Faces of Freedom Summer

by Bobs M. Tusa, Herbert Randall, Cecil Gray (Foreword by), Victoria Jackson Gray Adams (Foreword by)

Overview

Affirms, validates, and reiterates the yearning for an orderly, peaceful and just world

The old adage “One picture is worth ten thousand words” is definitely true for Faces of Freedom Summer. There are simply not enough words to describe the period in our history that is recorded by the pictures in this book.

As this book afirms, the resurgence of overt activities by hate groups—both the old traditional ones (e.g., the Ku Klux Klan) and the new ones (e.g., the Skin Heads)—however much the hard work and sacrifices of the modern civil rights movement humanized American society, much still remains to be done. The modern civil rights movement associated with the 1960s was not in vain, yet it did not eradicate from our society the evils of racism and sexism. While we activists made the United States more of an open society than it has ever been in its history, our vision and desire for the beloved community did not reach into all sectors of American society. “Freedom,” it has been said, “is a constant struggle, a work of eternal vigilance.”

Faces of Freedom Summer brings to life that there was such a time and there were such people and, if such a people were once, then they are still among us. Yet, they may only become aware of themselves when they are confronted with visible evidence, such as the evidence contained in the pictures of Herbert Randall.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780817359867
Publisher:	University of Alabama Press
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bobs M. Tusa is a retired university archivist from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
 
Herbert Randall has exhibited photographs at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography, and other noted museums.
 

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio, the site of Freedom Summer orientation

Staughton Lynd conducting a workshop for volunteer Freedom School teachers

Opposite: Bob Zellner (Alabama) and Fannie Lou Hamer (Ruleville, Mississippi)

SNCC field secretary Cordell Reagon (Tennessee) giving instruction in nonviolent self-defense

Above and Opposite: Freedom Summer volunteers

Above: Howard "Poochie" Mobley helping volunteers arriving at COFO headquarters at 507 Mobile Street

Left: The 500 block of Mobile Street across the street from COFO headquarters

Opposite: The 500 block of Mobile Street across the street from COFO headquarters. Shown: the business of local activist Peggy Jean Connor.

COFO-Hattiesburg Project office in the Woods Guest House at 507 Mobile Street. Left to right: Terri Shaw (Guatemala); Joyce Brown; Nancy Ellin (Michigan); Sheila Michaels (New York City).

Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic for the Freedom Summer volunteers at his home in the Kelly Settlement near Hattiesburg. From right: Susan Patterson (Minnesota), Vernon Dahmer, Peter Werner (Michigan). Dahmer is showing a cotton plant to the northern volunteers.

Opposite, left: Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic. From left: Bob "Soda Pop" Ehrenreich? (New York) J. C. Fairley (Hattiesburg), Patricia von Yorck (Berlin; New York) Terri Shaw (Guatemala), and Doug Tuchman (New York City)

Opposite, right: Freedom Summer volunteers and local activists at Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic

Left: Freedom Summer volunteers and local activists at Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic. Those pictured include Marie and Sandra Blalock (Hattiesburg), "Big Daddy," Bob "Soda Pop" Ehrenreich? (New York), Stanley Zibulsky (New York), and Addie Ruth White Evans (Hattiesburg).

Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic. Driving the tractor: Doug Smith (Hattiesburg). Standing at the front of the flat bed are Yvonne Connor (Hattiesburg) and, on her left, volunteer Doug Tuchman (New York City).

Doug Smith, youth coordinator of the COFO-Hattiesburg Project

Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic. Dahmer cooked lots of fried fish in iron pots for the volunteers. In pith helmet: Vernon Dahmer, Far right: Addie Ruth White Evans.

Vernon Dahmer's Independence Day picnic. The anxiety on the faces of the young men reflects fear of retribution from the segregationists. Far left: Addie Ruth White Evans. The young men are from the Ducksworth, Harris, and Taylor families.

Opposite: Automobile in which Herbert Randall, covered with blankets during daylight, rode from Oxford, Ohio to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The volunteer points to bullet holes in the grille.

Volunteer with second automobile damaged by gunfire. The shop is that of J. C. Fairley in the Negro Masonic Lodge building at 522 Mobile Street.

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and The Twenties

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By Ronald Berman

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 2001 THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Introduction	1
Faces of Freedom Summer	29
Notes	125
Bibliography	127
Index	129

Editorial Reviews

Faces of Freedom Summer is the rare book that both movement scholars and nonexperts will find useful. . . . Randall’s memorable photographs reveal Freedom Summer’s importance to workers, residents, and the civil rights movement in southern Mississippi.”
—Journal of Southern History

“Faces of Freedom Summer includes both blacks and whites, volunteers and locals, and young and old. Images—like the young black shoeless boy playing outside the shoe shine parlor, the bloodied and bruised faces of civil rights workers, and the wonder of the children—make this volume unforgettable.”
—Virginia Quarterly Review

“Randall’s stunning photographs bring Freedom Summer alive to a new generation of Americans. Tusa’s Introduction sheds new light on the Civil Rights movement in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Together they have produced a work as inspirational as it is instructive.”
—John Dittmer, author of Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
 
“This book adds rich imagery for understanding the most significant domestic development in twentieth-century America. It captures the sense of place that lay at the core of southern culture and attaches it to the struggle over civil rights.”
—Jack Bass, author of Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson and the South’s Fight over Civil Rights
 

From the Publisher

As recipient of a photography fellowship, Randall chronicled the freedom movement in Hattiesburg, MS, during the summer of 1964, a dangerous mission for a young black male from New York. Most of his nearly 1800 negatives had never been seen until 1997, when Tusa, archivist at the University of Southern Mississippi, was gathering material on the Civil Rights Movement and Randall donated his collection. Tusa's stirring introduction and the more than 100 black-and-white photographs, culled from Randall's collection, depict the freedom schools, community centers, voter registration efforts, nonviolent volunteers, activists such as Pete Seeger, and much more. Critical to understanding our heritage, both volumes are recommended to all types of libraries. Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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