Mississippi Freedom Summer

Freedom Summer marked a critical turning point both in the lives of those who participated in the campaign and the New Left as a whole. Its significance lies both in the events of the summer and the cultural and political consequences that flowed from it. The events . . . effectively resocialized and radicalized the volunteers while the ties they established with other volunteers laid the groundwork for a nationwide activist network out of which the other major movements of the era---women's, antiwar, student---were to emerge (5).

Those who chose to participate in the Summer Project included more than 1000 volunteers, mostly white college students from Northern schools. This fact is important because it produced a cadre of individuals who became veterans of the movement for justice, able to pursue their political, social and economic ideals while using realistic means in a hostile environment which hardened them for future struggles.

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an be seen as a sudden and isolated phenomenon separate from what had come before. In effect, the fight for justice in the world during the war resulted indirectly in the creation of as generation which felt compelled to fight for justice at home. McAdam's use of sources definitely helps substantiate his arguments and conclusions. He goes to the horse's mouth, so to speak, relying on interviews with 348 of the students themselves, who are still young enough to remember vividly an experience they all agree was a dramatic turning point in their personal and political lives. At the same time, they have changed their perspective through the quarter-century to have matured enough to give an adult's analysis of a student's experience. For the most part, they are certainly no longer the idealists they were in the summer of 1964, but they nevertheless continue to highly value their experience and their memories. By going to the students themselves for his material, the author allows us to both politically and emotionally connect to the participants and to the events in which they took part. We come to appreciate the courage of these individuals and the idealism they exercised by putting their very lives on the line. After all, five of th
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Approximate Word count = 1300
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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