WEBVTT - What were the Freedom Schools? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.840 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.520 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.079 there's Jerry over there. And I don't know if I 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.439 said or not, but I'm Josh Clark and this is 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.400 Stuff you should Know. And uh, I'm pretty excited about 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:30.000 this one. Freedom Freedom Schools. Yeah, we would be the 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.600 best singing duo ever. If that's how it worked, I 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.879 would just go big and you would just lou read it. 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.760 Yeah exactly. Is that what I'm doing, is lou reading. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.680 I don't even know my own heritage sort of speak singing. Okay, 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.840 you know, yeah, that's what Lou Reid did. Uh. Maybe 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:51.239 go to the refrigerator, baby, remember again about the fridge, right, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.240 give me one of those frozen snicker bars. You're not 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.160 the ice cream kind, actual snicker bar. I put into 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:04.080 the freezer. It over here, baby, that's the one, and 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.760 Nico would go, I am placing it in the threes. Uh. 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.959 Was she German? Uh? Yeah, she had to be German? 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.279 Was she German? I mean she was if not German, 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.760 Austrian or something. Well, I'm just saying I didn't even know. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.920 I knew nothing about her except Nico sat in with 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.399 the velvet underground for a while and then my amazing 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.600 vocal talents, and that was good. That's what included me 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.160 to the idea that she was a German. There's a 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.319 movie about her later years that I want to see 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.200 that came out this year or something. I think it's 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:40.600 called Taken. So, Chuck, we're talking about freedom schools, as 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.280 we already said, and then we got silly. Now we're 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.360 getting back to it. Okay, that's right, because this is 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.160 not a silly topic, but it has a c o 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:49.840 a at the beginning. Should we talk about that? Yeah? Yeah, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.000 So this is about the freedom schools, which, as you 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.640 will very soon find out, Uh, we're in Mississippi during 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.480 the civil rights movement. I mean, like in probably the 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.640 most dangerous place in the country. Yeah, during the most 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.320 dangerous point in the civil rights movement. That's where this 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.760 this story takes place. That's right. And freedom schools were great, 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:11.440 and they were a great thing, and we're happy to 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:13.760 be talking about them. But uh, in a lot of 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:15.639 the quotes and and a lot of the curriculum of 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.600 the freedom schools themselves. Uh, they use the word negro 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.880 and it's obviously not a word that people use anymore, 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:26.080 but some of the like curriculum class titles feature that word. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:30.400 And so just letting everyone know that that's coming. And 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.359 we're not gonna say we're just gonna read their curriculums 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.480 in their plots as it existed back then. Yeah, I 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.520 think this this heads up. Yeah, we're and we were 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.760 just kind of sticking to the vernacular at the times 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:47.440 being used in context within reason of course. So um 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.600 so this this takes place in the summer of nineteen 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.600 sixty four. But I want to go back a little 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:58.400 further than that, the n with the the groundbreaking see 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.520 Changing Board Brown Versus Board of Education ruling where the 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.440 Supreme Court said, you know that that separate but equal 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:10.080 thing that we said back in was constitutional. Word, that's 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:14.120 not true. Segregation is not constitutional, it's not legal anymore. 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.360 Everybody needs to integrate schools at least, but they failed 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.400 to say and do it by nineteen sixty four or 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.880 nineteen sixty or next year. They just said I think 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.440 something like in a like a deliberate and speedy manner 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.119 or something like that. Um, and so Mississippi said, oh, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:33.560 you didn't tell us when we had to do it 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.800 by Yeah, let me just dig my heel in here 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.680 and the other one in here, and we're just going 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.440 to keep our schools segregated. And not only segregated, Mississippi 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:48.119 had some of the poorest excuses for schools for African 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:54.400 American students in the country. Um, the state average for Mississippi, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.680 I think in nineteen sixty was that they spent four 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.440 times more on schools for white children then they did 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.960 on schools for black children. That was just the state average. 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.680 In some towns it was way worse. You're talking about budgets, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:13.680 spinning budgets. In Tunica, they spent a hundred and seventy 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.240 two dollars and eighty cents per white pupil on average 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.520 in nineteen sixty two. That's per year. It was in 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.839 that year, a hundred and seventy two eight. They spent 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.239 five dollars and ninety nine cents per black people. Yeah, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.600 and that's just kind of how it was like. You 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.080 went to school in share cropper schools or what they 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:34.719 were called. If you were a black kid and you 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:39.520 were you got a terrible education by comparison, um, white kids, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.920 schools usually ran for about six months out of the year. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.880 If you were an African American kid in Mississippi, your 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.760 school might run three if if it was even open 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.200 that year. The rest of the time, you were expected 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.440 to be out in the fields working and just knowing 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.360 your place basically. Yeah. And you know, as you'll see 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.760 throughout this podcast, those sharecropper schools not only did they 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.720 fail them fundamentally on things like literacy and maths and 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.960 things like that, but they also failed them historically because 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.640 and I think things have gotten a lot better, but 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.520 one could make the argument that history classes still fail 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.800 historically and telling the true picture of some of these things. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.800 But back then it was like at the sharecropper schools, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.280 here you're learning white history, and it's not just like 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.560 this is the important history, but like this is the 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:29.000 only history. Yours does not matter. Yeah. Um. And even 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.400 worse than that, when they were taught about their heritage 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.080 or whatever, it was usually in relation to slavery, and 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.719 it was also in relation to how, um, how black 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.640 people preferred to be slaves and if they were far 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.599 worse off after the War of Northern Aggression freed them 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.640 and that that was they weren't interested in politics, they 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:48.920 weren't really self starters, and they needed white people that 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.920 guide them. That was the education you got as an 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.400 African American kid in Mississippi around the time of the 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.760 Civil Rights struggle, and um by the time nineteen four 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.800 role around, there was a lot of agitation going on 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.960 in the African American community. A lot of people saw, hey, 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.440 there's no integration going on. Things have haven't changed at all. 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.760 We're being kept down by Jim Crow air laws, and 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.479 we're going to agitate for change. And in response to that, 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.599 there was a lot of violence against that agitation for change, 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.400 from the KKK, from the state police, from local sheriffs, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.440 from the local sheriff's redneck like you could get yourself 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.919 killed just by going to vote, registered to vote. Yeah, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.240 And if the police were not inciting or committing the 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.159 violence themselves, they certainly would turn a blind eye to 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.880 anything that was going on and not do police work. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.200 So it's in this context, around December of nine three 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.479 that a guy named Robert Moses, who uh was one 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.200 of the members of I believe he was with Core 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.080 the no I'm sorry, he was with Snick the student 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:02.880 Non Violent Coordinating Committee UM in Mississippi, and he said, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.400 I've got an idea. We're gonna call it Freedom Summer. Yeah, 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.480 and the Freedom Summer. And by the way, big shout 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.040 out to Dave Rouse, big shout out one of our 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.679 stable of writers these days from the old house Stuff 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.360 Works dot com website, Davis helping us out. And boy, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.640 he does a great job. He does. It's always a pleasure, 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.240 So thanks Dave. But yeah, the Freedom Summer was in 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.840 nineteen sixty four, and the whole goal of the Freedom 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:30.160 Summer was really to get people registered to vote on 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.960 mass right. That was the stated goal of it. Yeah, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.160 for sure, the subtext of it. UM. John Hale wrote 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.600 a book on Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools, which we're 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.640 gonna talk about, and he actually helped Dave out with 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.320 this article, so shout out to John Hale too. But 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.200 he had a quote from John Lewis, the Great John 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.600 Lewis UM, who said, basically, the point of Freedom Summer 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.520 was to force a showdown between local authorities and federal 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:59.560 authorities because the local authorities were abusively enforcing white supremacy 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.960 and federal and full um authorities were turning a blind 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.360 eye to it, and so they said, we need to 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.840 we need to put ourselves invisible harm's way and and 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.200 force a showdown between these two entities. Yeah, in nineteen 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.080 sixty four is key. It wasn't just sort of picked 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.360 um randomly. It was key because the Civil Rights Act 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.000 was going to be signed in July that year, but 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:27.240 it did not include black voting rights protection. And uh, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.960 the Democratic National Convention was going to be at the 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.440 end of August of that year in Atlantic City. And 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.880 this is basically like, let's get black folks registered to 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.400 vote so they can go in there and unseat these Dixiecrats. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.400 To the Southern Democrats who were still very much segregationist 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.120 in Mississippi there for the for the Democratic Convention, their delegation, 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.319 the Mississippi delegation was all white. Yeah, and that was 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.200 another big, big goal, was to create a separate black 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:58.240 delegation for that National Convention. So to get this to 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.880 force the showdown between local authorities and federal authorities. The 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.920 the the civil rights activists like Robert Moses working in 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:11.199 Mississippi had zero illusions that that the federal government was 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:12.920 going to come down and help them out no matter 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.520 what they were doing. Instead, they would be forced to 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:22.040 act if white Northern kids, the children of these federal authorities, 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.320 came down to Mississippi and put themselves in harm's way 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.640 to kids meaning you know, college students, kids, to old 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.040 folks like us, right, exactly, youngsters that they weren't sitting 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.080 down like twelve year olds. No, no, no, nothing like that, 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.040 but like college students who wanted to come down and 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:42.160 help people who truly believed in the cause of civil rights. Yeah, white, liberal, progressive, Northern, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.840 oftentimes Jewish, but not always. But as far as getting 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.400 the federal authorities to pay attention, that first descriptor is 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.920 the most important one, white because again they knew in Mississippi, 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.480 no federal authorities were going to pay attention to that. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:59.360 And I mean they had good reason to think that 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.560 Kennedy had the Civil Rights Act as far back as 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.640 nineteen sixty but agreed not to bring it up in 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.280 Congress because they were still trying to figure out how 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.480 to keep the Dixiecrats happy and maybe get some sort 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:15.000 of integration going or civil rights going. And um, they've 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.600 just been left hung out to draw by the federal 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.960 authorities so many times that they were totally right in 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.800 that assumption. Yeah, and they knew that in order to 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.640 really affect change. Um, like you said, they were going 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.079 to get no assistance from the federal government, so they 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.280 need to do it on the ground, grassroots style. Um. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.920 And what they were really looking towards was the future, 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.960 and they knew that getting kids involved was the key 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:40.840 and the only way to do that. Or they figured 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:42.000 the best way to do that, and I think they 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.400 were right was to devise what was called the Freedom 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.640 Schools in the summer of nineteen sixty four, which ended 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:54.920 up being one summer schools, community based summer schools where uh, 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.920 they had core curriculums for sure, but what they really 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.640 were trying to do is teach young black kids about 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.360 their history and their self worth and give them a 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.160 path forward in the United States. Yeah, with a voice, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.040 like give them an education that they couldn't find anywhere 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.640 in those sharecropper schools, where the share cropper schools point 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.920 was to keep them down, uneducated, and out of politics 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.440 so that they couldn't vote. Um. These Freedom Schools were 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.199 meant to do the exact opposite, to teach them their 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.080 self worth, but also to say, like, here's how you 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.520 can actually enact change and to create the next generation 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.319 of civil rights activists in Mississippi. That was the point 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.520 of the Freedom school Yeah, And like it was hitting 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.800 me as I was reading this, how progressive that was 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.760 for nineteen sixty four, because that would be progressive now 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.840 in places like even Georgia. Absolutely, And it's still going 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.760 on now, is we'll see, like the the Children's Defense 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.240 Fund revived the Freedom Schools back in the eighties, and 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.400 I think they still have them, and it does still 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.440 have a tinge of subversion. Sadly teaching black kids in 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.560 America their self worth. Yeah, that's that's sad. All right, 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:06.880 that's a great preamble. Should we take a break? All right, 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:08.400 we are going to take a break, and we're gonna 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.680 come back and really dig into the mission of the 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:37.160 freedom schools. Right after this and thing. Okay, So freedom 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:41.679 Schools again launched and proposed by s n c C 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:47.360 Snick Snick leader Charlie cobb Uh in December sixty three, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.280 and they had three. The original idea was let's get 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.319 eleventh and twelfth graders because they're just on the cusp 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.480 of being in you know, in the real world. Um 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.439 arguably already were in the real world. Yeah, you know 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.600 what I'm saying. Uh. And they had three stated purposes 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.760 that they wanted to accomplish. Supplement what they aren't learning 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.079 in high school simple enough. Number two, give them a 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.440 broad intellectual and academic experience during the summertime to bring 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.760 back to students in the classrooms I guess in the fall, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.000 and then form the basis for statewide student action like 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.840 here's how you can boycott something, Here's how you can 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.520 raise awareness, like teach them how to be grassroots activists. 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.240 And also one of the things that they wanted to 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.920 teach them that we'll see is this is how things work. Like, 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.800 here's the nuts and bolts of this power structure that 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.360 we live in that holds us down. And here, understanding 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.400 how it works, you can start to poke around and 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.040 figure out how to overcome that. That was a huge, 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.520 huge part of it. That's right. So it all starts 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:55.160 with volunteers. And these, like we said, are mainly college students. Uh. 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.360 They saw this by way of ads in the New 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.960 York Times and other groups in college emphasis that basically 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.680 said hey, this is what we want to do. You've 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.560 been watching this on TV every night. Um, I know 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.560 that You might live in Manhattan or Brooklyn or someplace, 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.720 but if you are a young white liberal progressive and 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.080 you really want to make a difference, get off your 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.040 couch and come down to Mississippi for the summer, endanger 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.720 your life and helped teach these kids. Yeah, and I 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.480 think I think something like a thousand I saw, like 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:32.800 as much as there a bunch of people answered this call. Um, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.400 like northern mostly white college students came down to Mississippi 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:39.880 for this Freedom Summer, not just the Freedom schools. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.240 I think two hundred and eighty of them ended up 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.360 being teachers out of about the seven hundred or so 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.320 who volunteered for the Freedom Summer. Yeah. And I've heard 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.480 different stories on how the people who got selected to 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.280 be teachers for the Freedom schools were selected. This article 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.840 makes it sound like, um, the greener ones, the ones 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.280 who really shouldn't be put in harm's way, were assigned 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.920 to the Freedom schools. But from what I've read, they 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.560 were very much in harm's way as being teachers of 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.640 these freedom schools. But regardless of of who got assigned 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:18.200 to become a Freedom school teacher or why, they were told, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.680 you're gonna have to pay your way to and from Mississippi. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:22.680 You're gonna have to pay your own room and board, 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.440 so expect to have to shell out over two hundred 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.080 bucks or up to two hundred bucks over the course 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.640 of the summer. Yeah. It also said they would uh 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.600 live basically in the homes of local black families. I 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.840 wonder if they paid them rent. I don't know if 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.880 they paid them rent. But the black families who did 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.600 put these white Northern college students up over the summer 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.640 to teach freedom schools very much put their own families 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.240 and homes in harm's way. Because the Freedom school and 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.520 actually the whole Freedom Summer volunteers who came down, they 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.160 didn't take Mississippi by surprise. The white power establishment Mississippi 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.200 knew they were coming and they were very unhappy about this. 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.720 They said publicly that these people would be treated as invaders, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.440 that this was a a second war of Northern aggression. 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.960 They doubled the number of highway patrol officers and not 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.480 to keep the peace. Um. They they knew they were 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:17.680 coming down, and they were not happy about these Freedom 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.520 schools or the Freedom Summer in general. Yeah, and I 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.080 guess we should go ahead and say right off the 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.240 bat to add gravity to the situation. And there may 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.080 be a short stuff in here. I've been wanting to 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.760 do one on the disappearance of these three men. But 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.920 the CORE Training Crew Congress of Racial Equality was CORE 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.760 and they were helping out with the Freedom rides in 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.560 the early sixties on the buses in Selma in the 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.000 Deep South. And there were three gentlemen, Andrew Goodman and 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.280 Michael Scherner, two white men, and another colleague, James Cheney, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.080 a young black man that worked with CORE. They went missing, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.280 um in Longdale, Mississippi, and we're basically taken in murders. 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.320 So this is at the area. This is before a 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.080 few months before the Freedom Schools were to launch, and 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.160 you're going down there knowing that these men disappeared under 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.040 mysterious circumstances. I'm pretty sure it was like a week 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.240 before basically, because it happened like they got the news 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.320 during the orientation in Oxford, Ohio that they held for 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.640 the Freedom School teachers. The news came through that these 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.480 three guys had gone missing and then were later found murdered, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.760 and some people did back out and we're like, I 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.639 can't take this risk, but it seems like most of 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.399 them pressed on right. Yeah. Absolutely, and I think some 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:36.640 people's um resolve was doubled by that kind of thing too. 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.560 But their disappearance and ultimately their deaths proved that idea 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.880 that these the civil rights activists in Mississippi needed these 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.359 white Northern volunteers to come down because James Cheney, he 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.920 was a local Mississippi activists, he was a black guy. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:58.240 And Um Schwarner, Michael Schwerner and good Goodman, both of 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.840 them were white. And because they went missing along with Cheney, 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.600 a hundred and fifty FBI agents and two hundred where 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.320 are the sailors from the local naval station jags showed up, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.800 Sure showed up to search for these guys. And Michael 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.240 Scharner's widow said, this never would have happened if if 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.760 my husband had been a black man, and all this 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.320 was happening because he was white. I do want to 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.520 there's this is rife with a lot of quotes that 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:24.879 a lot of them were not going to read, but 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.120 I did want to read this one from Howard's inn. Uh, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.400 this is the message at this orientation that you talked 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.320 about at the Western College for Women in Oxford, so 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:36.840 you're showing up, You're like, I want to volunteer. I 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:38.679 want to do the right thing. They sit you down 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.280 an auditorium and say this. You'll arrive in Rleville, which 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.520 is a place in Ruleville in the delta. It will 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.800 be a hundred degrees. You'll be sweaty and dirty. You 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.600 won't be able to bathe often, or sleep well or 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.159 eat good food. I don't know about that, but there 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:54.960 was some pretty decent food that kind of stuck out 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:56.720 to me. Howard's in mine at not? I thought so. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.359 The first day of school, there may be four teachers 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.640 and three students. Uh, And the local Negro minister will 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.080 phone you to say you can't use his church basement 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.879 after all because his life has been threatened. And the 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.960 curriculum we've drawn up um Negro history and American government 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.160 maybe something you know only a little about yourself. Well, 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:16.920 you'll knock on doors all day in the hot sun 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.720 to find students. You'll meet on someone's lawn under a tree. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.399 You'll tear up the curriculum and teach what you know. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.320 And it seems like that's really kind of what happened. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.520 It was very prescient. Yeah, I don't know if that 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.840 quote was long after him describing it, but if that's 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.720 what they told them at orientation before the Freedom schools, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.880 then yeah, that's exactly how it ended up. And how many. 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.440 I think originally they were gonna target, like I said, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.680 eleventh and twelfth graders, twenty schools, about a thousand students. 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.080 But when you know, when school they started, parents heard 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.080 about this and brought everybody. Basically they did something like 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.359 I've seen as much as but um, at least two 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.560 thousand students were enrolled in Freedom Schools in Mississippi this summer, 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:04.320 and double the number of schools plus one some. I 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.280 think Hattiesburg had six different schools. Meridian had a school 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.480 with two hundred two hundred students. That was the biggest one. 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.920 Um it was. And they originally intended, like you said, 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.520 eleventh and twelfth graders, maybe as young as middle like 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.840 middle schoolers possibly, but really that was it, and it 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.040 ended up being elementary school kids. I believe there was 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.640 an eighty year old enrolled at one of the Freedom schools. 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:32.760 Um and it just became a sensation in Mississippi among 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.000 the African American community. UM. And there was a there 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.280 was a New York Times article, they sent a reporter 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.040 down to kind of cover this, and they the reporter 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.920 was in Holly Springs and there was a school teacher 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.840 from Chicago named Aviva Futtorian, and she said, we're probably like, 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.520 are you from outer space? Kind of sounds like it 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.920 the silver jumped suit she was wearing it, but um 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.320 she said that they were teaching under a suite gum tree. 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.240 And this became kind of like ah. That was another 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.560 reason why that Oxford quote from Howard's Inn was so pressy. 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.720 And it's like a lot of times like they didn't 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.720 have any place to actually meet. They had to meet 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.960 outside or on somebody's front porch or something like that, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.480 because someone might say, like he said in the in 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.199 the quote, like hey, use my church basement. But then 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.120 when the KKK found out there, you know, they may 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.080 burn across it in that churchyard, and then that preacher 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.080 has to say, I'm sorry, I can't take the risk. Well, 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.000 so you know, Schwerner and Cheney and Goodman when they 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.439 went when they were murdered, kidnapped and murdered, they were 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.520 investigating the burning of the church that they were going 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.560 to be holding their Freedom School that's what they were 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:43.080 doing out there, and they went to go find out 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.399 what happened, and that's when they went missing. Yeah, so 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:48.840 message sent loud and clear. So school was outside, which 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.200 is every kid's favorite thing, right, and then we'll as 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:53.280 we'll see, there was another There was at least one 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.919 school that got fire bombed and burned to the ground 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.600 after school had already started. I don't think any It 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.600 was like after hours. But the next day the um 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.800 school met in the like yard next to this burned 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.359 down building that they've been meeting in the day before. 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.480 Pretty amazing. So there was a lot of I mean, 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.240 this wasn't just going to school. They were there's a 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.879 whole state full of white people who violently did not 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.400 want you to be learning this stuff. Yeah. They were 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.320 just as organized on you know, the defense of this 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.280 or I guess the offense, which would that be. Uh, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.720