The following question-and answer on the background to the Freedom Summer comes from the curriculum of the Freedom Schools and highlights the importance of McComb, and high school students in McComb, in the events that led up to summer, 1964.

QUESTION: What has happened in Mississippi so far?

ANSWER: The Mississippi story really begins to take shape in the summer of 1960. Robert Moses, a young Negro teacher from New York, came to Atlanta and went to work for SNCC. In July, he first came into Mississippi to try and find students who would come to Atlanta for a big meeting with other Negro students from all over the South. He did find Mississippi students, and some came to the Atlanta meeting. After that meeting, they returned to the state and Bob returned to his teaching in New York. All that year, Bob kept thinking about Mississippi and the students in Mississippi kept thinking about the things they had heard from Bob and from other Negro students in the meeting. After that school year was over, Bob came back to Mississippi.

Negro leaders in southwest Mississippi had been wanting to start a citizenship school and a voter registration drive. Bob went down to help. During that summer, he worked in Amite County, Pike County and Walthall County. Some people were registered, some were beaten, some were killed. The center of the work down there was McComb and the story of McComb is a very important story -- because it is largely about high school students.

Things began to happen in a big way on August 18, 1961. The people formed the Pike County Nonviolent Movement. Eight days later, Elmer Hayes and Hollis Watkins went to Woolworths lunch counter and sat in. THIS WAS THE FIRST DIRECT ACTION IN MISSISSIPPI. Hayes and Watkins were arrested and jailed for thirty days for breach of the peace. Four days later there was a sit-in in the bus station. Three students were arrested -- two of them were high school students: Isaac Lewis and Brenda Travis, sixteen. Their charges were breach of the peace and failure to move on. They got 28 days in the city jail.

Toward the end of September, Mr. Herbert Lee, Negro farmer and voter registration worker in Liberty, was killed. On the 3rd of October, there was a mass meeting. Many, many high school students attended. They had something important to decide.

This was what they had to decide -- when Brenda Travis and Eke Lewis, their classmates, got arrested for sitting in at the bus station, the principal of their high school, Burgland High, threatened to expel any students who got involved in sit-ins. The students got mad. They came to this mass meeting. They decided that if Brenda and Ike were not re-admitted to Burgland High, they would protest. Brenda and Ike were not re-admitted. So the very next day, the high school students marched: one hundred and twenty of them right down through McComb and up to the City Hall.

And here is what those high school students said:

We, the Negro young of Pike County, feel that Brenda Travis and Ike Lewis, should not be barred from acquiring an education for protesting an injustice. We feel that as members of Burgland High School, they have fought this battle for us. To prove that we appreciate their having done this, we will suffer any punishment they have to take, with them.

In the schools we are taught democracy, but the rights offered by democracy have been denied us by our oppressors; we have not had a balanced school system; we have not had an opportunity to participate in any of the branches of our local, state, and federal governments; however, we are children of God who makes our fellowmen to love rather than to hate, to build rather than tear down, to bind our nation with love and justice, without regard to race, color, and creed.

Those Negro high school students were arrested -- all of them -- on that morning when they marched through McComb. Some were released on suspended sentences because they were too young. Those of age were sentenced and fined. Brenda Travis was sent to the girls' detention home for a year. And seventy-five of the other high school students transferred to Campbell College in Jackson, rather than go back to Burgland High.

That is McComb and the first big march in Mississippi.

Since that summer, three years ago, the people of Mississippi -- who want to be free -- have stood up again and again to demand their rights. All over Mississippi, Negroes have gone to the courthouses seeking to become registered voters. Some have succeeded. Most have not.

In Jackson, students and ministers who support them, from all over the country have gone to the churches of Jackson and asked to worship together. They have been arrested for this -- hundreds of them. Some churches have opened. Most have not.

And this summer -- the people of Mississippi who want to be free are having a whole summer called THE MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER. This means Freedom Schools for all students who want to learn about civil rights and to talk about the things they can't talk about in regular school. Freedom Schools are a big part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Another part is voter registration. All summer long people will keep on going to the courthouses of Mississippi, and demanding to be registered as voters. In addition to regular registration, the people will have FREEDOM REGISTRATION. Freedom Registration is a chance for Negroes in Mississippi to show the world that they want to register and vote.

From: Mississippi Freedom School Curriculum -- 1964. Radical Teacher, 40 (1991),24-26.