Freedom Summer

Definition: As late as into the 1960s, southern blacks were often prevented from voting. In the summer of 1964, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) organized Freedom Summer, a voter registration project in Mississippi. Several hundred students participated in the project. Participants were both black and white.

A day after the project began, three civil rights activities disappeared, one black and two whites. The bodies of James E. Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were found six weeks later. It was clear that they had been murdered, but investigation into it progressed slowly. The FBI became involved in the investigation, and in 1967, seven men were convicted in federal court for the violation of civil rights laws.

Forty-one freedom schools were established, 17,000 blacks attempted to vote, 1,600 were successfully registered, and national attention was brought to black disenfranchisement in the South. In addition, Freedom Summer influenced the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Act put an end to the methods Southern whites had used to prevent blacks from voting.