College Students Make a Change: 50 Year Legacy

        In honor of the 50^th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I attended a production from the Civil Rights Arts Project at the historic Mt. Gilead Baptist Church. Freedom Summer by Alan Marshall, is a reenactment of the 1964 Summer Project when nearly 1,000 college students of multiple races went to Mississippi in an effort to register 200,000 African Americans and secure their voting rights. The new play explores the tensions with their presence in rural Mississippi towns and the challenges faced by the staff and volunteers as they adjust to life in Mississippi. Lives were changed and Mississippi was transformed due to the mark these students left. Orientation for all volunteers was held in Oxford, Ohio. During the integration of these college students coming from universities in the north, they were briefed on the more harsh realities that the south had to offer. Included with the long and sweltering hot days, these students endured several acts of mistreatment from Mississippi residents including repeatedly having their electricity turned off. Residents of Mississippi reacted in bitterness by burning down churches. The summer soon turned tragic when three civil rights workers named James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered.

 Upon watching the production with another intern from Bennet College, we were captivated by the interactive performances to songs about freedom, testimonies, speeches and personal stories of all characters included in the script. It properly conveyed the power that college students and youth have to influence social change.

 Lisa Anderson Todd made an appearance at the production that evening. She was one of the students who volunteered in Greenville, Mississippi during the summer project 50 years ago in 1964 and helped with the efforts of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. When the play ended she was asked to stand up and give a testimony about her experiences as a young civil rights worker and how it shaped her life over the decades. She mentioned that due to her passion to fix segregation in the south, she returned to Mississippi a year later in 1965 with a group of law students to help initiate efforts to desegregate communities. She has since retired from the U.S. Department of Defense and recently wrote a memoir about her experiences as a civil rights worker entitled For a Voice and Vote: My Journey with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Marcella Hoard