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Risking Everything: Freedom Summer
The Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 changed America forever. It made civil rights a national issue, inspired Black residents all across the South, and helped launch the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Freedom Summer volunteers went on to found many of the later counterculture movements of the 1960s and 70s.
In just a few weeks during 1964 more than 1,000 of them had been arrested, dozens were beaten bloody by police and vigilantes, more than 60 homes and churches were fire-bombed, and 6 volunteers were murdered for trying to register voters. But they prevailed in the end. As Freedom Summer leader Bob Moses put it, “a few people willing to risk everything” caused a permanent shift in American culture.
Come hear author Michael Edmonds discuss the tragedies and triumphs of that summer and how they shaped the nation. The exhibit Risking Everything will be on display and a limited number of copies of Edmonds' book on Freedom Summer will be available for purchase.
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Michael Edmonds curated the Freedom Summer exhibit currently on display at Monona Public Library and edited the book, Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader. He holds degrees from Harvard University and Simmons College and for more than 30 years was on the staff of the Wisconsin Historical Society, where his work won national awards from the American Library Association, the American Folklore Society, and the American Association for State and Local History.
He and his staff brought programs into 300 Wisconsin communities each year, helped out hundreds of K-12 classrooms, and published books and articles that reached more than 50,000 readers annually. Before that, Michael led the teams that digitized the Historical Society’s rare books, manuscripts, maps, and other documents so they could be used for free on the Web.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2229135-0
