The National Civil Rights Museum will host a community symposium on the “60th Anniversary of Freedom Summer” on Saturday, July 27, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm at the museum. During this hybrid event, courageous activists from the iconic Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) will share experiences of their grassroots efforts to help register Black American voters in Mississippi 60 years ago.
This symposium will feature authors, historians, and filmmakers who will highlight incidents from the pivotal summer of 1964. Co-moderated by Dr. Robert Luckett, author, professor, and Director of the Margaret Walker Center and COFO Center at Jackson State University, and Dory Lerner, the museum’s Education Manager, a panel of surviving SNCC Freedom Summer activists will kick off the event. Panelists include:
- Judy Richardson, an author and filmmaker who from 1963-1966 served on staff in SNCC’s national office in Atlanta, in Mississippi during Freedom Summer, in Southwest Georgia, and in Lowndes County, AL;
- Charlie Cobb, Jr., a journalist, author and SNCC veteran who proposed the Freedom School project and organized for voting rights in Mississippi from 1962-1967;
- Courtland Cox, who served as the SNCC executive committee member, a representative on the Steering Committee for the 1963 March on Washington, and organizer for Freedom Summer;
- Dorothy Zellner, an author/editor who from 1962-67 worked for SNCC in Atlanta, GA, Danville, VA, Greenwood, MS (during Freedom Summer of 1964), and ran the northeast office of SNCC in Cambridge, MA;
- Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter and author whose research has successfully help convict four Ku Klux Klansmen of civil rights cold cases.
A book talk discussion with authors Davis Houck and Devery Anderson will provide a segue to other violent events during Freedom Summer. Houck is the author of Black Bodies in the River: Searching for Freedom Summer, whose 2022 release uncovers the claim that dozens of unidentified Black bodies were discovered in the June 1964 search for civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. Anderson is the author of A Slow, Calculated Lynching: The Story of Clyde Kennard which resurrects the story of a Hattiesburg civil rights worker who attempted to enroll in University of Southern Mississippi and became victim of an extensive plot to frame, imprison, and ultimately torture and kill him through the denial of health care while incarcerated.
A documentary screening of “Dying to Vote” will be followed by a discussion with filmmakers Loki Mulholland, civil rights icon Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, and Dennis Dahmer, son of the film’s protagonist. The 30-minute presentation tells the story of Vernon Dahmer, a civil rights activist in 1966 Hattiesburg who died of smoke inhalation after his family’s home was firebombed. Dahmer led an effective campaign to register Black residents of Forrest and Lamar Counties, volunteering to even pay potential registrants’ poll taxes.
The community symposium will conclude with a panel on Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a nefarious member group of white supremacists established in 1956 after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision to counteract gains in racial equality in Mississippi and other southern states. Their clandestine tactics included surveillance and investigating civil rights activists, undermining efforts to register Black voters, and financially supporting racial terrorist groups through state tax dollars. Panelists include Houck, Mitchell, and Luckett and is moderated by Ryan Jones, the museum’s Associate Curator.
The event includes lunch for onsite, registered attendees. General admission tickets are $15 for in-person or virtual guests and free for educators. For tickets and more information, visit civilrightsmuseum.org.
