Finding Freedom Summer: Influences That Endure

By Sarah Minges

Rick Momeyer doesn’t need established programs to remember the Freedom Summer project of 1964. Momeyer, a Miami University philosophy professor, was one of the volunteers who traveled to the campus of Western College for Women to train for work in the civil rights movement. His introduction to Oxford was also part of his initiation into a life of political activism. “I went to movements. I went to jail. I got indicted before a grand jury. I was committed,” he said.

But, Miami didn’t remember Freedom Summer. Until recent years, he said, Oxford ignored that piece of its history. But now, with the help of Finding Freedom Summer, a multi-faceted program organized by Miami to commemorate the project, others can see the importance of the civil rights movement.

Freedom Summer was a project undertaken by The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register African-Americans in Mississippi to vote. The committee called upon Northern white students from elite colleges such as Harvard and Yale to offer their services, betting that the involvement of upper-class white people would bring the media attention that other civil rights activities had been lacking.

The strategy worked and national media covered sensational news throughout the summer. According to Doug McAdam’s book Freedom Summer, by August 4 over 1,000 volunteers rotated through Mississippi trying to register black voters, four project workers were killed, four persons were critically wounded, 80 workers were severely beaten, 1,000 arrests were made and 37 churches and 30 black homes were bombed or burned.

Momeyer became involved thanks to his educational history. In 1962 he had attended Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tenn. He was recruited by John Lewis, an acquaintance from Fisk and the chair of SNCC.

Orientation was held at Oxford’s Western campus. The first week was June 14-20, 1964, and focused on volunteers who were to work in voter registration. Among those volunteers were Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner.

Momeyer came for the second week of orientation to instruct Freedom School teachers. His first day was the day that Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were murdered. The trio had been in Neshoba County, Miss., less than 24 hours before they became victims of ongoing hate crimes that ravished the state.

Momeyer was among the volunteers trained in Oxford who headed South despite the violence. Once in Mississippi, Momeyer was partnered with Herman Kitchens to work for the campaign of C.B. King, the first Georgian African-American to run for the U.S. House of Representatives since Reconstruction. Momeyer organized rallies for King, while his partner Kitchens helped register blacks to vote. Eleven candidates competed in the primary; the goal was for King to come in the top three. He finished fourth, the campaign was abandoned and Momeyer left Mississippi in mid-September.

During that summer, the media spotlight had also shone on the Women’s College, which until 1974 was autonomous. But as the activities in Mississippi quieted, Oxford’s role in the movement became less visible. Still, Momeyer, who eventually ended up on the Miami faculty through what he called “a curiosity of fate,” believes that Western’s merger with Miami came about partly because of the hostility the school incurred from hosting training for Freedom Summer.

Forty years passed before Miami celebrated its inherited history of Freedom Summer. Momeyer said that Jim Garland, Miami’s president, was the first to respond positively to Freedom Summer and the university’s connection to it. On April 7, 2000, a memorial was dedicated to the Freedom Summer effort and commemorated Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner.

Located next to Kumler Chapel on Western campus, the trio’s sacrifice is forever honored. The memorial is structured as a stone amphitheater, and on the backs of the seats, headlines from that summer’s media spotlight are now etched in stone. As each row of seats ends, the stone becomes more rugged and natural instead of neatly carved.

“Miami has started to own and honor this piece of history, but there is still much to learn,” Momeyer said.

Finding Freedom Summer is a project developed by the Center for American and World Cultures and the Department of Theatre to assist that learning.

The project involves creating courses about civil rights and programs about Freedom Summer. Archives will be developed from events that are held. An original play about the summer of 1964 will be commissioned and performed by Miami’s theatre department. Overall, the many phases of the project will take several years to develop.

But Finding Freedom Summer has already kicked off with a major event. In the fall of 2004, Voices of Freedom Summer was a reunion on the Western campus of volunteers from 1964 and programs featuring students, faculty, community members and nationally recognized social activists and political leaders.

“It galvanized lots of folks,” said Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, co-organizer for Finding Freedom Summer and assistant professor of theatre.

“The conference was not intended to be merely backward looking, it was also meant to communicate how to build on the experience,” Momeyer said. He found it encouraging that students stayed on through the weekend to hear their elders.

John Lewis, civil rights activist, gave the keynote speech. Vincent Harding led an ecumenical service consisting of Buddhist poems and Hindu chants. Freedom singers sang songs such as “We Shall Overcome.” Speakers retold tales of hope and sacrifice.

The reunion was an effort to see what could be salvaged and passed on to social activist of today, Momeyer said.

Extensive video and audio clips were taken from the event and are now being compiled. William Gracie, dean and professor of interdisciplinary studies, said Miami’s interest is to sustain the ideas of Freedom Summer by compiling archives for scholars and students.

“One of the heritages of the Women’s College is a heritage of progressive political engagement and social justice,” Gracie said.

An advanced honors course is now being planned around modern civil rights movements. The course, which Momeyer will help teach, will be interdisciplinary and include history, rhetoric and philosophy. Part of the class will include a spring break trip to Memphis, Birmingham and Neshoba. On the trip, the students will hear activists, such as Freedom Summer leader, Bob Moses speak.

The honors course will not be the first to draw from Momeyer’s political activism. During movements, there is a struggle for change and an empowering of the people. One aim he has as a teacher is to enable students to take control of their thinking and learning. “These are influences that endure,” he said.

The need for activism also endures. “Anti-racist work has never gone away -- it’s an American reality,” Momeyer said.

For committed activists like Momeyer, Freedom Summer was a beginning that remained alive. “Once you are infected, it doesn’t go away,” he said. He participated in the North Shore Summer Project, attempting to end discrimination practiced by real estate agents in the Chicago area. Later he protested the Vietnam War.

The influences from such activism remain, but over the years, the individual relationships do not always survive. Momeyer and Kitchens, for example, lost contact. “I’d like to know what happened to Herman,” he said.

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