfranchising black voters.

"...Volunteers seethed or sat disgusted. But then the camera fell on a hideously fat man in a white shirt and horn-rimmed glasses. Laughter rippled through the auditorium. SNCC staffers fumed. This was no comical stereotype. This was Theron Lynd, registrar in Forrest County, who had never registered a Negro until hit by a lawsuit. The audience quieted as a black man onscreen told of a shotgun fired into his home, wounding two little girls, but when his wife came on in a funny hat, some giggled. Several SNCCs stormed out. When the documentary ended, another jumped onstage. "You should be ashamed! You could laugh at that film."

We don't get it. We hear words like Klongress and laugh at the ridiculousness of Klanspeak. Klanguage. Whatklever.

But we forget that these are real people. Who lynch real people. Who sit around laughing as they're being tried for murder - knowing there's no way in hell they're going to be convicted. They're white. Protecting white civilization.

Here's a picture, mentioned towards the end of the book - in reference to that last paragraph:



The SNCCs were right. We should be ashamed for laughing. (By the way, if you clicked on the Claudette Colvin drunk history link above, the same point is made... that Klanspeak is ridiculous... but really, maybe I shouldn't be laughing at that joke.)

Slight aside, I had some students using Ebola as a joke in class the other day, and a third student flipped out on them. (I'm pretty sure they'd seen it on Family Guy or South Park or something.) But this other student just eviscerated them for laughing at something that is literally destroying people's lives. At their insensitivity. At their immaturity.

It was good for me to read this book. To see that individual people can change things. They have to give up their comforts, but it can be done.

It was good to see add another layer to what I know. To more fully explore the depth of the Civil Rights movement. To learn the names Fannie Lou Hamer and Bob Moses.

I want to go up to my friend's teacher-friend and tell her, "YES. It will end. And I'm going to help end it." I'm only one person, but then, so is everybody else.

Mississippi... ... Goddam.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This descriptive, detailed history makes for difficult reading at times. I grew up in the segregated South and remember when the three civil rights workers disappeared. Thank goodness things have changed with a long way to go. At any rate, I learned quite a lot from reading Freedom Summer.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember the summer of 1964 very well--I watched most of it on the TV evening news where I gathered with fellow Peace Corps trainees in the evenings at Indiana University (and for two weeks at Indiana State in Terra Haute). We had classes all day: history of Africa and Sierra Leone, public health lectures, phys ed, Krio language, etc. etc. It was really like going to summer school except that we all lived together in Quonset huts left over from WWII and stuck together because we never had a free minute from 7 in the morning till 9 or 10 at night.

Before 1964, I had never been particularly tuned in to Civil Rights. I don't even remember hearing about the murder of Emmit Till until many years later, but 1964 was the summer when SNCC volunteers--mostly college students from the north--went to Mississippi to run "Freedom Schools" and help the blacks register to vote (often having to convince them first that they deserved to take the same role as the whites in a democracy). And it was the summer when 3 Civil Rights workers were murdered by a bunch (18-19) of racists and KKK members who got a backhoe and buried them under a dam being built. It took all summer for the FBI to find informants who eventually led them to the bodies. It was the summer when the country was really shocked to discover that white Mississippi would stoop to beatings and murder to "preserve their way of life", i.e., to keep blacks in their "place". It was also the summer where the Freedom Democrats tried (unsuccessfully) to get seated at the Democratic convention to supplement or replace the illegally chosen white Democrats.

And I felt twinges of guilt all summer. I was going to Africa to help blacks--and not going to Mississippi--because I wanted to see the world, other cultures, etc. When at the airport in NY a man laughed at us and said, "IF you want to help blacks, I can just take you to Harlem and you can work there. You don't have to go to Africa", I felt another twinge. I was tuned into JFK's "Ask Not" message, but from the first tuned into the Peace Corps as the chance of a lifetime to see the world no one else saw (in those days, ordinary people who went abroad went to Europe and that's about all).

Bruce Watson's book is a worthwhile read, especially for those who don't know much about the Civil Rights movement and about this experiment by America's young liberals. It will be an eye opener. Although Watson slides into some "purplish prose" every once in awhile--which I didn't mind because I shared his views--this is an excellent history of Freedom Summer. As well as profiling the leaders and providing an excellent overview of Mississippi history since the Civil War, it focuses on four of the volunteers--who they were, why they joined, what happened to them in Mississippi--even where they are now.

The murder of Chaney, Goodwin and Schwerner is a story that's told piece by piece since, though the murder happened on the first day of Freedom Summer--June 21st--it reverberated through the whole period as the mystery of their disappearance was gradually unraveled in all its sordidness. And in the end, Mississippi refused to prosecute anyone and the only trial was when the Federal government brought suit for Civil Rights violations, which the defendants laughed at. And while that murder was undoubtedly the worst thing that happened during Freedom Summer, it was certainly not the only violence. Watson even tells the story of an insurance agent who defended the the work of Freedom Summer and, as a result, his business was ruined, his family harassed and they were eventually forced to move out of the state. Violence was meted out to blacks who dared to want to register as well as to the "uppity Northerners, Jews and Communists" who presumed to challenge Mississippi ways and help them. And if you wonder "why Mississippi?" more than any other southern state, Watson tackles that question too.

The final chapters of the book focus on the impact of Freedom Summer, particularly on the heart-breaking defeat at the Democratic Convention. A mealy-mouth compromise was reached--and Humbert Humphrey cried too when he proposed it. Lyndon Johnson knew he couldn't seat the Freedom Democrats without taking the very great risk that Goldwater would be elected when the entire Southern delegation left the Democrats as they threatened. He tasked Humphrey with seeing that the delegation wasn't seated. Politics trumped conscience on that one. But Watson also chronicles how Mississippi changed--and changed relatively quickly--after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and after the awful publicity from Freedom Summer (business and tourism were affected seriously). Many citizens who had been afraid to speak out when the voices of hate ruled began to make themselves heard. Mississippi, with a majority of black citizens, began to let blacks register and win some elections....

Not all of the blowback from Freedom Summer was benign. SNCC became increasingly divided over the issue of nonviolence. Stokley Carmichael and others moved to "black power" and discouraged the participation of whites in Civil Rights issues. Violence broke out in Northern cities, proving that racist and bigotry were not exclusively Southern phenomena.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summer of 1964, I was sitting in my diapers, sniffing the Topanga Canyon breezes and watching the snakes and tarantulas go by, so I think I can be forgiven for not knowing what was going on in Mississippi. If you've seen the 1988 film Mississippi Burning, you know about the three young men, two white and one black, who disappeared on the first night of Freedom Summer. This book tells the rest of the story.

Hundreds of brave and idealistic college-age kids left their safe white enclaves all over the country to converge on Mississippi. They hoped to register black voters, many of whom were not even aware they had the right to vote. They also taught in Freedom Schools, where black children could come and get a taste of what it was like to get excited about learning and be treated with the dignity they weren't allowed in the public schools.

These volunteers risked everything, including their lives. Mississippi wasn't just another state back then, it was another country! There was no real law there, and it was a violent and dangerous place. Four volunteers lost their lives, and many others were beaten, bombed, threatened, jailed, and humiliated. It took a long time for the seeds they sowed to bear fruit, but when we elected a bi-racial president 44 years later, many of them felt like they'd had a part in making that possible.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruce Watson's Freedom Summer offers an engaging narrative of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) Mississippi Freedom Project, their efforts in 1964 to register Black voters in the most repressive Jim Crow state. Watson spends the early chapters recreating the experiences of SNCC young volunteers, many of them white and well-off, as they underwent intense training from Black activists and acclimated to Mississippi's harsh climate of sweltering heat, extreme poverty and inescapable racism. He also stresses the brutalities of Governor Paul Johnson's apartheid regime, and the pervasive atmosphere of violence which hung over SNCC's efforts, most embodied by the "Mississippi Burning" murders of three young activists which set a grim tone for the entire summer. Nonetheless, SNCC's biracial cadre of idealists persisted; in the face of limited resources, constant threats and real violence, they worked with local Black organizers to register African-American voters, introduce poverty relief and education programs and forge an alliance in furtherance of human dignity. The narrative leaves most of the Civil Rights Movement's biggest names off-page, leaving midlevel organizers like Bob Moses, the father of Freedom Summer, and the remarkable Fannie Lou Hamer, who proclaimed herself "sick and tired" of the day-to-day brutalities of racial prejudice to take center stage. The narrative transitions from Mississippi to Atlantic City, as a delegation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party arrives at the Democratic National Convention to challenge the state's all-white delegation. Lyndon Johnson is not portrayed flatteringly; obsessed with his reelection, he views SNCC and the Freedom Party as a nuisance at best and a distraction at worst, even as he pushes the Civil Rights Act through Congress and authorizes an FBI investigation of the activist murders. Despite these hurdles, Watson argues that Moses, Hamer and their young volunteers made a real change, dismantling de jure segregation in Mississippi (poverty and stratification, unfortunately, proved harder to eradicate) and proving a baptism of fire for a generation of activists, from future Black Power organizer Stokely Carmichael to congressman Barney Frank. An engaging account of one of the Civil Rights Movement's most dramatic chapters.

[Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon Juma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells of the important role that Americans from all walks of life played in the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 60s. There were volunteers from every part of America. The movement brought together laborers, students, college professors and doctors. Martin Luther King Jr was there and Bob Moses and Fannie Lou Hamer and Stockey Carmichael and Medgar Evans.

They were all in Mississippi when James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner disappeared and were later found murdered by members of the Klu Klux Klan. All three were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote.

Day in day out, the volunteers prodded, criticized, and demanded for their right to vote. Many in Mississippi squirmed at these protests. A story is told of a Mississippian who called for a day of a prayer to God who, he said, had permitted Negroes to attain political power because the white folks had forgotten him.

Even more serious was the vindictive attitude of authorities who vented their frustrations on the volunteers. Armed bands of white men patrolled the State roads in order to drive back the protesters. Dead bodies of murdered 'Negroes' were found on and near highways and by-ways. A reign of terror prevailed in Mississippi. A great book, please read it!

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy, or Freedom Summer, is a nonfiction history written in 2010 by the journalist Bruce Watson. The events that take place within Freedom Summer revolve around the civil rights movement fostered by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (“pronounced 'Snick'”), that occurred in the summer of 1964 across Mississippi. Facts, quotes, and events recorded by Watson are derived from other historical books such as Letters from Mississippi by Elizabeth Martinez, as well as by the interviewing of key individuals in the movement such as Chris Williams, Muriel Tilinghast, Fran O'Brian, Fred Bright Winn, and over one thousand more. Freedom Summer attempts to bring light to a portion of history within the United States that is normally slid under the rug, briefly discussed, or more often ignored completely in order to better honor individuals that risked their lives for progressive reform within America that has ultimately affected the politics of this country even to this date.
Freedom Summer is divided into portions, or “books,” with the first being “Crossroads,” followed by “A Bloody Peace Written in the Sky,” and finally concluded with the Epilogue. “Crossroads,” which includes the Prologue, describes the forming of SNCC, the state of the Union before 1964 with a brief history of regression back to a time before Civil Reform after the Reconstruction, and the purpose of SNCC as well as other key organizations involved with the Freedom Summer movement. “Crossroads” shows SNCC volunteers being trained, deployed to Mississippi, being attacked and murdered in the case of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, the governments position on the movement as well as their inactivity in the case of broken federal laws, or the enforcement of any, and finally, “Crossroads” discusses SNCC's purpose over the summer of integrating the most racist city in the south, making blacks feel like humans, educating them with Freedom Schools, and registering them as voters. The second section of Freedom Summer, “ A Bloody Peace Written in the Sky” concludes the progress set up in the first section. Schwerners', Goodmans', and Chaneys' remains are finally found with some of the men being involved in the murder being arrested at the close of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries; blacks are registered across Mississippi and form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP); violence continues to run rampant across the state, but change is being made; Freedom Schools educate enthusiastic children and adults eager to learn; and the MFDP makes its way towards Washington to make a difference on the national scale in its pursuit of becoming a legal party in Mississippi. In the second “book” of Freedom Summer, the summer draws to a close, volunteers return home or stay on, and many leave feeling unaccomplished as the MFDP fail due to politics, but time passes generations and change is finally made in Mississippi, even if it is forced upon the state. The “Epilogue,” concludes Freedom Summer with many important facts. It includes the arrests of key individuals that hindered civil rights within Mississippi, the progress made across Mississippi as President Johnson's new legislation, as well as those after him, forces Mississippi to finally comply with the civil rights laws, blacks are elected to offices across the state, key KKK members are finally put to justice, and Freedom Summer comes full circle as the stories of key volunteers come to a close and Barrack Obama is elected President of the United States - bringing purpose to all of the effort.
Watson wanted to achieve many things with Freedom Summer, but a recurring element throughout the book was the idea that it was possible to make a difference in the toughest place in America with the toughest ideals since the founding of the nation. Despite what the rest of the country believed, these volunteers from Ivy League schools really did make a difference – if not initially through legislation then by making Mississippi blacks feel human.
The goal of the SNCC volunteers in a broad sense was to get voter registration in order to create the MFDP and challenge Mississippi's current leading party, but they were also trying to do more than that. Volunteers were trying to show blacks and whites that there was no difference between the two, and that blacks were humans with the same right to respect, love, and friendship as anyone else. To succeed in these goals volunteers built Freedom School to educate blacks on black history and give them a chance to ask questions, receive real answers, and feel a part of the learning process and to open their minds. Volunteers lived in integrated homes with black hosts and spoke to blacks with respect and just as they would a white person and by doing these things they showed the black population that they were indeed human and not worthless. In order to gain votes and increase voter registration, volunteers canvassed across town, held voter registration classes, and informed and persuaded blacks how to and why voting was important. Although the movements leader, Bob Moses, felt otherwise and only received a little over 60,000 votes instead of his intended 400,000, the MFDP was formed, tens of thousands of blacks became registered voters, the atrocities of Mississippi were publicized across the nation and world, and the national government was forced to intervene, so yes, Freedom Summer was successful. The only proof needed to see this is the fact that more blacks serve in office in Mississippi than any other state, and the fact that Barrack Obama was elected president. It is very easy to see that the nation was changed dramatically as result of Freedom Summer. From people's reactions to the racism still strong in the South, to the many legislative acts passed because of the summer of 1964, America changed after Freedom Summer for the better. Freedom Summer did more than just expand the civil rights movement, however, as gender soon became an issue as well. Gender roles were places in the placement of assignments within SNCC offices with many women being placed in typewriting, secretary, teacher, and other commonly “woman” roles while being denied other roles during the summer. The paper “Women in the Movement” was published due to these decisions to deny women top decision making roles, which didn't cause an initial reaction, but in time it would lead to a new civil rights movement. Another paper, “Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo,” written by Casey Hayden and Mary King also touches on the topic of woman's rights and as the paper was written with their time as SNCC volunteers, this “memo” correlates directly with the civil rights movement happening between the races in Freedom Summer. Hayden and King claim the treatment of woman and even the response when confronted about the issue is nearly identical to that of white and black segregation. As whites seem to believe themselves superior to blacks and think “that's the way it's supposed to be,” men, both white and black, respond in the same way to woman about their position. Hayden and King state the treatment is similar to a caste system, and in “The Trouble Between Us” by Winifred Breines, the same problems are stated. The division lies even more than just beyond sex, as stated in the paper, and differences between the treatment of black women and white women were different as well. It is very apparent that although the issues of race were being addressed it would take another movement to address the faults between gender. “The Trouble Between Us” goes even further in its accusations than the feminist movement and claims the notion that the history of the civil rights movement is “'something that happens when White Folks show up and stops when they leave.”' The paper continues to address how the publicity of Freedom Summer downplays the importance and impact of the local black movements that were occurring before 1964. For this reason among others “The Trouble Between Us” is critical of Freedom Summer, and rightly so. With divisions among SNCC in leadership, race and gender issues within the group, and the resentment that groups of volunteers felt towards other over or under-privileged volunteers greatly hindered the movement and proved that SNCC was not a flawless movement nor was Freedom Summer. SNCC was a very flawed group that came together under strange and unorganized times and was never truly cohesive with groups forming throughout the group wanting to isolate themselves from other groups until SNCC's disbandment. But despite all of its' flaws and denial of woman's rights, Freedom Summer was still effective and necessary in its goals to integrate, educate, and uplift the South from racial tensions and division. Mississippi is a peculiar state given the circumstances. When many states were progressing in civil rights Mississippi was moving backwards if at all, and the violent resistance to integration showed the strong historical ties the state holds. Relying on age old grudges dating to pre-Civil war era's and the damage done to the state due to Reconstruction the state was truly brainwashed by their own ideas that blacks were inferior and happy about it. Mississippi is a good example, as Germany was after World War I, of how destroying a state beyond repair and crippling its economy over certain ideals will only create grudges and instill those ideals more strongly into those who failed to keep them.
Freedom Summer was an extremely enlightening book, just as Hiroshima was. It is easy to think of a movement, event, or period as a whole and forget about the individuals, the days, or the delay of progress. Freedom Summer helps remind one to not forget about the individuals like Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman, but also the work and stories of less prominent figures like Chris Williams and Muriel Tilinghast who sacrificed their summer for a movement they believed was more important. Freedom Summer reminds you of the kids in college who came to the South knowing they would be beaten, abused, shot at, and maybe even murdered, but came anyways because they believed in something. Bruce Watson has compiled a wonderfully descriptive book which helps to highlight these sacrifices made for the movement that changed America. There are times in ones life, such as during the election of Obama when one can ponder why individuals would vote for a man simply for the color of his skin, and then there are books like Freedom Summer that shed light on why something like that is so important. The idea that a black man could become president was inconceivable just a few years ago and yet today that is fact. Some SNCC volunteers left Freedom Summer feeling unaccomplished after having the MFDP rejected at the Democratic Convention, but progress was made so evident just by the fact that Obama could be president. Bruce Watson highlighted the goals of SNCC and even if the volunteers who made it happen didn't believe it, Watson shows how looking back now reveals the evident changes that occurred because a bunch of college students wanted to go to Mississippi for the summer. Was SNCC flawless? No, but neither is any organization. There were social issues rampant throughout the program. Women were denied executive positions, blacks and whites resented one another, and at a time when people were trying to prove integration was necessary interracial sex was taboo, but the program continued. Bombs destroyed homes, churches, and offices, people were thrown in prison, and lawlessness ran wild, but SNCC continued receiving thousands of dollars of donation to combat the bills, volunteers swarmed areas to rebuild homes and hope, and Freedom Summer continued on. That is the message from the book. Despite everything that was happening: bombs, bullets, beatings, government negligence, and even the thought that they weren't making a difference, volunteers stayed on. Why? Because they saw what would happen if they didn't. They saw the lives of those they had effected and knew what was waiting for them if people stopped believing in them and went back to their carefree lives. They stayed on because they had no choice, and because just talking to another human being as a person with his or her own ideas could change years of oppression. Bruce Watson compiled stories, articles, and events. News organizations covered murders and trials. Freedom Summer changed lives.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for my civil liberties class. It was fairly dense, but I liked the way it read as a story. Definitely a great read if you are interested in the civil rights movement in any capacity!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freedom Summer tells the story of Mississippi during the summer of 1964 when hundreds of college students from across the US traveled to Mississippi to open Freedom Schools, run voter registration drives and education, and support African Americans stepping into County Courthouses to register to vote. It was a summer of terror for all, for African Americans standing watch with rifles and shotguns to the young students whom they were protecting. White Mississippians were terrified of the changes to come from the "invasion" of these outsiders, which included the FBI. This is the summer told of in the film Mississippi Burning in which 3 civil rights workers are murdered. One of the most interesting chapters of the book is the epilogue, which tells of the reaction of the civil rights workers and the residents of Mississippi. Whites were outraged that once again they were shown at their racist worst when they have made progress in Mississippi. The civil rights workers were outraged that Blacks were shown as helpless and the FBI were heroes. This was not the case in the summer of 1964.

I do most of my reading by audiobook and Freedom Summer was a good choice for my commute. Performer David Drummond held my attention and engaged my imagination with subtle shifts in voice to indicate speakers. His accents, from New England to the Deep South, were effective and never sounded fake.

The story is told through extensive research with interviews and letters so that the voices of the civil rights workers are clear. Freedom Summer is highly recommended as an education for those not yet born in 1964 and a reminder to those who were that there are still pockets of poverty and racism in the USA.

[McMaeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Usually a history book is NOT what I would pick up, but after trying civil disobedience this summer, and finding parallels with the civil rights era, I wanted to learn more. I found this book riveting, as well as thoroughly well-researched and peppered with quotes and primary sources. I was struck by the sacrifices that SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) volunteers made - Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney with their lives. I read this with a curiosity about what drives movements. What convinced these upper crust white college students to risk their lives and spend a summer in Mississippi? If climate activism, or the 99%, is the movement of our time, what will motivate this generation to take similar actions that bear great risk?

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an eye-opener. I was vaguely aware that the South, during the Jim Crow era, was a festering hellhole; but I was shocked by the degree of brutality described in this book. But while I was nauseated by the descriptions of racial hatred and violence, I was left in awe of the individuals who, at great peril to their lives, traveled to Mississippi to advance the cause of civil rights for Black Americans. This is the kind of book that makes you want to be a better person.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite having already read a number of books about the degradations that the South, and Mississippi in particular, have inflicted upon the blacks after the Civil War, I was terribly moved by this book. In essence, this book is about the summer of 1964 in which great efforts were made to allow the blacks of Mississippi to have the same rights of citizenship that white people enjoyed. Rights that one would have thought they had obtained after being freed as slaves a century earlier. I could talk at length about this book's contents, but I'll limit it to just three of many reactions I had while reading it. First, the dynamics of the situation that this book covers are well related to that of the American troops that served in occupied Iraq, constantly dealing with the dangers of the insurgency. Unfortunately for the freedom volunteers in Mississippi, they had similar dangers, but without all the weapons and body armor to protect them. Second, there is a dramatic element to the author's writing that at first bothered me. This is a "history" and historians don't embellish the facts. But then it occurred to me, if one person is beaten to a pulp, shot dead, and chopped into pieces because another person regards the first person as no better than a mongrel dog, does it really step over the line if the writer goes a step further and points out that this might be a bad thing? And third, I don't recall ever reading another book in which each time I picked it up to start reading further, I found myself quickly awash in thoughts about a myriad of issues related to the story and my relationship to those issues. It was like an internal book club discussion being reconvened every new time I started reading. I had to stop myself and just read. And as compelling as my inner thoughts were, the new sections I would be reading were always even more compelling. Finally, even though the book ends with better news about the subsequent state of race relations in Mississippi, it was the day before I finished the book that CNN had a new story about black victims of hit-and-run accidents by whites and of incidents that the white authorities failed to investigate for over three years until CNN started pushing the matter. The reaction from one of the county sheriffs could have been word for word from the sheriffs that abused the freedom volunteers so badly back in 1964.

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ask just about anyone on the street about the Civil Rights Movement, and you'll get the same answer from probably everyone, the same names will be dropped. JFK, King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X... It's a short list, and an incredibly incomplete one. Bruce Watson introduces the reader to hundreds of heroes we've never met; volunteers working in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, alongside Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael and other names who really should be in our consciousness. Names like Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, volunteers who never made it out of Mississippi; as well as Fran O'Brien, Chris Williams and Fred Winn, white college students who spent their summer teaching, registering voters, building schools and bringing hope and attention to the population that most Americans were content to ignore.

The stories these volunteers had to share about their experiences in Mississippi were frustrating, often heart-breaking, but always astonishing. I had to continually remind myself that I was reading about the country I grew up in, only 50 years past. We're taught about the lynchings, the fear tactics, the violence and the bombings, but I don't think that most people realize that these things were happening daily , and often were unprovoked. The Freedom Summer is especially interesting, because the events that occurred there, Watson posits, led to a complete transformation of the Civil Rights movement and the people involved. Watson incorporates letters, newspaper headlines and excerpts from interviews from the volunteers and members of SNCC, to tell a very powerful story about a period in American history that remains relevant and controversial.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just an incredible social history of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and Mississippi, in particular the summer of 1964, when hundreds of college students, black and white, went into the very dangerous small towns of that state to register voters. They also opened "Freedom" schools that offered the prisoners (yep, I said it) of that racist society a different way to view themselves, the country and the world.

The (in)famous murder of three of those civil-rights workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman by the KKK (assisted/covered up by law enforcement) occurred the first day of the program (their bodies weren't recovered for five weeks) stripping at least some of the innocents of their innocence.

But with only a few exceptions, the workers stayed and pressed on. On some levels, many of their goals weren't met, but that's mostly politics. On a human level, this book shows how people, both the visitors and the residents, can act with hope, graciousness, and courage, and certainly, (certainly) how others can act with total depravity.

Would say that the language gets unnecessarily overheated at times, but that's a small quibble.

[Tony Hynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sit ins, voting registration drives, literacy programs, the changing of the guard in a long fought Civil Rights Movement, all came to a head in the summer of 1964. Bruce Watson does a wonderful job documenting it, and the violence that came along with that change, at length. This is the summer in which Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer and other Civil Rights activists began to buy in to the tactics of a younger generation that was tired of waiting for Civil Rights Laws to just "happen" as whites realized how wrong they were. Still, violence helped ignite the movement. Watson does a nice describing the impact of the deaths of SNCC workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner. Their murders became a national story, and helped create a groundswell of support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When mothers and fathers realized that these anti integration folks, these mean southern men, were willing to kill their white sons as well, it alerted the nation to the alarming truths of southern racism. They were not peaceful separate but equal places as the nation had been led to believe, but a hotbed of racial tension and violence.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the summer of 1964, 700 young people from around the United States travelled to Mississippi for "Freedom Summer," joining local volunteers to build and staff "Freedom Schools" for black children, engage in a voter registration drive, and form a parallel delegation of "Freedom Democrats" to send to the Democratic National Convention.

Watson's history of that summer is based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including interviews with participants (particularly white college students - I would have liked to have read more of the local and black experiences as well). The level of violence in Mississippi history, including quite recent history, was staggering and eye-opening. I would like to read more in this area, especially about the Reconstruction, which I know little about. Some of Watson's prose is a bit overwrought, like the subtitle, but this was in the main very interesting.

[Chris Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating. I was 3 years old when all of this happened. I have read many books and seen many movies about this time. The brutality wasn't what I would call shocking as there is so much documentation of it. Two things that did surprise me was the volunteers, who they became. Barney Frank comes to mind. I had no idea he was that deeply involved, I always assumed he was another loud mouthed politician. He actually did something. Even more shocking was the discovery that until that summer Mississippi had the 5th largest economy in the country.

[Elliot Stoller · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1964 activists risked beatings and murder in order to register black Mississippians to vote. Inspiring story of brave black and white americans, many who would continue to work for social justice long after Freedom Summer.

[Elizabeth Higginbotham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freedom Summer by Bruce Watson is an interesting read and while I knew much about Freedom Summer, I learned many details as well as the stories of volunteers. Watson covers many aspects, as well as the events that led up to the decisions to invest in the particularly way. There were many insights into the internal dealings of the movement in the south and especially, Mississippi. I knew about some people, especially the major leaders, but this vision is more expansive. Also, I learned much about the FBI as well, not the Mississippi Burning (the film) version, but all the work the FBI did to investigate the Klan and its supporters, evidence collected on other crimes that helped turn the tide.

I had only had simple knowledge of the training in Ohio, but letters and reflections of volunteers tells another story. I was still in high school in 1964, but active in northern style support for the movement, so I could appreciate the challenge of doing south. My own father, who grew in Tennessee and spent time as a Pullman Porter working in the South in the 1930s, would not let me go there. It was dangerous and many rules for safety, but these are young people who learn first hand their own vulnerability.

I had forgotten how long it took to find the three workers who disappeared at the beginning of Freedom Summer. I remember the tensions, but not the timing.

There were many projects that summer, but the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the end is the major focus. The road to Atlantic City was rough, and I learned more about the negotiations behind the scene. Events were covered well in the media, since conventions always get plenty of press and they are looking for interested stories. So, it was also nice to hear about the challenges and success of Freedom Schools, how the experience changed people and also how there were often rough roads to recover from the trauma of that summer in Mississippi. Many people were changed by their time in Mississippi. Doug McAdam has a nice study at the difference between the volunteers who go and those who were accepted, but did not for various reasons spend time in the South. Yet, it nice to see the long-term impact and even if recovery was rough, people lead lives the distinctions. We know the stories of the leaders quite well, so it was interested to read about the people who are more like me.

It is odd to read this book in this current era of fake news and disputed truths. In the 1960s, White people who were not ready for changed just saw the disappearance of young people as a hoax and dismissed “northern news.” Eventually people had to let the traditions go an enter a new state of being—but it was hard for all—the change agents and those who had to accept change.

[Landon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review: Freedom Summer The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy.

Author: Bruce Watson.

Genre: Non-Fiction.



Bruce Watson’s Freedom Summer revisits one of the maximum defining moments inside the civil rights movement—the summer of 1964—while hundreds of activists risked their lives to combat racial injustice in Mississippi. Focusing on groups which include the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and leaders like Bob Moses, Watson efforts to sign up deprived Black citizens and establish Freedom Schools to empower groups.


The E book vividly portrays the courage of these activists while exposing the violent resistance they confronted, which include the tragic murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Watson balances non-public testimonies with historical context, offering a compelling and intimate exploration of sacrifice and resilience. Watson’s number one aim is to honor the bravery of people who fought for democracy and to underscore the continued struggle for equality. His use of evocative language—describing “burning church buildings” and “bloodied our bodies”—draws readers into the fear and urgency of the technology. Words like “savage” and “ferocious” amplify the brutality confronted via activists, emphasizing their unwavering willpower within the face of threat. One of the ebook’s standout traits is its ability to humanize history, turning abstract events into non-public and emotional narratives. Rather than presenting a linear account, Watson delves into the motivations and struggles of key figures, making the tale each relatable and impactful. Readers with an hobby in social justice, civil rights, or tales of activism will locate Freedom Summer each informative and deeply moving. Conclusion: I might rate Freedom S





Conclusion:



I would rate Freedom Summer four.Five out of 5 stars. Its gripping storytelling, emotional depth, and historic accuracy make it a should-study, even though its extreme depictions may not healthy all audiences. Watson’s narrative gives each concept and a sobering reminder of the sacrifices required to attain development.

[Jarrett Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As gripping as a novel, Watson’s “Freedom Summer” is an eye-opening narrative history of the 1964 “Freedom Summer” when white and Black college students descended on Mississippi to help register voters and establish “freedom schools” to inspire and educate. Met with vicious violence—beatings, bombings, murders—the SNCC-organized volunteers galvanized a nation, drawing attention to the closed, violent society of Jim Crow Mississippi. While Black civil rights advocates had experienced much worse, it took the deaths and mistreatment of white, well-educated volunteers to draw and sustain the attention of the American public to Mississippi. Beyond the bravery of the volunteers, what stands out most from Watson’s well researched and compellingly written history is the Black leaders who laid the groundwork for Freedom Summer and braved white supremacist violence for years before (e.g., Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer), as well as the everyday Black Mississippians who opened their homes to volunteers and braved beatings and threats of violence to register and seek an education.

Watson makes the summer tangible and immediate—the idealism, the hope, the eye-opening interracial interactions of respect, and the violence and terror. “Freedom Summer” was as hard to put down as the best thriller and a powerful reminder of the advocates who transformed the South (even if much work remains).

[Riley Cullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freedom Summer is a well thought and organized telling of what was “Freedom Summer” by author Bruce Watson. It starts off telling us about specific figures in the entire event, specifically Bob Moses, and his plan to get college students and other volunteers together to help African American citizens in Mississippi gain the power and knowledge to vote. Their preparation was probably the easiest part, for once they entered Mississippi, their lives were at stake, and soon three men's lives were taken. At first, the FBI refused to help protect SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) workers from those who violently opposed their presence in Mississippi. But, once two white men and one African American went missing, it suddenly became more important to America. The fact that white people’s deaths would spark such a ruckus, while many African Americans are lynched and harassed all the time and don’t receive any attention, is one of the large points in the book that shows that there is still and inequality between the races, and helps convey Bruce Watson’s discontent with the FBI. After the bodies of the three boys are found, and the summer starts to come to an end, and they could no longer fund the volunteers to be there. Many of these volunteers wanted to get out as fast as they could, while others were upset to have to leave and of those some were determined to go back and help. The book then tells of how Mississippi handled itself after all was said and done. It talked about what changes had come, what new ideas had been brought forth, and also the things that didn’t change, or changed for the worse for some time. Overall, I thought the book was very eye opening and informative of the Summer of 1964, but at times in the book it started to feel a bit repetitive. The book started of well, but near the middle it felt like it was saying the same thing over and over about the FBI investigating the murder of the three men, and it seemed to take a while for us to finally find out what had specifically happened, rather than Watson leaving us with a vague foreshadowing. Other than that, the book progressed well and gave its points to the audience very well, including Watson’s negative tones used toward the FBI. Whenever the government is brought up, they are usually depicted as not doing their job right, and this is most likely because Watson believed that they should’ve been doing more, and conveys that message to us very well using quotes from SNCC workers, and how 4 years after the summer, volunteers were outraged to see FBI agents portrayed as heroes in a movie.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a soul-stirring book - narrative history at its best. Watson gives a detailed, comprehensive account of the 1964 Freedom project in Mississippi - the year when suffering Civil Rights activists, desperate to attract attention to their struggle, invited idealistic northern college students to spend their summer working in this Deep South state, violent, Klan-ridden - to live there with the poorest of the poor, registering voters, teaching in Freedom schools, and, by risking their lives, by being beaten, by being jailed, by being killed, revealing to the nation the true nature of segregation, revealing the ugly horror of the overt violence of a racist society. The story of the unbelievable courage of these people, both the blacks and whites, has been told before - most notably by Taylor Branch in "Pillar of Fire" - where he gives more detail concerning the conflict among the various Civil Rights groups, the rivalry between the leaders, and integrates the story into the wider struggle across the nation. Branch is more informative on the "behind the scenes" details; Watson much better at exposing the heart, the soul, of the movement. Watson's tells a simpler story. Concentrating on just this one project, limited in space and time, he provides a more compelling narrative - a narrative almost in the classical style of Tacitius - tells of the dramatic conflict between "the noble" and "the vile" - tells this in emotionally charged language, often more poetry than prose. Raises this "golden moment" in the struggle almost to the level of moral epic, to myth. Gives us heroes, ideals, to emulate - provides hope that things can change, that there is greatness among us, in ordinary people. Reading "Freedom Summer" revived my idealism, restored my faith in mankind and in the basic goodness of my country.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is difficult to find words to adequately praise this finely written and thoroughly researched book. The summer of 1964 changed Mississippi and America forever. A small army of college students went to the state that was the bastion of white racism. Mississippi was a hard nut to crack, but these brave young people cracked it. This book reads like a virtual who's who in the Civil Rights Movement: Robert Moses, Barney Frank, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokeley Carmichael, James Foreman, and many, many others. By registering black voters in Mississippi these activists broke the back of Jim Crow and disempowerment in the South. Because of this summer and these activists the election of Barack Obama in 2008 became possible. This is a must read for anyone who wants to know about the courage of the civil rights activist. They did not all sing "We Shall Overcome" and they did not all turn the other cheek. Some met Klan violence with rifles and shotguns. They stared evil in the face and it blinked.

[Sunday · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. I didn't want to put it down. Watson has created a gripping narrative that takes you deep into Mississippi and the psyche of players on all sides of the Freedom Summer movement. When you name civil rights activists, in the same breath as "Dr. King," please remember to also name Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, Stoakley Carmichael, Andrew Goodman, Michael and Rita Schwerner, James Chaney, Muriel Tillinghast, Fred Winn, Fran O'Brien and Chris Williams and the hundreds of others involved in this movement. This movement has had a HUGE impact on our lives today. I would encourage any teacher who is leading inquiry into this period of time to read this book; it's a must read in high school and undergrad as well.

I will be talking about this movement any time I get a chance - I want children to know about this---and know about it well. What happened that summer and beyond resonates with what we are seeing today - here in the USA and internationally. Our children need to know the power of nonviolence in changing the world.

BTW - Watson is a masterful writer!!

[Winnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written in 2010. I’ve had the book for most of those years and finally got around to reading it. I���m glad that I did. Yes, it is painful to read, but it is an important story that needs to be read especially in view of events in the last year. Racism still exists.

In the summer of 1964, I was 15. I had just completed 10th grade in Georgia. Our high school integrated in the fall of 1964. As I look back, I don’t remember any protests or any problems in our town. While our transition was smooth (at least in my eyes), I was aware that was not the case everywhere. I remember TV and newspaper coverage of the Civil Rights movement. While the news made me sad, I know that for many it must have been truly frightening. I applaud those that put their lives on the line to undo the wrongs.

The details of that summer and a more in-depth look at the people involved make this a worthy read. The epilogue follows up with what has happened to some of those participating – both the lesser known and those that became nationally known.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Bruce Watson's journalism back in Northampton, and thought this would be an interesting look at an event I don't know enough about. Wow. Watson digs into history the way I like to see it, taking his time to trace the roots of the conflict, then following relatively ordinary people through big events and their consequences. He brings the Mississippi of 1964 back to life, and it is a terrifying place -- even more so when you see the similarities between the reactionary hatred of then and the insanity of the Tea Party now.

Watson understates it a little, but the heroism of the Mississippi Summer Project volunteers and the families that stood with them comes through loud and clear. They went to war -- unarmed -- and broke the back of segregation, even if they didn't know it at the time. Turns out that I actually knew one of the Mississippi Summer volunteers a little; I always liked him, but I wish I'd known back then what a hero he really was.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendous book about our history that many don't know anything about. It should be apart of every American history course. These young people and Mississippi blacks were so courageous during a time when no one, and I mean no one was paying attention to their safety or freedom. Jim Crow was alive and well. People were starving, mistreated, beaten, hanged, and plenty of other disgusting things for minor infractions of the law or trumpeted up reasons. Prejudiced ruled. This summer project brought to the forefront of America how bad life was for the black people in the south but especially in Mississippi in 1964. A must read.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was, at times, a difficult book to read. As a native southerner, I'm keenly aware of the south's dark history related to civil rights. The book does read like a textbook, though I found the content flowed smoothly. It highlights, in great detail, the reckoning that occurred during the summer of 1964 in Mississippi. The fearlessness with which many of the volunteers operated during Freedom summer is impressive and remarkable given some of their young ages. Overall, I found this book riveting, and despite the challenging subject matter, its content, and the history it tells is super important.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author made me feel the fear, hope, joy, despair, and all the other emotions blacks and whites must have felt that summer. It brought me to tears numerous times. Barney Frank was one of the volunteers (though not much about him in the book), which I had not known. Made me want to know more about that summer, and am on waiting list for book containing the letters home from the volunteers. We've all come a long way but there's still a long way to go.....