You Shall Be Moved

Mississippi, 1964: A lifetime ago and a world away, hundreds of Northern civil rights volunteers — mostly young, mostly white — joined with blacks living in the heart of the Jim Crow South. Together, they hammered what they hoped were the final nails in the coffin of a system of white supremacy that affected the entire nation. Those visitors' recollections, correspondence, and photographs are collected in a revised edition of the classic Letters from Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers and Freedom School Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer. The Freedom Summer volunteers express idealistic wishes and grave disappointments as well as the outrage, fear, and joy they found while striving to hold this country to its promises of equality. More than just a snapshot of a time long since past, their words and images stand as a testament to the strength of cross-racial unity in changing the world. Editor Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez joins former volunteers Ellen Lake and Hardy Frye to read from Letters from Mississippi.
Tue., Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m., 2007