Bob Moses and 700 Volunteers Register Black Voters in Mississippi Freedom Summer

It was only after several years ... launched the Freedom Summer project by bringing “one thousand, mostly white, volunteers to Mississippi for the summer of 1964....

Moses and local leaders decided on recruiting mostly white, Northern middle-class volunteers for national media attention, and to serve as a tripwire against local white terrorism.

Capitalizing on the successful use of white student volunteers in Mississippi during a 1963 mock election called the “Freedom Vote,” Moses proposed that northern white student volunteers take part in a large number of simultaneous local campaigns in Mississippi during the summer of 1964.

Moses developed the idea for the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, which recruited northern college students to join Mississippi blacks conducting a grassroots voter registration drive.

This movement also spurred anti-Black violence by white supremacists, which resulted in the murders of three Freedom Summer volunteers ̶ James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

Building on the efforts of 1963 ... Moses prevailed over doubts among SNCC and COFO workers, and planning for Freedom Summer began in February 1964. Speakers recruited for workers on college campuses across the country, drawing standing ovations for their dedication in braving the routine violence perpetrated by police, sheriffs, and others in Mississippi. SNCC recruiters interviewed dozens of potential volunteers, weeding out ...

A major leader with SNCC, he was ... COFO's Freedom Summer Project, which was intended to achieve widespread voter registration of blacks in Mississippi, and ultimately end racial disfranchisement. They planned education, organizing, and a simplified registration system to demonstrate African-American desire to vote. Moses was one of the calm leaders who kept the group focused. On June 21, as many of the new volunteers were getting ...

One listener described Moses as possessing an "almost Zen presence" as he talked, with the "rhythms of a man crossing a stream, hopping from rock to rock."4 Moses described the violence civil rights organizers encountered in Mississippi, and he was candid about the initial opposition of his local staff to bringing in white volunteers from outside.

Freedom Summer Begins On June 15, 1964, the first three hundred volunteers arrived in Mississippi. Mississippi Project Director Robert “Bob” Moses had pledged his staff and volunteers to “nonviolence in all situations.” Few could have foreseen how dire the situation would become.