Freedom Summer Lib/E: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy

by Bruce Watson

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, as well as 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.

Audio CD

Published June 16, 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.