What was the Mississippi Freedom Summer?

When it comes to the American Civil Rights movement, people think of the iconic moments such as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus. But what if we measured each event by its impact? Which event would rank where?

In today's video Mr. Mitchell makes the argument that perhaps one of the lesser known events could take the title of being the most significant... The Mississippi Freedom Summer. The Mississippi Freedom Summer was a huge election drive to enlist African-Americans to register to vote in southern states. States like Alabama, Georgia and of course Mississippi had put extreme voting legislation in place that had indirectly blocked black people from voting even though it was constitutionally mandated. So it's worth asking the question, what impact did the Mississippi Freedom Summer have?

This video will also cover the significance of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in influencing the passing of the Voting Rights Act.

0-0:54 Context
0:54-2:19 Why was black participation so low?
2:19-4:06 The Mississippi Freedom Summer
4:06-6:12 The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
6:12-8:34 The Voting Rights Act

#civilrights #USA #mississippi #mfdp

[robertortiz-wilson]

Pretty fair argument I think. At least as a big piece of it all that doesn’t get brought up nearly as much, generally.

Despite the good that came out of it, the continued idea of attempting to centralize and standardize all our unique States still leaves me wary for the development of other long-term initiatives attempting to destroy de facto degrees of State sovereignty. Quite frankly, the vote should go back to being viewed as a privilege in the USA. No poll taxes, but a civics test? People keep crying me a river, too bad, I want it. Including other things like raising the voting age back to 25 even though that would disenfranchise myself.

[botdave]

Really interesting stuff. Any mbook recs to look deeper into other lesser known civili rights era movements?