Original subtitles

♪♪

♪♪

Dorsey: You don't dream...

things that you can't imagine.

I dreamed about just growing up and being married

and having a white house with a white fence

and staying in it and cooking,

and I'm sure that came from my "Dick and Jane" reader.

In high school,

I decided I really wanted to be a secretary

because I'd seen one someplace, maybe in a magazine,

and they they wore church clothes every day

and they didn't have to chop cotton,

they didn't have to pick cotton,

they didn't have to be in the hot sun.

They set in a nice office

and I saw pictures of them talking on telephones,

and I thought that was an excellent job to have.

It would be an excellent way to spend your life

if you didn't have the white house and the picket fence

and all of that stuff.

Hayes: And I worked for White folks every day.

We'd leave school, come home, change clothes,

go to the White folks' place, so we'd be around their kids.

We get to fighting with them,

get in arguments about civil rights,

get in arguments about Black and White issues.

And we would fight. I mean, we'd literally bloody-up fight.

I mean, it was anger, serious anger.

I don't remember fear, but my family, I think,

was trying to express fear to us about it.

You know, to be careful.

And I remember that my sister, who was very fat at the time,

Mama had tried to get her

to sweep under the bed with the broom,

and she always said, "Mama, I cannot get down on my knees,

and get under that bed because I'm too fat."

Well, one night, the police came in front of our house.

They let the dog bark all night long just about,

and Jean got down and got under the bed.

And Mama said to me,

"Girl, hand that ol' girl that broom

since she already under the bed," you know.

So it wasn't all dark. It was some light moments, too.

♪♪

♪ Woke up this morning with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom, oh ♪

♪ Woke up this morning with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom, oh ♪

♪ Woke up this morning with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

Narrator: A generation ago,

Mississippi was a state like no other.

Its Blacks were free in name only,

second-class citizens in a system unchanged

since the turn of the century.

Most lived without hope, but a few fought back

and others, Black and White, joined with them.

They were young with no political power or experience.

Within four short years,

they would lead their ragtag political army

to the seat of national power.

In the end, Mississippi and our country

would never be the same, and neither would they.

♪ Oh, I'm singin' and prayin' with my mind ♪

♪ Prayin' on ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Singin' and prayin' with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪♪

♪♪

Dorsey: I started chopping cotton,

I think, when I was about 6 or 7,

and basically I was very happy.

I mean, I didn't know that we were poor

because everybody I knew except the White folks,

which we all knew lived differently,

lived the same way we did.

You know, I thought we were fine.

My father was unable to read and write.

He'd never gone to school.

He was convinced that education was the only way Black people

had to get out of anything they were in.

The straw boss, the agent,

the guy who was hired to run the operation,

like a business manager, was opposed to us going to school

when there was work to be done.

And he had a rule. He would go around and say,

"These kids are too big to be in school anyway,

and they need to be in the field."

And my father was so adamant about going to school

until he would walk us to the bus stop

with his gun every morning.

♪♪

Like it or not, this is a European civilization,

a White man civilization,

and it -- it should remain that,

with the Negroes considered to be, more or less, guests.

You knew you couldn't look at White women,

look at them in the eye without getting in trouble.

Because you could be lynched for our rape,

which was really something that people believed in,

that you were looking at a woman

in a way that indicated you had bad intentions toward her.

Man: We have -- we have in Greenwood,

I think we have wonderful relations

with our colored people.

It has been demonstrated through the years

in all of the businesses, type of businesses.

The colored people are very happy, extremely happy

in Mississippi.

And I think they feel just as warmly toward us.

That's a fact.

Do you know anybody that disagrees with that?

Holland: I went to babysit for this White family,

and the White woman called me upstairs.

I went on upstairs in a hurry

so as not to keep the White woman waiting.

She said, "Mr. Lars wants to see you."

And I looked in the bed, Mr. Lars was laying there

among the bedclothes.

They were so silky.

And I said, "Yessir, Mr. Lars, what do you want with me?"

And he immediately pulled me down into the bed

and had intercourse with me.

It was -- I was 11 years old.

That day was my birthday.

There was no reason for us to run

and tell our mother or our father

because they couldn't do anything about it

but get killed if they said something about it.

So many times, girls, we girls would talk in the bathroom

about it, you know, never telling our parents,

but it happened very, very frequently.

♪♪

But after I was raped at 11,

I started having men right and left, you know,

so I was -- I was easy..

and I walked sassy.

And I would cuss.

I could out-cuss a longshoremen.

And I hated it.

I hated it.

I had all kind of fantasies about it.

I was fascinated by people like David and Goliath stories

when I --

These were my favorite biblical characters,

the cats who kicked folks' butt, you know?

You know, and like Moses,

drowning everybody in the Red Sea.

I used to go in the woods.

I used to go in the back woods

and preach and scream, "Fight 'em!"

Run into bushes and kick trees

and pretend they was White folks.

♪♪

Dorsey: So you learn how to -- how to negotiate your life

with White folks.

And I guess you also learn the fear associated with them

of -- of how much power they actually held over you,

how they could determine whether you continue to live

or whether you die.

[ Indistinct yelling ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.

Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.

I'll say for the mothers to keep their kids out of school.

Altogether, we -- We are White people.

We don't want them to go to school with niggers.

Narrator: The civil rights movement changed forever

the old relationship between Blacks and Whites.

It started in the '50s and gathered new momentum in 1960,

when Black college students

began staging sit-ins and freedom rides.

Their dramatic confrontations at segregated lunch counters

and bus stations stunned the nation

and galvanized Blacks across the South.

♪ Come all of you freedom lovers ♪

-Yeah! -Yeah!

♪ The news I have to tell ♪

-Yeah! -Yeah!

♪ Of how those freedom fighters ♪

♪ Came to Mississippi to dwell ♪

♪ Oh, which side are you on, boys ♪

♪ Which side are you on ♪

And I was really excited about that.

I would run home every -- every evening

and listen to it.

And every weekend when the newspapers came,

we would read about it in a newspaper.

And it was people saying, "I'm taking this stuff anymore."

Who stood right up and looked him in the eye

in a way that I had never seen anybody do to White folk.

♪ Which side are you on ♪

Gray Adams: These young people were willing to take risks.

They cared enough about

what they thought was important,

what was necessary

to be willing to do something about it.

And that is what attracted me.

That is what attracted me because

I was always out there trying to do something about something.

But the support system was never there.

There was such an enormous feeling of pride

that we all felt in that activity and that action.

It just kind of radiated all over.

It gave you almost chills to see people

actually hitting away at --

at the system of segregation that existed for so long

and it was young people a lot like ourselves

and they looked so magnificent.

I mean, both the men and the women,

and they were so nicely dressed

and -- and that was a part of it.

I mean, they were all dressed up and they just gave you

just an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment.

Edwards: I became aware, as we all were,

that the Freedom Rides started.

The busses were going South,

and they refused to segregate at the southern borders

where the law would kick in to police.

That is, if you went from Tennessee to Mississippi,

you suddenly had to go to the back of the bus.

Well, the freedom busses were going down

to break the segregated South.

But I don't know they're Freedom Riders

till the bus stopped in Jackson, and they get off.

And they go in the White side and I'm looking at...

Here, for once in my life,

my fantasies were being played out in real life for me.

I had always wanted to be in a position

where I could fight the White man and win.

These people were winners. I'm with them.

Ganz: This was young people that were challenging all this,

and it was ordinary people that were challenging all this,

and it was like --

[ Sighs ] It was the call.

It was the first time I really heard the call,

which is what it was.

Narrator: The students

formed their own integrated organization called SNCC.

Their symbol -- Black and White hands joined together.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

attracted young people from around the country,

including a young math teacher from New York City, Bob Moses.

Moses had grown up in the Harlem projects,

then attended all-White Hamilton College.

Moses: The sit-ins, when they broke out, just grabbed me.

The pictures of the Southern students

and what I became aware of in looking at them

was that they looked how I felt,

and I really responded immediately to that.

Narrator: On a tour through the South,

Moses met with leaders

of Mississippi's underground civil rights network --

men like the NAACP's Amzie Moore and Earl Steptoe.

Moore wanted to take advantage of the new student energy,

and he persuaded Moses to head up

SNCC's first voting rights project in McComb, Mississippi.

There was a pull to go south, and I discovered SNCC.

♪♪

♪♪

I was traveling by bus.

And a couple of youngsters escorted me to the bus station

and they were looking to see,

"Now, where is this representative of SNCC

going to sit on the bus," you know.

So I sat on the front.

It wasn't a long ride,

and there was no one else on the bus, you know?

So there was never any confrontation.

♪♪

♪ Beat down in ♪

The rumors were going around.

There were some of these Freedom Riders

who were invading, you know, the town.

Hayes: And these people said they the same people

who done beat up the White folks down in Nashville

and -- and made them submit

to an integrated lunch counter setup.

And they the same folks

who have been working on the Freedom Ride.

They're the same folks

who work with Martin and the boycotts.

They're the same folks

who had the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina,

and we're here to make a change in Mississippi.

So I said, "Goddamn, this is it."

♪ Baby, honey ♪

My sister, at church,

said Martin Luther King's brother was in McComb.

And so we hits the road.

And somewhere in that night, we decide to go the next day

and look for Martin Luther King's brother,

which turns out to be Bob Moses.

Narrator: Moore convinced Moses that the only way

to crack Mississippi was through the vote.

The state had half a million Blacks

but would not allow them to register.

A voting campaign

could turn the country's attention to this injustice

and pull the federal government into their fight.

Now, this strategy was explained to the feds,

to the Kennedy boys.

They bought into that.

Because the Justice Department believes

that if you could break the caste system in voting

and that there was open and free voting by all people,

that that was the quickest and best way

to break the entire caste system.

When these boys were coming to town,

we'd sit and talk like we sitting and talking here.

When John Doar would come to town,

we'd sit and talk like this, so...

As we would talk about this stuff within our midst,

there was the understanding

that we were all working on the same agenda.

We want you to come down to the courthouse tomorrow.

Why?

We having a freedom day for registration

and we want you to come down tomorrow and register.

Now, y'all ain't gonna march. I can't march.

No, ma'am, we not gonna march.

We just gonna go down to the courthouse.

Because I ain't.

Yes, ma'am, we understand.

See, the strategy was you'd go out

and talk to people about voter registration,

bring them to the class,

teach them how to interpret the Constitution,

take them to the registrar's office the next day.

And I really think that this is something

that I can do the rest of my life

and will still be something here to be done in this area.

Bob's focus was to try to just hit all these little towns

around McComb -- Tylertown, Amite, Magnolia.

I think we ended up in Brookhaven,

knocking on doors and trying to get people to register to vote.

I don't remember a break from that day.

For me, I think that was the river of no return.

President Kennedy: A great change is at hand,

and our task, our obligation is to make that revolution,

that change peaceful and constructive for all.

Those who do nothing are inviting shame

as well as violence.

Those who act boldly

are recognizing right as well as reality.

Friends, I'm a Mississippi segregationist,

and I am proud of it.

[ Applause ]

Narrator: In 1960,

the Democratic Party became a house divided.

John Kennedy occupied the White House,

but Democrats called Dixiecrats ruled the South

and resisted any attempts at change.

Man #2: Our forefathers did not intend to share this country

with the Japanese or the Eskimo or the Negro as equals

because civilization and savagery

can never be equal.

Narrator: In Mississippi,

segregation was written into the bylaws

of the state's Democratic Party,

and it was carried out by an official alliance of lawmakers,

police forces, and White citizens' councils.

The Magnolia state would be the battleground

for the South's last stand.

[ "Dixie" playing ]

Moses: From the governor through the legislature,

through the judiciary, down through the sheriffs

and all the counties and the highway patrolmen,

the whole state was organized

to promote and enforce racism.

Right?

And it was a kind of little South African enclave

within the United States.

We have had experience in the past

with Negro political domination.

It was known as the Reconstruction.

There are some who call this present attempt

to build up political power

through the mass registration of unqualified Negro voters

the Second Reconstruction.

They were very strict on that voter registration question.

It was like, "Y'all ain't gonna register to vote, period."

No, you didn't pass it. You see there?

You didn't fill out --

You just filled out that part.

You didn't write anything in there.

You didn't pass it.

You have to fill it out complete before you pass.

They failed me and told me

I was disqualified to register.

My son -- four years in college,

and he's the secretary of the NAACP.

And he didn't pass.

Nobody asked me any question except how old I was

and didn't ask any interpretation of anything.

And I said, "Well, I-I can't answer that."

And then he laughed, and he says,

"Well, this is the question that we give to some,"

meaning that this was the question that they give

to many of the Negroes,

a question that they knew that they couldn't answer.

Narrator: SNCC joined with other civil rights groups like CORE

and the NAACP to form COFO,

the Council of Federated Organizations.

Word of their efforts spread quickly

through the surrounding counties and local Whites responded,

Mississippi style.

♪ Well, you can count them one by one ♪

♪ It could be your son ♪

♪ Count them two by two ♪

♪ It could be me or you ♪

♪ Count them three by three ♪

Doar: Southwest Mississippi was peculiar even for that area

because it was like you were back in the 17th century.

It was very rural.

It was isolated and it was.

It was mean country.

♪ Count them five by five ♪

Man #3: Several of us were actually beaten,

and I was arrested also in connection

with taking people to the registrar's office.

♪ In Mississippi, they got it fixed ♪

Narrator: Less than three months after Moses' arrival,

a White state legislator named E.H. Hurst

drew his revolver on a Black man

involved in the voter registration campaign.

Herbert Lee, a member of the NAACP,

farmer and father of nine,

was killed by a bullet to the head.

Hurst claimed self-defense and was acquitted.

Herbert Lee was one of the first people to go down

and register to vote in Amite County

that Bob had taken down.

Moses: Hurst and Lee knew each other,

played together when they were young.

Even into their adult life had helped each other,

but Hurst was deeply affected by Lee's involvement

in this kind of political activity.

And he felt that it was within his purveyance

to actually -- to assassinate Lee.

♪ We have walked through ♪

♪ The shadows of death ♪

Moses: We took it upon ourselves to go out nightly

searching for people who had witnessed the killings.

It was really very scary.

You were afraid of every headlight

that came up either behind you or passed you.

♪ Turn back ♪

I mean, it was terrible,

but we -- we looked to see what jurisdic--

We tried to have -- We had an FBI investigation.

We never were able to make a criminal case out of that.

That was our first encounter with this.

And in many ways, I was directly involved

and took -- felt personal responsibility.

Well...

well, a problem there is that many --

I had to come to grips with that problem

a long time ago

in terms in my own self.

And there's a real moral question

in terms of involvement of other people.

Um...

one way is that to -- to be very careful

about telling people about the risks involved

so that there is no --

So that they have their own decision to make

as to whether they're willing to risk that --

that kind of danger.

And -- and the question of personal fear

just has to be constantly fraught.

I mean, it's just something that's an inside question.

♪♪

Man #4: To which there's no easy answer.

I-I don't know if there's an answer at all.

♪ Turn back ♪

And I remember Bob just devastated by what had happened.

By this time, Bob is my --

You know, he's my little Jesus, you know what I'm saying?

And I'm angry. I mean, to see him sad was like,

you know, that was enough for me to go find the cat

that killed Herbert Lee myself, you know.

That really sort of symbolized signing over in blood,

right, to this struggle.

So that was clear now --

"Well, they will have to kill us to get us out of here."

♪ Never turn back ♪

Narrator: COFO set out to organize the rest of the state.

This was something that we had not had,

we had not really thought about it a lot.

Certainly I had not.

It was just something

you expected never to participate in.

And all of a sudden, whatever had been going on

in the rest of the world was coming to Mississippi,

and we were gonna be part of it.

We had heard about people who have been beaten.

We've known about the folks who had been killed

for trying to exercise this privilege.

When they got to Shelby, we were ready.

We were just, "Tell us what to do and where to go."

♪ Get your rights, Jack ♪

♪ And don't be a 'Tom' no more, no more, no more, no more ♪

♪ Get your rights, Jack ♪

♪ And don't be a 'Tom' no more ♪

We'd go and we'd go to the church and make up the flyers

and pass them out

and people come to church. and we'd talk.

And if somebody come tell us we got to get out of town,

we get on out of town and go to the next town.

♪ Oh, CORE, oh, CORE, don't you treat me this way ♪

♪ I'll take my freedom ride someday ♪

♪ Oh, no, you won't 'cause it's understood ♪

♪ You're an Uncle Tom and you're just no good ♪

Dorsey: And we were eagerly anticipating the folks

coming to bring freedom to Mississippi.

♪ That's right ♪

Hayes: We'd load up in the car

and we get over there early in the morning.

We stop at this big, fat preacher's house

and tell him what we were there for.

And he's so excited.

And his wife starts bringing out the sausage

and the biscuits and the molasses and the milk.

And every time we emptied the table,

she'd bring out some more

and we just eat ourselves to death.

♪ Oh, no, you won't 'cause it's understood ♪

Holland: I heard there's some outside agitators

had come to town to stir up trouble

between the White and the coloreds

and that they weren't gonna have anything to do with them.

I immediately start looking for them

because if they was new men in town,

I wanted to turn a trick with them.

I figured maybe they'd have some money.

I was trying to walk behind them and talk.

"Hey, hey, there. Hey, you." You know?

He wasn't excited about me and all he was interested in

is getting me into the office to work.

So when he opened the door to go inside,

I looked inside and I saw Emma Belle,

who's a legend in the civil rights movement.

I saw her sitting at a typewriter, typing,

and I had never seen a Black woman

that could type like this woman could type.

You know, she was typing.

She wasn't even looking down at the paper.

So I said to myself, "Oh, she's -- she's typing

a whole lot of P's and Q's.

She don't know what's she doing."

And I went on inside the office.

I was scared to death because Mama had told me,

"Don't go down near there, fooling with those folks"

because she had to live in this town.

And I went on inside.

The first thing I did once I got inside

was go look over Emma Belle's shoulder

and see what she really was typing.

She hadn't missed a word.

The people had read in the state newspapers,

you know, the regular media that these people are communist,

these people are, et cetera.

And the Black community was about as afraid of them

as anybody else, you know?

My mother was dismayed.

She was scared. She was disgusted.

She would always say to my other sister and brothers,

"When this old girl, this child that I've had,

she's the biggest fool in the world.

She'll run out there and get involved

against the White folk."

And she would always tell me, "Girl, don't you bring

none of them Freedom Riders here to my house."

Not a single church would -- would -- would receive them.

And so we opened St. John to them in Palmers Crossing.

We have been thinking that the White people kept us down,

but they didn't. You know what did it?

Our fear...

of a jailhouse kept us down.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Hayes: We would quote from the Bible sometimes.

We'd make a subject and a text

just like the preacher would do it.

You know, I remember my favorite sermon

was Moses and his stick and the stick was the vote.

Gray Adams: And then they completed that

by asking for a show of hands

of people who would be willing to go down

to the courthouse tomorrow.

I expected to see lots of hands go up.

They didn't, so, you know, I...

raised mine and, uh, three men --

bus drivers, school-bus drivers,

We were the ones who committed

to going to the courthouse.

We went down today and by...tonight,

probably the bus drivers didn't have a job,

certainly not later than the next day.

All the bus drivers had been fired.

One day I was up in North Bolivar County,

someplace on a plantation,

and I went up to this White man and told him who I was

and that I wanted to see if he had any objection

to me talking to his people about registered to vote.

And he was so nice. He said, "No, I don't."

I was saying, "Gee, this is gonna be a piece of cake."

And as I was walking away, he called to me and said,

"Oh, by the way, when you finish registering them to vote,

don't bring them back here.

Take them to your house."

And that just stopped me cold

because I was living in this condemned house myself

that wasn't fit for people to be living in.

I had no place, I had no job.

♪♪

You asking people to challenge the system and traditions,

and you had to be prepared for the responsibility

of what happened to those folks

when -- when they followed your instructions

or listened to your pleadings

or decide to join a movement with you on the spot

that you became responsible for the folks

and their families and their welfare.

♪♪

Hayes: The delta was really a terrible sight

during this period.

I mean, you drive through this plantation,

a plantation shack was really a one-room house falling down.

That was the typical plantation shack with pieces of lumber

and tin and stuff flying different directions

and rotted porches and hanging doors

and busted-out windows.

I mean, it was just terrible conditions

that people would be living in.

♪♪

♪♪

Woman: I've been tied a long time

in the state of Mississippi,

living in the county

where James O. Eastland, the senator,

and Senator Stennis can go to Washington

and tell the people that the people of Mississippi,

the Negroes, are getting along good and we are satisfied.

But I want him to know this -- both of them --

we are not satisfied,

and we haven't been satisfied a long time.

♪ We're gonna walk, walk ♪

♪ We're gonna walk, walk ♪

♪ We're gonna walk, walk ♪

♪ With your mind on freedom ♪

There was this wonderful woman on the bus there

who sang every church song that you can imagine.

And she really sort of lit up the bus with her spirit.

♪ Let my people go ♪

Moses: She was our mama in the movement.

I mean, she was, like,

she represented that spirit for us.

♪ Over the hills and everywhere ♪

Moses: We were all children,

and she was one of those who came forward

to tell us something.

♪ Let my people go ♪

Hamer: You can pray until you faint.

But if you don't get up and try to do something,

God is not gonna put it in your lap.

Narrator: Fannie Lou Hamer had been a plantation timekeeper

for 18 years.

The day she registered to vote, she was fired and evicted.

She joined SNCC as a full-time field secretary

and became a powerful voice in the civil rights movement.

Hamer: We are not afraid.

♪ We are not afraid ♪

Moses: Mrs. Hamer was an inspiration, I think,

to everyone.

She really represented what everyone

was trying to organize for and struggle for,

which was the transformation from the bottom of the society,

the people who were sharecroppers

living on those plantations, the promise of their being able

to find their inner spirit and energy

and put that to the service of a great social movement.

And Mrs. Hamer, more than anyone else,

came to symbolize that transformation.

You see, we are human beings, and we are not stopping now

till we get something that's better.

We worked all these years for nothing.

Women have gone to the field and worked from 10 to 12 hours

for $3 a day.

And I know what it is to suffer.

And I know what it is to be hungry,

and we are not going to stop

even if I have to give up my life.

We'll make it better for some child.

♪ Oh, I've got the light of freedom ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, I've got the light of freedom ♪

So the excitement was --

was -- was this feeling of camaraderie,

just knowing that you had somebody with you

that was putting their life on the line

just like you and a belief that you are invincible,

the belief that your cause was right.

♪ In the streets, Lord ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, ho ho ♪

All of a sudden, for the first time in my life,

I'm accepted. I'm part of the family.

I'm part of the community. I'm treated as an equal.

I'm treated as somebody who can be listened to,

who have ideas, who have something contribute.

♪ Let it shine, let it shine ♪

♪ Let it shine ♪

Alright.

♪ Well, I woke up this morning with my mind ♪

Holland: The movement was the beginning

of me finding myself.

I felt that the movement

is the greatest thing I've ever seen,

and I had a respect for people who started taken the stand

and made me feel good and people start looking at me.

I would feel so proud when I would go to Tougaloo

and I slept in Anne Moody's room.

You know, I would feel like,

"Well, one day I'm going to be this great.

I'm gonna be in college, you know."

I wanted to be like them. I wanted to sound like them.

I wanted to understand what the movement was about.

Chief: This is an announcement.

We will ask you first what your intentions are.

Woman #2: We are going to the courthouse

to register voters.

Holland: Chief LaRue was looked on with awe

simply because he was the chief of police

and he had the last word on everything.

And as usual, somebody pushed me forward.

We would like to go on to the courthouse.

Because I saw the look on his face.

"Here is Ida Mae's girl up here."

He was just stunned. He didn't know what to do.

And for the first time in my life,

I saw indecision in Chief LaRue's face

and that made me feel so proud.

People start looking up into my face, into my eyes,

say, "That cat is sure enough tough, isn't she?"

I wasn't so tough. I was scared on every march.

But I knew that I couldn't turn back.

Something just wouldn't let me turn back.

♪♪

It was so beautiful to see people

like Miss Lulabelle Johnson and Miss McGee.

They would be walking with pride.

And their titties would be sticking out

a whole, long way in front of them,

almost so you could see their titties

a block before you see them,

but they'd be walking with such pride

and they'd be marching.

And I remember myself trying to walk

with that heavy step that they used.

Looked like the earth would catch their feet

and hold them.

♪ For the child ♪

♪ That I love ♪

♪ Lift me up ♪ -♪ Lift me up ♪

-♪ Lift me up ♪ -♪ Lift me up ♪

-♪ Lift me way up ♪ -♪ Lift me up ♪

♪ Lift me on up ♪

Holland: But these women would walk their walk, you know,

and then when they -- when they get up

and they'd see the human barricade of policing,

they start talking that talk and singing them songs,

and saying, "I ain't scared of your jail

'cause I want my freedom.

I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around,

gonna keep on marching."

♪ ...turn me around ♪

♪ I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin' ♪

♪ Marchin' up to freedom land ♪

♪ Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around ♪

♪ Turn me around, turn me around ♪

♪ Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around ♪

♪ I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin' ♪

Moses: Well, I found out that I could do it.

I didn't think of it so much about dying,

about how are you gonna die?

What the thing was, how are you gonna live, right?

Holland: Bob was so gentle and so kind.

You couldn't ask for anybody better.

He'd plan strategy.

He got people out of jail.

He calmed nerves. He soothed feelings.

He made everybody feel like they had a part to play.

I remember one time, he pointed to me, he said,

"Now, Ida, now, you've been to jail before.

You know how to go to jail."

I was glad to say, "Yes, Bob. I do know."

I was glad to be used for something.

Where the whole town, to me, was looking down its nose at me,

the movement said to me, I was somebody.

I was somebody, they said.

♪ ...let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, light of freedom ♪

Dorsey: The movement exposed you to people

who lived differently.

I expose you to ideas and interests and concerns

and for the first time,

introduce the possibility of a different life

than just picking and chopping cotton.

It unleashed yearnings in me.

I felt like I had come home.

All of my life, I had felt kind of odd --

the way I thought, the way I felt,

the things that I was willing to do.

And then here were some people who talked my language,

who apparently thought the way I did

and were really willing to take risk.

And I just felt like, "Ha. Finally."

I went looking for Martin Luther King's brother

to find my heroes in the movement.

And in addition to that, I find also a family setting.

I mean, this was a turning point in my life.

I was in heaven for a minute.

[ Indistinct yelling ]

Narrator: In June of 1963,

President Kennedy sent the civil rights bill to Congress.

It banned discrimination in public places.

The South rose up to oppose it.

...will give the niggers special privilege

and more rights than us White people

contrary to the United States Constitution.

-Alright! -Alright!

Narrator: Federal takeover of civil rights enforcement

appeared imminent.

Local Whites, afraid of losing control,

took matters into their own hands.

♪ I've been in the storm ♪

I don't know -- I don't know who set the bomb,

but it was probably because

of my activities in the movement.

You know, I don't know who threw the fire,

but there were some people who saw an explosion,

like somebody had thrown a bomb into our house.

And my mama was in there,

and she was in a wheelchair, you know, she couldn't walk.

My mama died. Mama died.

I remember she died in the Greenwood Leflore Hospital

a few days later.

And my -- my most vivid memory of this time

is the nurses, who I heard one of them say, uh,

"I don't want to take care of that old, stinking Black woman."

♪ Ohhhh ♪

♪ Give me a little time ♪

♪ To pray ♪

I was trying to keep as many licks

off of that side as I could.

Narrator: Returning from a voter registration workshop,

Fannie Lou Hamer and five other women were arrested

in the Whites-only section of a Mississippi bus station.

And I was beat.

I was beat and I was screaming.

Then one of the White men that was sitting down,

he got up and started beating me in the head,

but I couldn't keep from screaming

because it was horrible.

Narrator: Three days later,

the head of Mississippi's NAACP, Medgar Evers,

was murdered in the driveway of his home,

shot in the back with a high-powered rifle.

♪ But they laid Medgar Evers ♪

♪ In his grave ♪

It was like living in a foreign country

where you were challenging the powers to be.

And it was with no protection.

There were no courts to concern themselves about our lives.

The FBI was not down to protect us from a crime or violence.

There were no law enforcement --

local and state law-enforcement officers

that would protect us.

So it was a very scary period.

♪♪

Gray Adams: I understood clearly that unless we found ways

to focus national attention

on what was happening in Mississippi

that they were gonna wear us down...

♪ Odinga ♪

...shoot us out or whatever was necessary

to stop us.

♪ To see your kingdom ♪

Doar: They thought the Justice Department should do more.

And specifically, I told them

that we could not protect them...

in Mississippi.

♪ Oooohhh ♪

♪ Ha ♪

♪ Oooh oooh ooooohh ♪

♪ Ha ♪

♪ Freedom now ♪

♪ Ha ♪

♪ Freedom now ♪

♪ Ha ♪

Narrator: The voter registration campaign

was stalled.

In the county where COFO

had concentrated most of its efforts,

less than 100 Blacks could vote.

Although President Lyndon Johnson

would sign the Civil Rights Act into law,

it did not protect Black voting rights,

but it did alienate the Dixiecrats.

Time has come for Mississippi congressmen

and senators to disassociate themselves

from this party

and join the conservative White voters of this state

in supporting Republican electorate for Barry Goldwater.

Narrator: The upcoming presidential election

gave COFO the chance for a new strategy.

At the Democratic National Convention,

scheduled for the end of the summer,

they could force a showdown with Mississippi's Dixiecrats

and expose the state's injustice to the nation.

But what we were after was how do you make

a real political change in the state?

And our one chance of doing that was attacking the state

where they were weak,

and their weakest point politically

was at the National Democratic Convention.

Narrator: To correct Mississippi,

COFO needed to build national support fast.

They decided to bring volunteers from across America

into the state.

We hope to send into Mississippi

this summer upwards of 1,000 teachers, ministers,

lawyers, and students from all around the country

who will engage in what we're calling freedom schools,

community-center programs, voter-registration activity.

A program designed to open up Mississippi to the country.

♪ Well, I read in the paper ♪

♪ Shoobe-doo-be-doo-be-doo ♪

♪ Just the other day ♪

♪ Shoobe-doo-be-doo-be-doo ♪

♪ That Freedom Fighters ♪

♪ Shoobe-doo-be-doo-be-doo ♪

♪ Were on their way ♪

Reporter: Some 700 college students

from as far away as Boston and Southern California

have come here to take part in a program

called Freedom -- Freedom for Mississippi.

Marshall, what are your motives

for going down to Mississippi this summer?

Reading the papers all last year,

talking with people, and hearing

about what was happening in Mississippi

and in the South, shooting of Medgar Evers

and other events like that

generates such a feeling of outrage and injustice

that you feel you must act.

Part of the whole idea of the Summer Project

was -- was Bob's analysis

that the law only covers certain people in America

and it doesn't cover Southern Blacks.

It covers Northern Blacks a little bit,

and it covers Northern Whites a whole lot.

And so that if you want to bring the law to the South,

you have to bring the people who the law covers to the South.

The SNCC staff were smart and a kind of smart

that wasn't just from book learning,

but was from having lived a certain kind of reality

and then interpreting it and figuring out,

"Well, what can you do about it?"

and really solving problems.

The people who organized the Mississippi Summer Project

understood that if I went to Mississippi,

my parents would care.

My brothers and my sister would care

and my grandparents would care, my aunts and uncles would care.

The people in the community would care.

And people did things because someone they knew

or at least someone from their community was involved.

If a young Black from Mississippi

were to get arrested, put in jail,

that'd be that.

But if one of us got arrested or put in jail,

well, there'd be senator so-and-so on the phone

and Congressman so-and-so on the phone.

"The New York Times" calling, and that's what it meant

to really bring the law to the South.

And so there was a concern on the part of people

that what does that say to people,

that you have to have a White body

to protect a Black person?

I mean, aren't human lives worth the same?

So you raise in your mind,

"Does America have any obligation to protect me

like they protect one of the senator's sons

who come down from Harvard or Yale?"

And, you know, that's -- that's -- that's an irony.

But the reality was, was that I would be a statistic.

Man #5: Some nigger lovers coming from the North.

Go home, Yankees.

You know, go home, you Yankees, nigger lovers.

You want your daughter to marry a nigger?

[ Indistinct yelling ]

Moses: Could you actually get Black people,

who were the SNCC,

working with these young White volunteers

in a way in which everyone could survive, right,

and could again -- could flourish?

Glasses.

That was very good because you all got carried away, see?

I mean, you were just supposed to yell

and you start hitting us,

so you got off your frustrations, you know.

Half of what happened at Oxford was the staff

trying to figure out whether, in fact,

they wanted this group of volunteers to go down.

They were ambivalent about it,

and the volunteers trying to size the staff up.

And there was a big dance taking place

in which they were trying to decide

whether this was gonna work or not.

♪♪

Woman #3: Tuesday night, we saw a movie describing

how the Negro was discriminated against in Mississippi

with regard to voting.

CBS Reports. "Mississippi and the 15th Amendment."

Woman #4: As I started up the steps to the courthouse,

I was a little afraid.

A registrar, Mr. Lann, was on his way out.

I'm small, and he's an extra-large man.

Woman #3: A big, fat, White county registrar

prevents Negroes from voting.

We laughed because it was so completely foreign to us.

Six of the staff members got up and walked out of the movie

because it was so real to them.

And some of the staff began to -- to take offense to that

because they didn't find that to be particularly funny.

It marked an explosion point.

It was a flash point for the staff

finally to let out with all of their frustrations

they've had and the hostilities they had towards the volunteers

over the previous few days.

Moses: What happened was quite profound

because what we were dealing with

was trying to sharpen the volunteers'

sense of reality.

Ganz: The day before we were going to leave Oxford

and go to Mississippi,

the word came that three civil rights workers had disappeared.

Reporter #2: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,

and Michael Schwerner went to Mississippi

to help register Negroes as voters.

It had been stressed at the training school

they had just completed that the federal government

could offer them little protection.

Narrator: A manhunt began for a summer volunteer

and two veteran corps organizers,

last seen in a rural Mississippi jail.

The FBI discovered their empty car

but no sign of the men.

What do you think of this?

I believe them jokers planned

and sitting up there in New York,

laughing at us Mississippi folk.

You think it was a hoax?

I think so.

If they did, I feel like they asked for it.

They came here looking for trouble.

It was very clear to me that they were gone,

that they were dead,

and I knew that in my bones.

And now the problem was, was how to convey that to the volunteers

so that they could understand so they could have a choice

about going in or not going in,

trying to -- to know really what the conditions were

that they had to face,

that before they got there, right,

the die was cast, the stone was thrown, right?

It was very clear what the stakes were.

We were all gathered in this big auditorium.

I mean, there must've been about 300 of us there.

And Bob was up front speaking to us.

Bob spoke looking at his feet,

and this was just -- This was -- This is one

of my most profound experiences of leadership.

You know, this man stood up, who was the head

of the Mississippi Freedom Project -- Summer Project.

And he looked at his feet and kind of shuffled his feet

and talked to us about how he felt.

That job fell to me, right,

of penetrating through

that the kids were dead.

Do whatever you want.

You can't bring them back.

Now you have a problem.

You have got to reevaluate.

You are going to Mississippi in the light of the knowledge

that some of your crew are already dead

before you even get there.

He said, "Well, all of you in this room,

probably some of you aren't gonna survive the summer.

And you shouldn't feel like you have to go.

I mean, anybody should feel like they can just get up

and walk out of here

and not be thought as a coward or anything. It's just...

But you need to go, too."

And for him, it was like,

"I don't want to put you at risk this way.

But I have to put you at risk."

Chude Allen: And he ended that,

standing up there, you know, in overalls and T-shirt

and just looking at the floor, just saying,

"All I can say is I'll be there with you."

And I would have gone anywhere.

I would have done anything he asked me to do,

I trusted him so much.

It was..incredibly powerful.

And I left that meeting

Knowing not only was I going down to Mississippi,

but that this would be the course for the rest of my life.

And then there was just silence.

And the whole place must have been silent

for about, I don't know, five minutes.

In the back of the room, a woman named Jean Wheeler stood up,

and she just started singing.

"They say that freedom is a constant struggle.

They say that freedom is a constant struggle.

Oh, Lord, we struggled so long.

We must be free."

♪ They say that freedom ♪

Ganz: Pretty soon, everybody stood up

and just marched out of the room behind Jean.

♪ They say ♪

The next day we all went to Mississippi.

♪ ...that freedom is a constant struggle ♪

♪ They say that freedom is a constant struggle ♪

♪ Oh, Lord, we've been struggling so long ♪

♪ That we must be free ♪

♪ We must be free ♪

♪♪

Johnson: If we allow these invaders to succeed

in their dastardly scheme,

we will be guilty of a very costly error.

Red: The state will be invaded by 50,000 people,

and they were always referred to as invaders.

I'm totally convinced

that they would slant the weather report

if it preserved segregation

and Southern way of life,

whatever that was.

Red used to say the best way

to get me up and going in the morning

was just to pitch me the "Jackson Daily News."

I'd get so mad.

She'd be so mad before she got...

They literally armed themselves

for the coming of the volunteers into the state that summer.

That -- that really sums it up.

It was an army as though

you were going to be invaded by the enemy.

♪♪

Ganz: We were housed right in among the community,

and they had a welcome for us and they put out a big spread

and they put us in people's houses.

Oh, it was great.

I mean, they were so welcoming to us,

and it made us feel secure, you know,

until we sort of eventually began

sort of poking our heads out and beginning to do stuff.

♪♪

Booth: And the first night,

there had been chiggers in the bed,

which are little mite-sized, you-can't-even-see-'em bugs,

and they got into my legs

and I was just filled with chigger bites.

The way you treat them is you have to put your legs

in turpentine and -- or gasoline,

and then they'll -- they'll fall off.

But just everything was a new experience.

Ganz: Then there was dealing

with the whole White/Black business,

about, you know, people 40 years your senior

calling you mister and giving you their seat.

I still wasn't used to calling White people

by their first name without saying "Miss."

I mean, there it was.

You know, there's like 400 years of oppression right there.

I-I could never, uh, let that go -- that "Miss."

It was too ingrained in me because, remember,

we had to even call White children "Miss" and "Mister."

I mean, talk about grappling things

at a very personal level.

I mean, that was like always the sort of thing.

I mean, the system had been so institutionalized

down to every personal encounter.

Don't you ever give up that gun.

That's all you got left

to protect that little baby in that crib

because these dirty devils will be in your home.

That's what they want. They do not want equality.

You know they don't want equality.

They don't want something like you got.

They want what you've got -- your women.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Ganz: The role of sex in the community --

the weirdness was the White community's weirdness about it.

I mean, it made them nutty.

People were obsessed with this question

of Black male, White female sex.

It pervaded the project.

It was -- it was as if I wasn't a person.

It was as if I was a White woman.

That was my identity, and it was very oppressive.

♪♪

Hayes: We're coming in an environment

where White women are sitting down,

talking to you, like an equal.

It was unheard of.

You know, and let alone having sex with one.

Holland: Well, a lot of the families were afraid to sit down

at the table with the people that they were housing

because they were White.

We had never sat and eaten with White folks before,

and we would -- They would fix all the pork

and all the pig feet and all that, you know.

People -- And, you know, and what was so funny

is the White students, who had never eaten anything,

eating chitlings and all,

were just sitting there eating like they were --

like they were very, very happy to do so.

And the outhouses that we had to use,

well, I was -- I was really surprised because I said,

"Well, I know this White girl

ain't gonna go use this outhouse,

you know, like everybody else."

And the girl would use the outhouse

like she was born to it, you know,

and then that -- that made us

all sort of get gang around them and gather around them.

♪♪

Narrator: In Mississippi,

Whites did not socialize with Blacks.

They did not worship in Black churches,

teach in Black schools, or live in Black homes.

Northern Whites were breaking all the rules

and Southern Whites retaliated.

Freedom Summer triggered 1,000 arrests,

35 shootings and church burnings and 80 beatings.

And any Southern Whites who sympathized with the volunteers

were singled out for their own form of punishment.

And there was a hardening

of the political atmosphere.

It was -- There was no soft edges at all.

It was just...

Absolutely segregation

and segregation and segregation forever.

We decided on our own that our White volunteers

would organize in the White community.

It was just sort of like, "Well, we should have a dialogue.

Can't we talk about these things?

How can we avoid confrontation?"

It was a very, sort of very moderate kind of exchange.

So we sat around and talked about different things,

and the house was surrounded by these cars

and the lights were focused on the front door.

And we were just amazed.

And we just -- "What in the world?"

Even then, I was so secure

in my position in the community,

I walked out there.

I wanted the damn fools to see

that it was all right.

They were there with me.

It just was beyond my conception

that I could be in any danger in my own house.

They were more shocked than anybody.

They were totally shocked.

They had no notion that that community

in which they lived in and done business in

and worked in would turn on them like that.

And, boy, it did.

People wouldn't even speak to us on the street

and would never call us on the phone anymore,

never come to the house,

and he lost his business.

He was asked to -- to give up his office.

And these things were hitting us

just one right after the other.

Following this thing,

and we were really sort of groggy.

It just reinforced about, like, how closed the White community

was at that point to -- to --

It was so fearful and so under siege

that, you know, it would just expel its own like that.

It was...

I just don't know -- The hurt.

There's no way to describe the hurt.

It really...

When a family splits, it's history.

Not only that, but just the fact

that you -- I had never been put down in my life.

I've never been rejected

and over something that I felt it

that was -- It just wasn't right.

And it was... It was very painful.

♪♪

Ganz: But, I mean, you also knew

that you were tapping at something

that was right at the heart of the whole way

in which they thought about their culture and the world

and we were threatening that.

♪♪

♪♪

Okay, now we're holding our precinct meeting

for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Narrator: COFO drafted the students

into its overall strategy of challenging the Dixiecrats

at the Democratic National Convention.

The base for that attack

was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party,

an alternative to the state's all-White Democrats.

By summer's end,

the MFDP hoped to send its own delegation to Atlantic City

as a rival to the state's regulars

and demand to be seated in their place.

It would be up to the national party

to choose between them.

The self-styled

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation

represents no one but itself.

And that we have no other way of doing it

except through the Freedom Democratic Party

since the state of Mississippi denied us

the right to participate in the regular Democratic Party.

Rauh: I was the moderator of a panel there

on civil liberties.

And from the audience,

after the panelists had finished,

the first question was,

"What do you think if we bring a delegation of loyal Democrats

from Mississippi to the convention

and challenge the regulars who will be all-White

and will be all anti-Johnson?"

So I didn't have to hesitate.

I said, "I think it's a wonderful idea.

I urge you to do it."

Joe was particularly placed to be a pivotal person in this

because he was general counsel for the United Auto Workers,

Walter Reuther's organization.

And then he was also heading up the delegation from D.C.

So a few days later,

Bob comes into my office and says,

"You thought that was such a hell of a good idea,

will you be the lawyer for us?"

I said, "Yes," And that's how I got there.

It was people taking on a system

at the highest level.

People taking on the folks

who allowed people to be beaten to death

and shot to death and lynched and work without pay

and living in ragged houses

at the point where it could be dealt with.

♪ Which side are you on, boy ♪

♪ Which side are you on ♪

♪ Which side are you on ♪

Moses: What we needed was some force within that party

to galvanize it and say,

"Look, don't go this way, go this way.

What you need is not to pamper

to the White, Southern, racist political power base

within the Democratic Party.

What you need is to lay the foundation

for building another base."

The regular Democrats had caucuses,

and so we had caucuses -- precinct caucuses

to elect delegates to the convention

who would elect the delegates to go to Atlantic City.

Gray Adams: It was heartwarming to see these people

who had not the slightest notion,

including myself, of what the political arena

was like really out there taking hold,

setting up the precinct meetings,

setting up the county meeting,

setting up the district meetings.

They, like us, knew that every step

was taking us another step.

♪ You'll either be a Freedom Fighter ♪

Holland: So what Miss Hamer have me do

when I would go from door to door

is to tell people that if we stick together,

then we can take the seats up there in Washington,

at the convention in Atlantic City.

We can become great. So this -- What this --

This is exactly what I would tell the people

when I went to try to get them to come to the meeting.

And I remember telling Miss Hamer,

"They gonna seat you all, Miss Hamer."

And she said, "Oh, you think so, Ida?"

I said, "Yes, ma'am, they gonna seat y'all."

♪ Oh, freedom ♪

Sellars: They had an objective in mind

to throw out the Dixiecrats and throw out those people

who are not loyal to the Democratic Party

and to put themselves into those positions.

I said if they told the story, which I knew, they would appeal

to the consciousness of almost everybody

who was a straight-thinking American citizen.

What people were really waiting for

is "What is gonna happen, right, at the end of this summer?

What is the response of the National Democratic Party

going to be?

Is there going to be some attack

on the power base of racism?"

♪♪

And, of course, what the students brought with them

was the attention and the pressure of the country.

Alright. You -- Can you tell us

exactly what have you learned here?

Ganz: The press was a critical part of this struggle,

and they knew it.

And they knew that their telling the story

was a big part of making the whole thing happen.

The Mississippi summer was a media summer,

and I recognized that,

and I also recognized that I was a media person.

That is to say, many of them sought me out.

I think partly because my father was in politics

and we recognized that we were powerful people in the sense

that we'd come from families

and just being there brought our families with us.

Just our appearance in the state with a declared social agenda

was going to be a major step all by itself.

And the media circus that followed us

was probably going to have the most major impact.

Our first step would be to sign people up

to the Freedom Democratic Party.

Just that put them at a certain level of risk.

Then there was getting people to talk to you.

Holland: So then they started using teams, Whites and Blacks,

because I think that the reason they used the Whites

because Blacks had a hard time saying no to White folk.

You don't care what they were saying.

So they used the White women, and we would go in teams

and we would try to get people to go vote.

They would say, "Yes, ma'am, I'm going.

Yes, ma'am, I'm going. I'll be there tomorrow."

And by the time they left, they go inside,

shut the door, pull the curtains down,

and say, "I ain't going nowhere."

And a little White girl --

"I can't understand what happened."

All along, we'd be giggling behind our hands, us Blacks,

'cause we understood what had happened.

♪♪

Dorsey: What I remember about meeting White kids

the first time who were movement kids --

young people in the movement -- was their demeanor,

how they -- how they treated us,

um, how they approached you,

how they were courteous and polite,

and how they didn't talk down to you.

And there was no fear associated in talking to them.

There was no consciousness of your place with them.

♪ Kumbaya ♪

Holland: These students were all from colleges,

you know, major colleges across the United States,

and they would help me get my language together,

help me get my speech together.

Books was brought in by the truckload

from various points by people who understood

that there were still homes in the Mississippi Delta

where there were no books

and there were people eager to learn,

I mean, who just soaked up stuff like sponges, you know?

♪ Ohhh, Lord ♪

Chude Allen: I taught what we called Negro history in the morning.

That was my core class,

and I didn't know this information myself.

I went to one of the best liberal arts colleges

in the country,

and I did not know this information.

And so there was this feeling --

a great feeling of responsibility to go home,

go back to the dormitory every night and to prepare,

because here were people that -- that wanted it all.

♪ Ahhhhh ♪

Holland: People had sent lots of books down

and the movement had started a library.

And then I got my first introduction

to a Black person who was writing -- Richard Wright.

And as I read Richard Wright's book, I kept thinking,

"Well, do you mean Black folk can actually write books?"

Because I'd always been told Blacks had done no great things.

They hadn't done anything.

We had nothing that we could be proud of.

♪♪

Dorsey: We all looked into the things

because it was part of the overcoming

the low self-esteem

that we'd been made to feel about ourselves

and sort of reexamine our practices

and our behavior from positions of strength.

Hayes: I always felt inferior to the northern students.

Personally, I thought they were smarter than we were.

I thought -- And they thought they were smarter than we were.

I knew we knew more about Mississippi than they did,

but they had the ability to carry out these long analyses

and intellectual discussions about our environment,

and that seemed like a foreign language to us.

Ganz: There were cultural tensions

and leadership tensions,

and I mean, just all the things that kind of go

with this encounter of these very different,

very different cultures and very different people.

I grew up believing that the police were your friends.

They were the crossing guards who helped you cross the street

and the place to call if you ran into trouble.

And I said, "Well, dear,

I never, ever at any time thought the police was my friend

because anytime the police showed up in my community,

it meant trouble."

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Ganz: The experience of arbitrary power

being used against you

was something that made me crazy.

The feeling of being able to depend on only yourself

and those most immediately close to you,

that the courts, the law, the whole system

was not there to defend you,

but it was in fact there to oppress you.

I mean, to do you in.

And there's no appeal to rule of reason

or law or anything like that.

It's just, "Hey, that's -- He's got the power."

Whew! That's a real powerful, emotional exp--

You grew up in a safe, middle-class community,

you don't experience that.

And there was a combination of a feeling of powerlessness

and rage together that really, um...

makes you want to consider almost any means

of dealing with that because it totally takes away

your -- your humanity and your dignity.

You know, I mean, for me, I could get on a plane

and go back to Bakersfield.

And so, I mean, I can never know

what it is to live with that all my life.

For me, it was just a taste,

but that taste was one that, uh...

Well, it changed my life.

♪♪

♪♪

There was a time when many people in Mississippi

thought that the disappearance

of the three civil-rights workers was a hoax.

But now that their murdered bodies have been discovered,

confirming what many refuse to believe,

the voices of doubt are still.

Narrator: On August 12, 1964, the bodies of Goodman,

Schwerner, and Chaney were found.

♪ We are not afraid ♪

♪ We are not afraid ♪

♪ Today ♪

♪ Oh, deep in my heart ♪

♪ I do believe ♪

♪ Oh, we shall overcome ♪

♪ Someday ♪

Narrator: Two days later,

the Freedom Party began its convention.

The state convention for the Freedom Democratic Party

is now in session.

[ Cheers and applause ]

I consider this an assemblage of people

who, yes, have come through the wilderness of tears,

who, yes, have come through the beatings,

the harassment, the brutalization,

and I consider this a convention that speaks to the nation

and speaks to the world

and its voice is saying that the day has come

when racism must be banished

from the political-body politic of our country and people.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪ Go tell it on the mountain ♪

I said, "Politics is a tough game.

The president has more strength than everybody else

put together at his renomination convention.

But we've got such a wonderful case against the other side."

I told them they were gonna win.

♪ Let me people go ♪

Walking in to the hall that Sunday morning

and -- and seeing all of these people here

and how pleased they were

and how proud they were with themselves and each other

was just one fantastic reward

for all of the risk that had been taken up until that time.

They knew that we're going to Atlantic City.

You know, the sharecroppers, the maids,

the, you know, the people,

those who always looked elsewhere for their leadership,

always looked to other people for their leadership.

Narrator: The MFDP was winning allies in the North.

9 Democratic delegations and 25 congressmen

had decided to back its challenge.

♪ Go tell it on the mountain ♪

♪ To let my people go ♪

And then you can begin to see

that maybe you are stepping onto the --

onto the stage of history

because you could begin to see this --

this mammoth thing unfold.

And it was much bigger than life.

It was much bigger than any one of us.

And it was through the efforts of all that it came together.

♪ Nothing but freedom ♪

♪ Over me, over me ♪

We knew that we were, you know,

the true representatives of the people going,

so I think everybody was up.

♪ And go home to my Lord ♪

♪ And be free ♪

I felt that our argument was strong enough

and certainly valid.

I had expectations that they were gonna go up there

and really give the Democratic Party fits.

♪ Oh, I'll be a slave ♪

♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪

I think we thought anything could happen,

that they might could go up in and unseat people.

We had the kind of confidence that the righteous have.

Nothing could happen except success.

♪ No more moanin' ♪

Sellars: We took up a number of people

who had never been out of the state of Mississippi

in their lives.

Some had never been out of the county that they grew up in.

And here they were, going north to represent their families

and their friends and their party

and their county and their precinct.

And it was just a good feeling that here we are.

We on the threshold of bringing about change.

♪ Oh, freedom ♪

♪ Oh, freedom ♪

♪ Oh, freedom ♪♪

♪ Miss Dolly ♪

♪ It's so nice to have you back where you belong ♪

♪ You're lookin' swell, Dolly ♪

♪ I can tell, Dolly ♪

♪ You're still glowin', you're still crowin' ♪

♪ You're still goin' strong ♪

♪ I feel the room swayin' ♪

♪ While the band is playin' ♪

Rauh: I was certain that the Democratic Party

would cast out the Dixiecrats from Mississippi.

I had real hopes that we were on the verge of a breakthrough.

♪ Dolly must never go away again ♪

♪♪

Narrator: To gain seats

as Mississippi delegates to the convention,

the MFDP would first need to testify

before the credentials committee.

The delegates carried with them evidence

they had been shut out of the political system.

As challengers, they set out

to win the hearts and minds of the nation.

Ganz: On the boardwalk across from the convention center,

there was the picture of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner.

And that was sort of our encampment over there

and our vigil that we were holding.

Sellars: We brought the Freedom Singers out

and we sung freedom songs, and we had the delegates out,

lobbying people on the boardwalk

and lobbying other delegates and telling the story.

We did everything that we could possibly do

to make the case

for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Go tell it on the mountain

♪ Over the hills... ♪

We had the burnt-out Ford station wagon

that Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were in.

We got the bell from the church that burned.

We had anticipated just appealing

to the consciousness of America,

and America would stand up and say, "No more, Mississippi."

♪ ...go ♪

♪ Children of the Israelites ♪

♪ Oh, let my people go ♪

Reporter #3: With its special coverage

of the activities leading to the opening

of the Democratic National Convention.

The Credentials Committee of the Democratic Convention

has now begun to deal with the case

of the Mississippi rival delegation...

Narrator: As Mississippi's Dixiecrats

fought against seating the Freedom delegates,

the MFDP brought its story to national television.

And what I want the credentials committee to hear

is the terror which the regular party uses

on the people of Mississippi,

which is what the next witness will explain.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.

Moses: I remember being in back of the Credentials Committee

when Mrs. Hamer was testifying.

It was the 31st of August in 1962

that 18 of us traveled 26 miles

to the county courthouse in Indianola

to try to register to become first-class citizens.

Moses: And that was a wonderful charging experience,

right, to hear her deliver that testimony

in front of all those people and to the whole country.

...Indianola, where the bus driver

was charged that day

with driving a bus the wrong color.

Reporter #4: We will return to this scene in Atlantic City,

but now we switch to the White House

and NBC's Robert Goralski.

Rauh: Johnson saw her and blew his stack,

and he called a press conference to get her off the air.

On this day nine months ago...

Moses: Here you had a story

that the country really needed to hear,

and what you have is the president of the United States

thwarting the democratic process.

That night, the networks really fixed Johnson's wagon.

They replayed Fannie Lou Hamer in full.

If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now,

I question America.

Is this America,

the land of the free and the home of the brave,

where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook

because our lives are being threatened daily

because we want to live

as decent human beings in America?

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

Boy, after that, it was just like we had it made.

Man #6: I am proud to report to you as chairman

of the Oregon delegation to this convention

that in a meeting of the delegation this morning,

we voted 20 to nothing

to take this Mississippi issue to the floor

of this convention.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪♪

♪ Let my people go ♪

♪ Look like the children by Moses' land ♪

♪ Let my people go ♪

Dorsey: I mean, we were charged up,

and we were right that what these folk were doing

were wrong and immoral

and that they were not playing by the rules,

which, in fact, we've been taught

that the country was supposed to go by.

And I don't think that if this issue

gets to the floor of that convention,

that they can possibly turn them down.

I don't see how they possibly can do it

if they really understand what's at stake.

Dorsey: And we thought that once we presented ourselves

in an organized fashion

where you would actually confront people

with what they were doing that was wrong

and remind them of what they were supposed to be doing

and they would simply stop doing what was wrong.

This is America.

I believe any man should be able to rise.

Narrator: Although Mississippi's Dixiecrats

threatened to campaign for the Republican candidate,

they held one advantage over the MFDP.

President Johnson feared that seating a Black delegation

would lose him the entire Southern vote.

Reporter #5: Delegates of the Freedom Democratic Party.

These people who have, in their convention in Jackson,

Mississippi, turned themselves delegates.

Narrator: Johnson gave Hubert Humphrey

the job of stopping the MFDP's bid.

[ Chuckles ] Well, so then Hubert Humphrey came to town

and, you know, Mr. Liberal.

And it turned out that he'd been sent in by Johnson

as a hatchet man.

My only interest in this

is that it was an attempt to try to bring about

a reconciliation of views and the hopes

to keep our convention united.

Sellars: If Humphrey wanted to be

the Democratic vice president nominee,

then he would have to assist in bringing about a compromise

because Lyndon did not want to alienate

the Southern constituency, the Southern Dixiecrats.

Johnson puts pressure on everybody.

His pressure on me was very simple.

He took the two people who probably would have

had the most important part in my life at that moment.

Hubert Humphrey, my close political associate.

And Walter Reuther, the head of UAW,

the autoworkers of which I was the general counsel.

That was my best client. So he's a genius at that.

I think he must have studied at the foot

of a famous British politician

who said, "Every man has his price."

All of a sudden, we started getting all these reports back

that people were having to change.

And I remember very specifically a woman

from the California delegation here

who -- who -- a Black woman who broke down crying

after she'd been visited

by one of the Democratic powers-that-be

told that, well, her husband was up for a judgeship

and he could just forget it if she voted

for the Freedom Delegation.

Well, welcome to the real world of Democratic politics.

Tuesday afternoon was the real crux of the fight.

Mondale: It may not satisfy everybody...

Narrator: At the Credentials Committee meeting,

Humphrey's protégé, Walter Mondale,

offered a compromise solution approved by Johnson.

At the same moment, away from the committee hearing,

Humphrey requested a separate meeting with MFDP leaders.

They wanted to meet with a few of us over at the hotel,

and they began a discussion of what the administration

was willing to propose to the delegation,

which was essentially an offer for a symbolic power.

That wasn't what -- was anything that we could accept.

Mondale: We recommend that the convention adopt

the following resolution.

Rauh: Walter Mondale kept saying it was now a fair compromise.

When I finally got the floor, I said, "Look,

we have made progress, but you've got to ask

Aaron Henry, the head of the delegation,

what he thinks."

At that moment,

Aaron Henry and Bob and all the others

were with Reuther and Humphrey.

I begged for an adjournment for a couple of hours.

"Vote, vote, vote!"

You could hear it like a legal lynching.

I did everything I could at the time.

I tried to filibuster.

"Vote, vote, vote!"

I made a motion that we have a roll call.

"Vote, vote, vote!"

Hopeless.

It was just decided to go ahead.

Reporter #6: If you've been out to the movies

hear in a few seconds

what has happened so far in the convention this evening.

The Credentials Committee, after laborious work,

came up with a compromise

to accept the Mississippi delegation from the one

that is mainly Negro

into the convention hall as honored guests

and to let two of its members cast votes

as delegates at large, which is something

that has never been heard of in a convention before.

Moses: When we left the meeting,

we found a phalanx of media people

with cameras out in the hallway, and they were asking us,

What did we feel about the compromise?

And it gradually dawned on us that a decision had been reached

while we were actually discussing

what the proposal would be.

It was just complete, you know,

manipulation and cynicism.

You feel the acceptance of a compromise,

whether it was a victory at this point?

Yes, I do.

I think it was a victory for the forces of reason,

and I think it was a victory for the Democrats.

I think it was a victory for our country.

Moses: The next day, then we had the big meeting

to discuss whether or not the delegation wanted

to accept these two symbolic seats.

They didn't just offer the delegation two seats at large.

They offered the delegation two seats

at large to be occupied by Aaron Henry and Ed King,

the chairman of the delegation and the national committeeman.

And we spent I don't know how long there.

I know it was a long time

and people debated why we should and why we shouldn't.

Sellars: Many of the people who were coming in,

we thought were people who were gonna be supportive

and encourage us to fight, not to accept the compromise.

And what was happening is that these people

were turning almost in your -- in your face.

Almost every liberal spokesperson of the time came.

I sat in the church. There was the Freedom Delegation.

Edith Green, Wayne Morris, Dr. King, Walter Reuther.

Everybody came through that afternoon and made speeches

recommending to the Freedom Delegation

that they accept the compromise.

They thought, you know,

"Hey, this is something. It's better than nothing."

But the fact of the matter was it was nothing.

Sellars: And I think it was Miss Hamer who said

that we have come too far. We worked too hard.

We've suffered too much to come up here

and not get anything but a crumb of bread.

Moses: It was very clear to them

that they were not being asked to share power.

The question was called for, the vote was taken.

And the answer was no, we won't accept it.

And, uh, that was a pretty sobering moment.

Narrator: The regular Mississippi Democrats

also rejected the compromise.

They refused to honor its call for a loyalty oath

to the Democratic ticket and walked out of the convention.

In a last attempt at symbolic recognition,

MFDP members tried to fill the empty Mississippi seats.

Chancellor: I'm now in the middle

of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

or what's left of it.

They say all 68 or 69 delegates are here.

They are starting their march in the hall now.

Ganz: We decided, "Well, we're gonna just take this thing

the next step and get seated on the floor anyway

in protest against what was going on."

Reporter #7: One by one,

the members of the Freedom Delegation

from Mississippi are getting into the hall,

and they are doing it by sending one in at a time

to borrow credentials from those who are already in,

carry them out of their pockets

and give it to somebody else.

This process is being repeated

and presumably soon they will all be inside.

Reporter #8: Could you tell us, sir,

did you walk in with a ticket?

Man #7: Yes, I have a ticket. I walked in.

Moses: What that convention was, it was a huge classroom.

People were actually learning the democratic process,

right, in the convention.

It was a great sort of theater for empowerment.

Woman #5: Before the eyes of the world,

they are peaceful and loving.

And when they get back to Mississippi,

"Nigger, you can't come in here. Nigger, you can't come in there.

Nigger, you get out!"

All we want is a chance to be a part of America.

Ganz: The last night, Johnson came out on the balcony,

across from our vigil

of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner

and tried to speak, and we tried to do everything

we can to let him know that his actions spoke louder

than any words he could possibly say.

And, uh...

we left Atlantic City with this profound sense of betrayal.

♪♪

♪♪

It undermined for me any faith in what --

what is called the democratic process

in this country.

I mean, angry, wondering, where do you go from here?

What is the next step if you've done everything?

If the official electoral process doesn't work

because Blacks were excluded

and you've done everything you could with nonviolence,

then with organizing

and with talking with people and being reasonable,

and if that doesn't work, where do you go next?

My hopes and dreams about being part

of the National Democratic Party was dead.

♪ Beep beep, bang bang, ungawa, black power ♪

♪ Beep beep, bang bang, ungawa, black power ♪

Moses: You lost a group of young Black people

who were looking to that political process

as a legitimate process

for entering into real power sharing.

And then you also began to disillusion

a whole generation of young White people.

[ Indistinct yelling ]

The Democratic Party missed the chance

to capture the attention and energy of the generation

that really set the tone for the '60s.

♪♪

Ganz: They were afraid of young people,

they were afraid of change,

they were afraid of opening the doors to all the new ideas

and fresh blood that wanted in.

And it's like they had erected barriers

and wanted to keep us out.

And to their own ultimate, um, uh...

Not just to their shame, but to their --

to their undoing.

♪♪

Moses: What happened there in '64 symbolized

the situation that we're in now,

that is the National Democratic Party

and the political leadership of that time said,

"Okay, there's room for these kind of people."

Right?

And it was the professional people within our group, right,

who were asked to become part

and actually did become part of the Democratic Party.

But on the other hand, they said,

"There isn't room for these people."

Right? The grassroots people, the sharecroppers,

the common workers, the day workers, right?

There's room for them as recipients of largesse.

Right? Poverty programs and the like.

There isn't room for them as participants in power sharing.

A different scenario that could have worked its way out

would have been for empowering the Freedom Democratic Party.

There would have been a struggle,

right, and vicious struggle, but not armed struggle.

At once it got into armed struggle

and rioting and shooting and calling in the National Guard,

then you got into a polarization,

which we are not out of yet.

It's one of the great tragedies of this country.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Dorsey: Economically, I think things are worse in many ways.

I can take you to places where people still live

under very oppressive poverty.

There are places like this still in this state.

But the most significant thing I think

that the movement gave to us

was it removed people from fear.

The freedom from fear of being dragged out of your house

in the middle of the night for daring

to want to be a part of the mainstream,

a want to dream, a want to participate,

a want to have that equal justice

and equal pay for equal work

that my father used to talk about.

The generations since the movement have not been taught

to stay in their place or to understand

that there's a certain way to walk and stand

and look at and relate to White people.

And I think that is -- For Whites and Black,

I think that is the most significant contribution

that it made to the people.

♪♪

Narrator: SNCC won a major battle in Mississippi.

One year after Atlantic City,

Congress passed the Voting Rights Act,

guaranteeing for the first time since Reconstruction,

federal supervision of elections.

Hayes: And so we walk in in 1961

with everything segregated, no voters.

The first voter we take to register to vote

is shot down and killed by no less than a representative

of the state of Mississippi.

But by 1965, 4 years later,

the books were open for these people to be registered to vote.

When I came back and we went to a fast-food restaurant

and somebody said, "Let's go on in here and order,"

I said, "Child, we can't go in here, can we?"

They said, "Yeah," and we went to the counter

and a White man was behind the counter and he said,

"May I help you, ma'am?"

And that's when I said --

And, girl, I bought the hamburger,

the coffee, the French fries,

because every time he had to say, "Ma'am" and "thank you."

And never before had I heard a White man,

you know, a local White man saying that kind of thing.

♪♪

Hayes: And I wish it were possible.

I wish it were possible for young people now to --

Even if it was just for a day --

to experience the kind of camaraderie

and the kind of commitment that we were a part of.

I mean, to hear of someone in danger

and see people run to that danger as hunger --

As a hungry man would run to food

to give a hand, to give help.

Um...

There are not words truly to explain it. I mean...

♪♪

I still struggle to have that experience.

I still look for that commitment to ideals

greater than the individual.

It speaks to the needs of the whole community of humanity.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪ Woke up this morning with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Oh, woke up this morning with my mind ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Oh, woke up this morning with my mind ♪

"August 7, 1964, Ruleville, Mississippi.

Dear Ollie.

Ollie, this is the greatest experience of my life.

I wonder what in the hell I have been doing

for the last 22 years

before I came down here and really lived."

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

♪ Oh, walking and talking with my mind ♪

Because the core values that were behind Mississippi Summer

actually still believe are broader than just 1964,

broader than civil rights,

but about remaking society.

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

It was an incredible high

to all of a sudden be with women

and to hear women talk about experiences

that were similar to your own.

And that's when it dawned on us that it was not private.

It was not personal. It was political.

And, you know, that was it.

I started organizing women.

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelu ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ Let's walk! Come on and walk ♪

Sellars: You think about all the creative kinds of things

that we did.

When you look at all the new organizations,

you began to see that things have changed.

They're not what they -- what they used to be

and they're certainly not the best that they could be.

But they have changed.

♪ Walk, walk, we're gonna walk ♪

Malva: To know that we were not alone,

that we were free, you might say,

we almost felt like we could just...

And we quite literally didn't have to avoid

certain subjects anymore

There we stood, and to hell with you.

♪ Ahhh ♪

♪ Stayed on freedom ♪

I think one reason why a lot of us

who went through that experience are still at it

in one way or another is because it gave us hope.

In other words, we didn't experience being defeated.

Yes, we had reverses.

Yeah, the Democratic convention, this, that and the other.

But we -- we kept moving forward.

And that's what keeps people hanging in there,

is hope.

♪♪

Holland: I'm -- First of all, I'm Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland,

and nobody forget that.

[ Laughing ]

That's the funniest thing and it's the grandest

and the glorious thing I've ever heard of.

Just think -- little cat from Greenwood

could achieve that.

So that's who I am, and I'm also a writer.

I write plays.

I write plays that deals

with the history of people here in Mississippi.

♪♪

We now have more elected officials in the state

of Mississippi than we have in any other state in the Union,

who are Black or African-Americans.

♪♪

Dorsey: If you go look at the registration book

and you'll find that it's signed Lula Clara Warren Dorsey,

and maybe even with a Mrs.

because part of the registration thing,

it also gave us our courtesy titles.

We were no longer girl and boy.

We were real people.

♪♪

Wherever you find one picture of one individual

who was associated with this movement in Mississippi,

you find somebody doing something different

all the way down to little people like me

buying a sewing machine for a group of five ladies

to make African clothes.

That one sewing machine will employ 20 people in Africa.

And that, to me, is still SNCC in Africa.

♪♪

Moses: How is a country

which is increasingly pluralistic

with a lot of nationalities, cultures, right,

languages, right, which must all work together,

how does it find something which can drive everybody

towards the common good for everyone?

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

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