In 1964, black people in Mississippi launched a vast movement to break the barriers put in place by the state to prevent them from voting. Freedom Summer marked a turning point in the history of civil rights in the United States. But 40 years later, this fight has still not been won. Travel to a state where, even in 2024, democracy comes up against old racial barriers.
June 1964. A wind of revolt blows across Mississippi and the south of the country, still under the yoke of segregation. During what became known as “Freedom Summer”, a popular effort was organized to demand that African-Americans be treated as full citizens.
“As a black person, trying to register to vote was an act of resistance in itself,” recalls Leslie-Burl McLemore, who was 24 that year.
Sixty years later, in his pretty home in Walls, in northern Mississippi, the octogenarian has lost none of the militant flame that animated him at the time. “Having black people vote is precisely what the white establishment didn’t want. He did not want us to participate in the electoral process and be able to one day occupy roles of power,” he explains.
In 1964, only 7 percent of Mississippi’s black population was registered to vote, even though it made up about 40 percent of the state’s population. However, it had already been almost a century since black people were supposed to have the right to vote.
At the end of the Civil War, in 1865, the Confederate States of the slave South – which included Mississippi – reintegrated into the United States. That same year, the U.S. Congress amended the Constitution to abolish slavery. He did so again in 1870 to guarantee the right to vote for all citizens, including those of color.
However, during the Reconstruction period following the end of the war, the Southern states remained deeply racist. Laws were put in place – Jim Crow laws – to hinder the exercise of the constitutional rights of African-Americans and impose racial segregation.
Fight, at the cost of your life
Rosie Purdy-Willis, a native of Arkansas, studied in Mississippi at Rust College, a historically black private university. That’s where she met Leslie.
The “determined and mature” young man she remembers was involved with the national group of students dedicated to the fight for civil rights: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — better known by its abbreviation SNCC.
Rosie got involved in her turn. “My parents encouraged me. But, oh boymy mother prayed and was afraid! »
Since the early 1960s, SNCC members have traveled across Mississippi to convince blacks to register to vote. But they encountered violent repression from segregationists. People are intimidated, brutalized, murdered. Houses and churches are bombed and burned.
“They told us they would kill us if we continued to come to rural Mississippi to convince farm people to vote. We told them we would continue to come. They just had to kill us! We weren’t afraid,” Rosie remembers.
“The risk of trying to register to vote was real,” recalls Leslie, with a serious expression. Every time I went door to door, every time I brought people to the courthouse to register, I put my life in danger. I was aware of it. But I knew the cause was bigger than me. »
To broaden the scope of the popular uprising, local activists called in some 1,000 students from the rest of the United States. Most are white and from the wealthy classes of the north of the country. However, there is no consensus on their arrival.
“Some didn’t want white volunteers taking all the spotlight. There were heated discussions, says Leslie-Burl McLemore. But I remember that [la militante pour les droits civiques] Fannie Lou Hamer had indicated that she was in favor of them coming to Mississippi. His argument was that if the light was on them, through the tape they would give visibility to what was happening in Mississippi. »
On June 21, three young civil rights activists disappeared while investigating a church fire. One, James Chaney, is a black Mississippian. The other two are white people from New York: Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. The case gained momentum and captured the interest of the national media, marking a turning point. A few days later, their car was discovered abandoned, and it was not until several weeks later that their bodies were found.
Their murders — carried out by white supremacists from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) with the collaboration of local police — would later be made famous by the release of the film Mississippi Burningat the end of the 1980s.
“It’s something you never want to see happen,” Leslie said. But you know, when you’re lobbying against the system, when you’re raising issues that people don’t want to be raised, that’s a risk. People will lose their lives. And we were all devastated. But it is also something that has given us greater determination in the movement. We couldn’t stop. We had to continue. »
Education to free yourself
Bill Maxwell was one of the students who came to Mississippi that summer. An African American born in Florida, he was studying in Texas when he enlisted.
When he arrived in Mississippi, he began going door to door. “But quickly, because of my studies in English literature, I was asked to teach in the Freedom Schools [les écoles de la liberté] “, explains Bill.
Set up by SNCC students, these schools on the fringes of the public education system in Mississippi will welcome some 2,500 students during the summer of 1964 – including children, but also adults. “The schools were so successful that there was a shortage of teachers. No one expected that there would be so many interested students! » says Bill.
Around forty schools will be created. Reading, writing, arithmetic and black history are taught there. Students learn in particular the history of Reconstruction, swept from the school curriculum in Mississippi.
“It was forbidden to teach it because, you know, during that time, black people gained rights, including the right to vote. So, the segregationists obviously didn’t want that to be known,” underlines Bill.
From this small classroom where he taught nearly twenty students in the oppressive heat, the man remembers the excitement that hovered.
“It was really fascinating to be surrounded by these children. They were happy. They never stopped talking. They always had questions. It was wonderful. I had never seen students so motivated to learn,” explains the man who was subsequently a teacher for around thirty years.
These freedom schools were intended to be “refuges” for children, he said. “But we knew it wasn’t completely safe. At night, armed men had to protect the schools so that they would not be bombed or burned. »
Convince white people
A handful of volunteers from outside the United States also joined the movement. Dyane Brown was one of the few Canadians to come to Mississippi that summer.
Arriving from Belleville, Ontario, the young woman, around twenty years old at the time, chose to campaign with the whites. “I understood that the only people I could really influence would be white people,” says Dyane, now 82 years old.
With a group of students, she goes to meet them to try to change racist mentalities. “It was difficult. People didn’t want to talk to us. They already had their minds made up. They were very irritated and considered us agitators,” explains Dyane.
“I also saw fear. Some business people were in favor of desegregation, but they did not want to be the first to do it,” continues the woman who still remembers “a few” successes, some “accidental”.
Like this time at the hotel where Dyane was staying that summer. “I met a young woman who wanted to introduce me to her husband, Bob, a segregationist. He was absolutely against what we were doing. So, I spoke to him at length, introduced the people on our team,” says the Canadian.
Ultimately, the man ended up agreeing to work for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) — a predominantly black “parallel” party founded to challenge Mississippi’s all-white Democratic delegation at the time. “Bob was the driver. He was driving people to the 1964 Democratic convention at the end of the summer,” Dyane said.
Resistance based on hope
The activists draw their courage in particular from that shown by the leading figures of the movement, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, the incarnation of the workers’ revolt in Mississippi. Throughout the 1960s, this cotton plantation worker revolted against the oppression suffered by black people.
In 1963, she was arrested, incarcerated and brutally beaten in her cell for demanding to register on the electoral roll. A year later, in the middle of Freedom Summer, Fannie Lou Hamer would shake America at the Democratic National Convention. In a speech broadcast on television, she will recount the horror of her arrest and the extent of the violence suffered in the segregated South.
“The United States has not had a better citizen. Think about it: that a field worker had such a great impact on the nation! She had an incredible intelligence and voice,” says Leslie with admiration.
In her living room, hanging on the wall, a sketch of the activist sits above the sofa. “I remember the day I met Fannie Lou Hamer. She sang, spoke, preached… She threw us all to the ground,” remembers the octogenarian, still moved.
The civil rights movement in the United States was deeply inspired by religious figures, notably that of the famous pastor Martin Luther King Jr.
Faced with the hatred of segregationists, the church became a refuge, an oasis of hope for the blacks of Mississippi and even a crucible of activism. “The church was the basis of our social life. We didn’t have many at the time. But in church we could come together, sing, pray, be ourselves,” says Rosie.
Then, with sparkling eyes, the woman begins to sing a tune emblematic of the civil rights movement “ We shall overcome…Oh, deep in my heart, I believe it. We will overcome,” she begins to sing. “Today I changed the lyrics. I have conquered! Oh, deep in my heart, I believe it. I have conquered. »
Faced with popular pressure, and a year after adopting the Civil Rights Act which prohibited racial segregation, the American Congress adopted, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting all obstacles to the exercise of this right, particularly those against black people.
During “Freedom Summer,” nearly 17,000 black Mississippians attempted to register to vote. Only 1,600 of them were ultimately allowed to vote.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-Duty.