- Rights for Price
The Mississippi Democratic Party was all white, and supported segregation greatly. This led to activist from the Civil Rights groups to create the Mississippi Free Democratic Party (MFDP). The Mississippi Freedom Democratic consisted of four Civil Rights Groups, like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), grouped up together in Mississippi to get blacks vote. The MFDP consisted both whites and blacks, unlike the Democratic party of Mississippi, which only has all whites. The MFDP nominated their own delegates in August of 1964 to attend the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Activists of the organizations spent the summer of 1964 trying to encourage and help black citizens in Mississippi to register to vote.
Blacks were denied to vote in many ways. The State’s political leadership is controlled by the segregation Citizen Council. This prevented blacks to vote, and the state passed new voting laws to make it even harder for colored people to vote. There were more than 1,000 out of state volunteers for the Freedom Summer event, and most of them being college students. They were all risking their lives to participate in this campaign because many were against this. Out of the first three hundred that arrived, two white and one black student were killed on the second day of their arrival. This event deepened the division between those who believed in equality and those in segregation.
Another example of injustice was when a women by the name of Fannie Lou Hamer, lost her job and was driven away from her home when she registered to vote. Her and 15 others of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates came to register to vote, and when the group of them came up to the Registration Clerk they were told only two of them could vote, Fannie Lou Hamer being one of them. When Hamer's landlord hear that she had registered to vote, he told Hamer's family to leave and that they could not stay at his house ever again. As Hamer expresses her thoughts in a interview, she said, "The landowner drove up and asked him had I made it back. He [my husband] told him I had. I got up and walked out on the porch, and he [told] me did Pap tell me what he said. I told him, “He did.” He said, “Well, I mean that, you’ll have to go down and withdraw your registration, or you’ll have to leave this place.” I didn’t call myself saying nothing smart, but I couldn’t understand it. I answered the only way I could and told him that I didn’t go down there to register for him; I went down there to register for myself. This seemed like it made him madder when I told him that".
Freedom Summer was a tense time in American history. As ordinary human beings, it is only natural for the two sides to get violent. The organizations faced with daily discrimination, threats, being arrested and beaten, and having their houses and cars bombed or burned. In total, 37 black churches and 30 black homes and business were bombed. The Ku Klux Klan, even state police and local authorities carried out a systematic series of violent attacks. The violent attacks include arson, beatings, false arrest and the murder of at least three civil rights activists. What occurred was when on June 21, 1964, three civil workers by the names of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were arrested and jailed without allowed a telephone call. Before releasing them, the deputy Sheriff contacted the Local Ku Klux Klan. When the three Civil Rights workers drove home, the KKK stopped their car and took them on a deserted road and murdered them. When the three went missing, the President Johnson ordered the FBI to search for their bodies. On August 4, they were found. Finally, by the year of 1967, seven men were convicted, not of murder, but of depriving Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner of their civil rights. They were sentenced to three to ten years in jail.
Freedom Summer established 30 Freedom Schools. On June 28, 1964, the second group of Freedom Summer groups came to make Freedom schools. There were 450 of them in Mississippi , and the white local people disliked them. The Freedom Summer community centers also opened up federally funded clinics and programs. These acts convinced the nation that blacks should have a right to vote, so in 1965, the government made the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After years of struggle, large numbers of African Americans were finally able a right to vote.
Even though things have improved and more people have obtained equal rights, racism still exists. Muslims are treated horribly in some places and by people. Some restaurants have refused to serve them because of their religion. This is history repeating itself. African-American’s civil rights were taken away from them just like muslims are right now. Gay marriage is illegal in many states in the U.S. and this is a basic human right just like voting is. There is still unequality existing in America just like in the past.