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Miami commemorates “Freedom Summer” anniversary
In 1964, more than 1,000 volunteers gathered in Oxford, Ohio, to train for Freedom Summer, an effort to increase voter registration of African-Americans in Mississippi. The participants then traveled to Mississippi to register voters and organize freedom schools.
Miami University in Oxford will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Freedom Summer Project on Oct. 9-11 with a three-day conference and reunion, “Freedom Summer: Unity and Change, Then and Now.”
The 1964 African-American voter-registration effort in Oxford was held at Western College for Women, which is now part of Miami’s campus.
The conference will host local and national activists of Freedom Summer, including scholars and freedom fighters from the 1960s civil rights movement, according to university officials.
The event will include pre-conference programs, an exhibit of items from the Mississippi Freedom Summer Collection; a film series; oral history interviews; and the world premiere of a new play, “Down in Mississippi: A Gospel Play with Music.”
“This conference along with the exhibit and play are part of a series of coordinated efforts to study and learn more about Freedom Summer and its impact on our lives,” said Mary Jane Berman, director of Miami’s Center for American and World Cultures and co-organizer of the event.
“Our hope is that more people will become knowledgeable of what happened here and in Mississippi in 1964,” Berman said in a media release. “Freedom Summer is testimony to young people’s leadership in bringing about positive social change.”
For more information about the Freedom Summer conference and events, click here.
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