Baker was a strategist, organizer and mother to the movement whose political acumen, humble leadership style and razor sharp political insights were legendary.
June marks the 55th anniversary of the Freedom Summer, when more than 700 college students - whose average age was 21 - traveled mostly from the North to Mississippi to work with local Black-led organizations to support their civil rights work.
Young volunteers spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, working to register African-American voters. But leaders of the movement also had a political strategy designed to chip away at the oppressive white power structure in the South, and it was put to the test at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
Reader Comments - We need a special prosecutor ((Cornell William Brooks, NAACP); Ferguson, Racism, Economic Inequality, Michael Brown, Police Militarization; Racism and Misuse of Genetics; Rosetta Comet; Jewish Resources for Resisting Nationalism; Robin Williams; Israel, Gaza and Hamas;
NFL's New Low - Asks Performers to Pay to Play at Super Bowl;
Today in History - Nat Turner's Rebellion; Tomorrow - Fannie Lou Hamer & the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
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