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Freedom Summer Digital Collection



FREEDOM SUMMER LETTERS AND POSTERS AVAILABLE ONLINE

The USM Libraries' Special Collections Digital Program announces the online
release of correspondence and civil rights posters from the Joseph and
Nancy Ellin Freedom Summer Collection.  The Ellins, ivy-league educated
teachers from New York City, came to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1964 to
work in the Freedom Schools established as a part of the Mississippi
Freedom Summer Project.

The letters describe the Ellins' daily activities and concerns as civil
rights workers, their relationships with local blacks, and their attempts
to promote grass roots support for civil rights among their friends and
relatives back home.  The posters from the Ellin collection are public
relations publications of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC).

The finding aid for the Ellin collection (with hyperlinks to the digital
items) is available at: http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m323.htm

The digital files from the Ellin collection, along with the rest of USM's
digital archives, are searchable from:
http://anna.lib.usm.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/57/49?user_id=ARCHIVE

The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project was a key event in the history of
the civil rights movement that brought together northern whites and
African-American activists in a campaign to establish Freedom Schools and
Libraries and to promote black voting rights. The summer crusade--and the
white reaction to it--brought the plight of southern blacks into the
national spotlight in 1964.  Events like those associated with the murders
of civil rights activists Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James
Chaney in Neshoba County deeply affected the national conscience, and they
ultimately helped to change Americans' perceptions and behavior in regard
to race.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where the Ellin's spent July and August of 1964,
was the largest Freedom Summer site.

The Ellin digital collection is a phase of the Civil Rights in Mississippi
Digital Archive, which provides oral histories, manuscripts, and images
documenting the history of race relations in Mississippi.   See:
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/

For more information contact: spcol@lib.usm.edu

-------------------------------------------------------------------
P. Toby Graham, PhD
Head, Special Collections                phone (601)266-5077
McCain Library & Archives                fax   (601)266-6269
The University of Southern Mississippi   email Toby.Graham@usm.edu
Box 5148
Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5148
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