Books: Non-Fiction

Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Michael Edmonds. 2014. 250 pages.
Anthology of first hand accounts and primary documents from the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

Time Periods: 20th Century, 1961
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Organizing
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riskingeverything9780870206788This year marks the 50th anniversary of a milestone event in U.S. history, Freedom Summer. The largest collection of primary documents from Freedom Summer is now housed (much available online) at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Risking Everything offers a selection of those documents in chronological order, from the spring to the fall of 1964. The history comes to life through the range of the documents, which include lessons from the Freedom Schools curriculum, letters home from volunteers, a Klan newsletter, hate mail, fliers, and reflections by activists. [Description by Rethinking Schools.]

ISBN: 9780870206788 | Wisconsin Historical Society Press

 

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Related Resources
Digital Collections

Freedom Summer 1964 Collection

Digital collection. Extensive collection on the Civil Rights Movement and the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964.

Profiles

Freedom Summer 1964

Profile.
Summer initiative to register African American voters in Mississippi.

Teaching Guides

Lessons from Freedom Summer: Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Movements

Teaching Guide. Edited by Kathy Emery, Linda Reid Gold and Sylvia Braselmann. Foreword by Howard Zinn. 2008. 456 pages.
Readings and lessons on the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project.

Books: Non-Fiction

Letters from Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers and Freedom School Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez. Introduction by Julian Bond. 2007.
Letters and poetry from Civil Rights Movement volunteers in the summer of 1964.

Many Minds, One Heart
Books: Non-Fiction

Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America

Book — Non-fiction. By Wesley C. Hogan. 2009. 463 pages.
An innovative study of what the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) accomplished and, more importantly, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time.

Books: Non-Fiction

SNCC: The New Abolitionists

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 1964; re-published in 2013. 246 pages.
A detailed history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Books: Non-Fiction

I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

Book — Non-fiction. By Charles M. Payne. 1995. 506 pages.
A people’s history of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.