You are here

UWF Collections » UWF Theses and Dissertations » UWF Dissertations

A LITERARY PHILOSOPHY OF MISSISSIPPI'S FREEDOM SUMMER 1964

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
2015
Summary:
Planning for Freedom Summer began in 1963 as a voting project under the direction of Bob Moses (Watson, 2010). Moses (1964) insisted the best strategy to see change in Mississippi was to invite White college students for summer work to educate and register Negro voters. He argued no one outside of Mississippi would notice the issues of the state until privileged White children whose parents had connections were involved (Moses, 1964; Watson, 2010). Three letters sent to Freedom Summer volunteers were located and these letters provide summer volunteers with their summer job assignment and orientation dates. Also included in these letters is a paragraph regarding the need to have a common base of knowledge for all volunteers and a list of five books to be read, with at least the first three completed before coming south. According to three letters the five books, listed in order of importance, were The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903/2003), The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash (1941/1991), The Other America by Michael Harrington (1962/2012), Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King (1958), and Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith (1949/1994). Beginning with historiography, the researcher followed the five steps of finding out what is already known, checking their sources, finding gaps and formulating questions, looking for new evidence, and sharing what one has found. These steps provided guidance toward a review of the literature, which provided a historical timeline of key events leading up the Summer Project. Then the reading list was analyzed using new historicism, which provided a way to analyze the literature through the eyes of the researcher to create connections between the literary authors, their work, and the historical event in which the literature is discussed. Correlations between the authors and their work provided philosophical themes which were connected with a narrative of the Freedom Summer Project. The five books on the required reading list provided core knowledge needed to establish goals and objectives and bridge the gap between volunteers and Mississippians to support the mission that was the Summer Project of 1964.
Title: A LITERARY PHILOSOPHY OF MISSISSIPPI'S FREEDOM SUMMER 1964.
8 views
1 downloads
Name(s): Watts, Aimee Gabrielle, Author
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2015
Publisher: University of West Florida
Language(s): English
Summary: Planning for Freedom Summer began in 1963 as a voting project under the direction of Bob Moses (Watson, 2010). Moses (1964) insisted the best strategy to see change in Mississippi was to invite White college students for summer work to educate and register Negro voters. He argued no one outside of Mississippi would notice the issues of the state until privileged White children whose parents had connections were involved (Moses, 1964; Watson, 2010). Three letters sent to Freedom Summer volunteers were located and these letters provide summer volunteers with their summer job assignment and orientation dates. Also included in these letters is a paragraph regarding the need to have a common base of knowledge for all volunteers and a list of five books to be read, with at least the first three completed before coming south. According to three letters the five books, listed in order of importance, were The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903/2003), The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash (1941/1991), The Other America by Michael Harrington (1962/2012), Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King (1958), and Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith (1949/1994). Beginning with historiography, the researcher followed the five steps of finding out what is already known, checking their sources, finding gaps and formulating questions, looking for new evidence, and sharing what one has found. These steps provided guidance toward a review of the literature, which provided a historical timeline of key events leading up the Summer Project. Then the reading list was analyzed using new historicism, which provided a way to analyze the literature through the eyes of the researcher to create connections between the literary authors, their work, and the historical event in which the literature is discussed. Correlations between the authors and their work provided philosophical themes which were connected with a narrative of the Freedom Summer Project. The five books on the required reading list provided core knowledge needed to establish goals and objectives and bridge the gap between volunteers and Mississippians to support the mission that was the Summer Project of 1964.
Identifier: WFE0000522 (IID), uwf:61257 (fedora)
Note(s): 2015-08-01
Ed.D.
Department of Research and Advanced Studies
Doctorate
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/uwf/fd/WFE0000522
Restrictions on Access: public
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Host Institution: UWF

In Collections