I've been wanting to write this post since February of this year when I realized it was the 50th Anniversary of Freedom Summer. It never seemed to be the 'right' time or I became sidetracked with radio and other things. In light of the recent grand jury rulings in the deaths of two unarmed black men by white police officers, now seems to be the right time to note race relations is an issue that has been with us, as a nation, for more than the past few weeks.

Voter registration was the cornerstone of the summer project. Perhaps most remembered by the deaths of three American civil rights' workers, James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner, shot at close range on the night of June 21–22, 1964 by members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Freedom Summer was one of the last major interracial civil rights efforts of the 1960's.

How far have race relations come in the 50 intervening years? Not far enough, in my opinion.

I asked my mother for her recollections of the Summer of 1964 in Pittsburgh, PA:

Rose Griffin - In Her Own Words

It was trying times in Pittsburgh.  There was a lot of racial tension.  I remember Grandma stayed home from work the one day cause they said there was going to be riots.  We thought the blacks were coming over to South Side to cause problems and break into our homes.  I remember Ja-JA (the way Chris pronounced his grandfather's name as a baby) having a baseball bat ready - a small one but still.  Nothing did happened in the South Side but there were riots and marching downtown. When I started high school in 1965 or 1966 we had a club that was called Human Relations Club where blacks and whites went over to the Board of Education and sat at a table and discussed race relations. I was part of that club. It helped in the school for a while but the kids that needed to sit down at the table were not there.

Again I ask, how far have race relations come in the 50 intervening years? Not far enough...

 

 

 

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