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The "Mississippi Freedom Summer" in 1964 was one of the most significant nonviolent campaigns in history, conducted in the face of incredible hatred and violence. Under the direction of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, hundreds of young volunteers - men and women, black and white - faced death on a daily basis. Black-owned homes, churches, and businesses were firebombed; volunteers were arrested and beaten; some lost their lives – including James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

The summer of 1964 produced both heroes and villains. Two stories in Thursday's New York Times highlight that.

One of the heroes, Mendy Samstein, died yesterday at the age of 68. The Times reported:

Mendy Samstein, 68, Dies; Championed Civil Rights – "Mendy Samstein, who left graduate school to put himself in the forefront of the fight for black voting rights in Mississippi, enduring bombings and beatings in the crucial summer of 1964, died yesterday … Mr. Samstein abandoned his pursuit of a doctorate in history to join the historic turmoil in the South and became known as an adept organizer and pull-no-punches speaker. He helped recruit and deploy the more than 800 college students, mainly white, who traveled from many states to rural Mississippi towns, mainly black, as part of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964. He became a full-time organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Stokely Carmichael, who later became the group's chairman, called him "one in a million."

And, along with the highly publicized violence against civil rights volunteers, there was vicious violence against ordinary folks. Just a few pages away was this story about an arrest in the murder that summer of Henry H. Dee and Charles E. Moore, both 19:

Mississippi Man Arrested in Killing of 2 Blacks in '64 – "A 71-year-old man was arrested Wednesday in Mississippi on federal kidnapping charges stemming from the 1964 killing of two black teenagers who were tied to trees, whipped and drowned."

It was truly a summer that brought out the best and the worst in America.

Duane Shank is senior policy adviser for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Comments

Thanks for sharing that. p

Posted by: Payshun | January 26, 2007 7:10 PM

Do you admire Stokley Carmichael? Wasn't he with SNCC?

Posted by: John D. Sens | January 27, 2007 3:06 AM

Thanks for reminding us of a much overlooked period of this nation's history. For other great reading- Halberstam's "The Children" and John Lewis's bio "Walking with the Wind"

Posted by: Maria | January 27, 2007 10:04 PM

Carmichael was president of SNCC in, I believe, 1966. He coined the term "Black Power." That same year SNCC expelled all white members as the movement took a more militant turn toward Black Power and the battleground shifted from the South to northern cities. That in no way detracts from the courage that white and blacks displayed during Freedom Summer, 1964. If I'm not mistaken, late in life he converted to Christianity. Perhaps someone knows more about this.

Posted by: Carl Copas | January 28, 2007 6:13 PM

Those civil rights heroes, are they happy they brought the world Pimps, Bitches and Ho's as role models? 7 out of ten black children born out of wedlock? The inner-city a war-zone of Black on Black violence. AIDS killing African Americans "in" America? Cry loud and cry often for The Dream. The "content of character" has been cut out of it. The best part thrown away.

Posted by: M.L. King was my hero | January 29, 2007 3:48 PM

Troll.

Posted by: Rick Nowlin | January 29, 2007 5:58 PM

Duane Shank: Remembering Freedom Summer's Heroes and Villains

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