Existing comment:
Fighting for Representation
Barred form the state's all-white Democratic Party, 80,000 black Mississippians joined the new Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to make their voices heard. Delegates demanded to be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August 1064, but they were denied. A powerful speech by activist Fannie Lou Hamer, seen about at a rally, aired on network television and drew national attention to the struggle in Mississippi.
A Courageous Editor:
Mississippi's segregationist press dubbed the Freedom Summer campaign an "invasion." But outspoken Mississippi newspaper publisher Hazel Brannon Smith, below, supported the project despite death threats, boycotts and the firebombing of one of her newspaper offices. A strong voice against racism, she won the Pulitzer Prize earlier in 1964 for her editorial courage "in the face of great pressure and opposition." |