Freedom Summer Sing
Raymi Brown
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is a powerful way to learn African American history, not through textbooks, but through the lived experiences of those who made it. As a History major, I’ve used The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to explore the rich legacy of my university and pivotal moments in African American history, like the Freedom Summer of 1964. The Freedom Summer of 1964 was an initiative led by civil rights organizations SNCC and CORE to challenge voter suppression in the Deep South. It brought volunteers to Mississippi to help Black citizens register to vote.
Freedom Summer of 1964
Photo from: UCLA Bunche Center
Victoria Adams, a civil rights activist and educator who was heavily involved in the Freedom Summer voter initiative—describes Hattiesburg, MS, as the central hub of voter registration activism:
“Hattiesburg probably had the largest campaign of anywhere in the state... And I think a part of that was because we did a lot of Citizenship Education Program work in Hattiesburg. And consequently, we were always kind of at the center of moving things along.”
Adams recounts with humor and urgency how the community rallied for the very first “Freedom Day” in Hattiesburg. Fifty to seventy-five ministers came across the country and were housed in homes, sleeping bags were laid out, and life was busy, collective, and hopeful.
“This was where we had just run out of options... an invitation was sent to the National Council of Churches to send in people to support the local people who were going to turn out in large numbers... And by the time Freedom Day dawned, we had upwards of between fifty and seventy-five ministers... from all over the country, from the different faith groups, traditions, et cetera... I had a great big rambling house... we had people in sleeping bags, we had people wherever they could get [laughs].”
January 22, 1964: Freedom Day, Hattiesburg, MS
Photo from: Zin Education Project
William McCray was a staff member of SNCC and Director of Security for the Ohio Historical Society’s National African American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, OH—offers a sobering firsthand reflection on the Freedom Summer of 1964. As a part of the organizing effort, McCray witnessed the courage of Black and White volunteers working together to register voters, but also the larger political strategy that made Freedom Summer a direct challenge to white supremacy.
“We didn’t spend all that time in the hot summer sun down in Mississippi trying to get these folks registered to a straw convention… We get all the way up to Atlantic City, and the same people that was encouraging us to take it on were the ones that turned their backs on us… They ended up offering Ms. Hamer two seats, and she said she didn’t come all the way for no two seats.”
After months of work in the Mississippi heat, the movement culminated at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, where McCray and others sought to unseat the all-white Mississippi delegation.
Delegates and stage at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Photo from: Library of Congress
Lawrence Guyot was a SNCC organizer and an influential figure behind the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. As project leader in Hattiesburg, Guyot laid the groundwork for what would become the epicenter of Freedom Summer. His outreach to the National Council of Churches sparked national attention, using what he called "mental jujitsu” to outmaneuver Mississippi officials who were used to suppressing Black activism through arrests.
“As the leader of the project there, I issued a call for all major religions to send a delegation to Hattiesburg… We expected people to be arrested… But the State of Mississippi—we can’t be arresting all of these religious people. How do we explain it? So they didn’t arrest us.”
Memorials Planned for Civil Rights activist Lawrence Guyot
Photo from: The Mississippi Link
Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, the first woman bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, offered a grounded historical account of The Freedom Summer of 1964. Her recollection focuses on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s challenge at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, where black delegates like Fannie Lou Hamer fought for a seat at the political table.
“I think for the first time we had Black delegates who were really not legal but went to the convention and fought for seating and got it, and that was historical. I think by that time Fannie Lou Hamer is starting to be a leader… and makes a very strong presence at the convention, and argues for the right of the Black delegates to be seated, and talks about representation without the ability to vote and how it’s time out for that.”
Testimony Before the Credential Committee by Fannie Lou Hamer
Photo from: American Public Media
The Honorable R. Eugene Pincham was a civil rights attorney and Illinois Appellate Court judge, offering a powerful perspective on the meaning behind civil rights work during the Freedom Summer era. While he supported the voter registration drives and the broader movement for racial justice, his reflections reject the idea that the ultimate goal was integration.
“I was not in Mississippi attempting to aid black folks in becoming integrated with white people. That’s not why we were there. We were there trying to break down the barriers of racism and discrimination. We were there for equal chance, equal opportunity, that’s what we were fighting for. And down the road the mission was diverted from tearing down the barriers and making opportunity equal, to integrating, and that was a mistake that we allowed that to happen. But it happened on purpose. And the reason they did let it happen was because it was more economically feasible for the white power structure to offer black folks “integration” than it would be to make things equal. ”
Herbert Randall, an acclaimed photographer who documented the Freedom Summer project. He recalls his decision to photograph the Freedom Summer initiative. What makes his story so powerful is not just his artistic talent, but his initial resistance to going South, and how that resistance turned into a deep sense of responsibility.
“There is no way in hell I’m going to no Mississippi, you know. No.”
But anyhow she said, “Well, think about it.” So I thought about it, and I didn’t think I was gonna go... I went to the meeting, it was at the church center in Manhattan, and Sandy Leigh, who was a project director of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he was there and he was trying to get people to go down to Mississippi... he came up to me and said, “Oh, are you planning to go to Mississippi?” And I said, “Well I don’t really think so.”
So he said, “Well, you know, you should, maybe you should go,” and blah-blah. Anyhow, he found out that I was a photographer and he said, “Oh, no, no, no. You have to come to Mississippi, and you have to document my program.”
So Sandy was up in New York for maybe two weeks, we hit every bar in Harlem as I remember (laughter)... It was important for me to know who I was gonna work for if I was gonna go and do something like that... And so, Sandy and I got along fine and he—so I said, ‘Well, okay,’ you know... then I decided to go.”
Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld, Hattiesburg, MS, 1964. After being beaten by a white racist with a tire iron
Photo from: Faces of Freedom Summer
The voices of the HistoryMakers featured in this blog—Victoria Gray Adams, Lawrence Guyot, William McCray, Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, The Honorable R. Eugene Pincham, and Herbert Randall—offer a powerful and multidimensional understanding of what Freedom Summer 1964 truly meant. From grassroots organizing and political defiance to lived resistance and historical documentation, each figure reflects a unique aspect of the movement’s heart and complexity. Adams speaks to the tireless door-to-door mobilization and community-based voter education efforts that laid the foundation. Guyot highlights the strategic brilliance that transformed local action into national pressure through the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s challenge at the Democratic National Convention.
McCray’s memories of Atlantic City capture both the hope and betrayal felt by those who dared to confront the political establishment. Bishop Guidry brings a generational and faith-centered lens to the movement’s moral urgency, while Judge Pincham calls us to remember that the fight was never about assimilation, but about equity and dignity within Black communities. Through Randall’s lens, we see the human moments that gave the movement its soul. Together, their testimonies, preserved in The HistoryMakers Digital Archive, form not just a record of the past, but a living legacy of courage, vision, and unfinished work. Freedom Summer lives on—not only in textbooks but in testimony.
Citations:
Victoria Adams (The HistoryMakers A2004.098), interviewed by Racine Tucker Hamilton, October 12, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 3, story 10, Victoria Adams talks about her involvement in Freedom Summer 1964, pt. 1
Victoria Adams (The HistoryMakers A2004.098), interviewed by Racine Tucker Hamilton, October 12, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 4, story 1, Victoria Adams talks about her involvement in Freedom Summer 1964, pt. 2
Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry (The HistoryMakers A2004.192), interviewed by Larry Crowe, October 5, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry remembers the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi
Lawrence Guyot (The HistoryMakers A2004.228), interviewed by Racine Tucker Hamilton, November 9, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 5, Lawrence Guyot remembers organizing for Freedom Summer, the 1964 voter registration drive in Mississippi
Willie McCray (The HistoryMakers A2006.051), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 24, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 5, Willie McCray recalls the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964
The Honorable R. Eugene Pincham (The HistoryMakers A2002.176), interviewed by Adele Hodge, August 13, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 6, R. Eugene Pincham talks about the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi
Herbert Randall (The HistoryMakers A2007.276), interviewed by Adrienne Jones, September 28, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 3, Herbert Randall recalls his decision to photograph the Mississippi Freedom Summer
Playlist
Keywords Used:
“Freedom Summer”
“Summer”
“Mississippi”
“Mississipi” + “1964”