The Forgotten Heroes Before the Headlines
Long before Freedom Summer put Mississippi’s civil rights struggles in the national spotlight, countless Black citizens were quietly laying the groundwork for change. For four years, black civil rights activists in Mississippi had been harassed, beaten, shot, and imprisoned; and blacks who helped them had been fired from their jobs, evicted, arrested, beaten, and killed. Yet for four years, the federal government had done almost nothing to protect SNCC workers and black Mississippians.
The state’s resistance to civil rights was deeply entrenched through systematic oppression. In 1890, Mississippi had passed a new constitution, supported by additional laws, which effectively excluded most black Mississippians from registering or voting. This status quo had long been enforced by economic boycotts and violence. What made Mississippi particularly dangerous was how this system operated with complete impunity for decades.
The True Cost of Educational Inequality
As late as 1960, Mississippi was spending an average of approximately four times as much on White pupils as African American students. In 1962, for example, the Tunica County School District spent an average of $172.80 on each White pupil but only $5.99 on each of their Black counterparts. That same year in Clarksdale, the amount spent on each White student was $146.06 compared to $25.07 for each Black student.
These shocking disparities had devastating consequences that went far beyond the classroom. Fewer than five percent of Black Mississippi adults held a high school diploma in 1964. Many did not know basic facts about the government of the United States of America, such as how many states were in the nation, the purposes of the three branches of federal government, or that Black people had been guaranteed the right to vote by the Fifteenth Amendment. This educational sabotage was deliberately designed to maintain white supremacy by keeping Black citizens politically powerless.
Vernon Dahmer’s Hidden Legacy
Ellie Dahmer first moved to Forrest County, Mississippi, to work as a teacher in the early 1950s. She quickly became involved in the voting rights struggle and the local NAACP branch, alongside husband Vernon Dahmer, Sr. (who eventually became president of the Forrest County NAACP). One of the Dahmers’ many contributions was making it possible for customers at their grocery store to pay them the poll tax that voter registration officials required before a registrant could vote.
The Dahmer family’s story reveals how ordinary people became extraordinary heroes through small acts of defiance. The sisters grew up in Palmer’s Crossing, where they were mentored by NAACP leaders Clyde Kennard and Vernon Dahmer Sr. Dorie Ladner, left, and her sister Joyce Ladner were mentored in their civil rights activism by slain leaders Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer. Their mentorship created a pipeline of young activists who would later become national figures in the movement.
The Untold Stories Behind Freedom Summer
Mississippi was chosen as the site of the Freedom Summer project due to its historically low levels of African American voter registration; in 1962 less than 7 percent of the state’s eligible Black voters were registered. Over 700 mostly white volunteers joined African Americans in Mississippi to fight against voter intimidation and discrimination at the polls.
But what many don’t realize is the strategic thinking behind recruiting white volunteers. Moses and SNCC activists knew a surge of earnest white volunteers from middle and upper class backgrounds, a majority of whom attended elite universities, would attract national media attention. As anticipated, the fact that two of the missing men were white (Schwerner and Goodman; Chaney was black) prodded federal action. This painful reality exposed how Black lives were consistently valued less than white ones in the eyes of federal authorities.
The Devastating Violence Nobody Talked About
Throughout the search, Mississippi newspapers and word-of-mouth perpetuated the common belief that the disappearance was “a hoax” designed to draw publicity. The search of rivers and swamps turned up the bodies of eight other Black people who appeared to have been murdered: a boy and seven men. Herbert Oarsby, a 14-year-old youth, was found wearing a CORE T-shirt.
The full scope of violence was staggering and largely unreported. Between June 16 and September 30, 1964, there were at least 6 murders, 29 shootings, 50 bombings, more than 60 beatings, and over 400 arrests of project workers and local residents. The other five men were never identified. When they disappeared, their families could not get local law enforcement to investigate. These anonymous victims represent the countless hidden casualties of Mississippi’s resistance to civil rights.
Freedom Schools: Education as Revolution
In an effort to address Mississippi’s separate and unequal public education system, the summer project established 41 Freedom Schools attended by more than 3,000 young black students throughout the state. In addition to math, reading, and other traditional courses, students were also taught black history, the philosophy of the civil rights movement, and leadership skills that provided them with the intellectual and practical tools to carry on the struggle after the summer volunteers departed.
These schools represented something revolutionary in Mississippi. Moreover, the curriculum and faculty at many Black public schools were closely monitored to prevent teachers from discussing or promoting certain aspects of African American history or the Civil Rights Movement, or from joining organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Freedom Schools broke this cycle of intellectual oppression by teaching students their own history and constitutional rights.
The Hidden Female Leaders
Perhaps because Mississippi, in the mid-1960s became the major focal point of the civil rights movement, attracting SNCC, there were more Black women leaders in Mississippi than any other state. Therefore, it should not have been a surprise that Fannie Lou Hamer was a spokesperson at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
The Ladner sisters attended Jackson State University and became active in the movement. University officials expelled the sisters when they protested the 1961 arrests of nine Tougaloo College students, who had dared to integrate the all-white library in downtown Jackson. Afterward, the sisters attended Tougaloo College and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dorie Ladner even escorted Fannie Lou Hamer to register to vote. These women faced double discrimination as both Black and female activists, yet they persisted and mentored the next generation.
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Challenge
With participation in the regular Mississippi Democratic Party blocked by segregationists, COFO established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as a non-exclusionary rival to the regular party organization. It intended to gain recognition of the MFDP by the national Democratic Party as the legitimate party organization in Mississippi. Though the MFDP challenge had wide support among many convention delegates, Lyndon B. Johnson feared losing Southern support in the coming campaign. He did not allow the MFDP to replace the regulars, but the continuing issue of political oppression in Mississippi was covered widely by the national press.
More than 60,000 Black Mississippi residents risked their lives to attend local meetings, choose candidates, and vote in a “Freedom Election” that ran parallel to the regular 1964 national elections. Several hundred African American families also hosted northern volunteers in their homes. This parallel democratic system proved that Black Mississippians were eager to participate in democracy when given the opportunity.
Economic Warfare Against Civil Rights
Business leaders banded together in white Citizens Councils to coordinate punishment of African-Americans who participated in Freedom Summer. They foreclosed mortgages on black residents’ homes, fired workers from jobs, banned customers from shopping in stores, and shut down food pantries for the poor.
This economic terrorism was systematic and devastating. Businesses banded together in white Citizens Councils to coordinate punishment of African Americans who participated in Freedom Summer. They foreclosed mortgages on Black residents’ homes, fired workers from jobs, banned customers from shopping in stores, and shut down food pantries for the poor. Families faced starvation and homelessness simply for attempting to exercise their constitutional rights, creating a climate of fear that extended far beyond physical violence.
The Legacy of State-Sponsored Terror
An old, familiar story is unfolding once again in Mississippi, as federal officials gather evidence and consider whether to open a broad investigation or to file charges against the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office for a pattern of civil rights violations that mirrors the lynch mob “justice” seen in the Jim Crow and civil rights eras. A group of the department’s deputies were sentenced to prison in April for brutally torturing and sexually abusing two innocent Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in a racist attack in January 2023 that lasted more than an hour.
That shameful kind of “justice” was documented throughout the country in a 2023 United Nations report on policing, which found that systemic anti-Black racism “pervades America’s police forces and criminal justice system,” and said “US authorities must urgently step up efforts to reform them.” The report showed not only that the U.S. justice system is pervaded by certain uniquely inhumane practices, but also that the worst abuses are often reserved for nonwhite Americans and especially Black people. His mentor was in fact a notorious racist and Jim Crow–era Mississippi lawman: a sheriff known to the Black community as Lloyd “Goon” Jones, due to his brutal tactics and involvement in high-profile incidents of police brutality against Black people and civil rights activists.
The Power of Hidden Collections
Mississippi State University Libraries soon will bring countless untold stories of Mississippi’s rich and complicated past to a broader audience through a $123,403 grant from the national Council on Library and Information Resources “Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices” program. Mississippi State University (MSU) has been awarded a $123,403 grant from CLIR for a project aimed at digitizing untold civil rights stories of Black Mississippians.
This initiative, titled ‘Freedom Means: Digitizing the Hidden Stories of Black Mississippians’ Fight for Civil Rights’, will make essential archival materials widely accessible online, enhancing educational resources and promoting a deeper understanding of Mississippi’s civil rights history for students and researchers. This generous funding is aimed at an inspiring project titled “Freedom Means: Digitizing the Hidden Stories of Black Mississippians’ Fight for Civil Rights.” It’s a fantastic initiative that seeks to bring to light untold stories that have been overshadowed in the tapestry of our history. These archives reveal how much of Mississippi’s civil rights history remains buried in dusty boxes, waiting to reshape our understanding of this crucial period.
The Continuing Fight for Memory
There’s a new push to develop civil rights tourism in the Mississippi Delta where local groups are using federal dollars to preserve the stories before memories fade and landmarks are lost. This urgency reflects a sobering reality about how quickly history can disappear without deliberate preservation efforts.
The state has a long history of trying to hide records and realities from the dark chapters of its past. Even today, Veteran Mississippi civil rights activist Dorie Ladner has died. Dorie Ladner, “a giant in the civil rights movement,” has died. She was 81. “My beloved sister, Dorie Ladner, died peacefully on Monday, March 11, 2024,” her sister, Joyce, posted on Facebook. With each passing of a civil rights veteran, irreplaceable firsthand knowledge disappears forever. The race to preserve these hidden histories becomes more urgent each day, as the last witnesses to Mississippi’s transformation pass away, taking their untold stories with them.
