COLUMBUS, Miss.—The summer after his sophomore year at Amherst College in June 1964, Peter Norall joined the Freedom Summer efforts in Columbus, Miss., to help Black people register to vote.
He returned to the Lowndes County city for the third time on May 8 to watch local high schoolers honor the anniversaries of the Eighth of May emancipation and Freedom Summer with a historical performance at Sandfield Cemetery.
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, when more than 1,000 college students from around the country came to Mississippi to help Black people register to vote.
“At that point, less than 6% of the Black population was registered to vote, and that was by design,” Mississippi School for Math and Science African American history teacher Chuck Yarborough told the crowd at the cemetery on May 8.
Norall said he was led to take part in Freedom Summer after noticing rising tensions in the country over civil rights; he specifically cited the murder of Medgar Evers at his Jackson, Miss., home in 1963, the beating of John Lewis in Selma, Ala., in 1965 and the lunch counter sit-in movement that began in Greensboro, N.C., in 1960.
“All of these things advertised very loudly the racial injustices of the time, so I was galvanized to participate,” the Freedom Summer volunteer told the Mississippi Free Press on May 8.
When the 20-year-old came to Columbus for the first time, Norall said an “atmosphere of fear” loomed over the heavily segregated state—a stark contrast to today when he walks around the city and notices people of all skin colors intermingling.
“I’m sure things are not quite as perfect as they may seem on the surface, but this kind of event would have been inconceivable 60 years ago,” he said in reference to the Eighth of May event.
Norall said he and other Freedom Summer volunteers knew at the time that it was important that they were helping Black people register to vote, but they did not realize just how significant their work was until they saw heavy media coverage of their efforts and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in July 1964. The president then signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Norall is now 80 years old and, since his Freedom Summer days, he has visited Columbus three times: in 2006, 2022 and 2024. He currently lives in London, England.
Registering Black People to Vote Was a ‘Big Deal’
Mississippi School for Math and Science student Dylan Wiley portrayed Marvin Griffin, a Mississippian who was born in Columbus in 1943, at the event. The student wore a teal short sleeve button up shirt and jeans with sneakers on stage.
“In the late 1800s, white Mississippians passed laws, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, that prevented African Americans from registering to vote. Additionally, white vigilantes used violence in order to oppress the Black vote,” Wiley said. “And soon, the African American majority in Mississippi found themselves ruled by the white minority.”
At age 20, Griffin volunteered in Freedom Summer 1964 to push back on the racist barriers that prevented Black people from voting in Columbus. At Saint James Methodist Church, Griffin and other volunteers helped Black residents pass literacy tests and educated Black children in the community.
“Now, registering people to vote doesn’t sound like too much a big deal, right? But in 1964, in Mississippi?” he said incredulously. “Local officials ran this spectrum from opposed to vehemently opposed.”
Registered voters Lucille Brewer and Ida Harris tried to vote at 10:05 a.m. on June 18, 1964, but poll workers in Columbus told them the polls were closed and turned them away. Five days later, Freedom Summer workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared in Neshoba County, Miss.
The trio had traveled to Longdale, Miss., to talk with congregation members of a Black church that had been burned. Local police arrested Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in a traffic stop for speeding and held them in jail for hours. After releasing them, law enforcement followed the three men out of town and pulled them over before they left Neshoba County. The investigation showed that members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Police Department and the Philadelphia, Miss., Police Department had abducted the men and murdered them.
The murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney fueled national backlash and a federal investigation called Mississippi Burning. The Mississippi State government refused to prosecute anyone involved in the case. In 1967, the federal government charged 18 people with civil-rights violations. Juries convicted seven and one pleaded guilty.
In 2005, the State charged Edgar Ray Killen with three counts of manslaughter and sentenced him to 60 years in prison for the killings. He died in prison in January 2018. State and federal authorities closed the case on June 20, 2016, without any additional prosecutions.
Law enforcement arrested Black Mississippians for having out-of-state license plates and for crimes they did not commit like using profanity, improperly using breaks, speeding and trespassing during 1964.
“On June 26, seven of my coworkers were arrested for passing out registration brochures on private property without a permit.” Wiley said. “The fact is, they had been handing out brochures in meetings in private homes.”
Remembering Emancipation in Lowndes County
Although slavery officially ended in the U.S. on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Columbus and Lowndes County to free enslaved people a month earlier on May 8, 1865. The Black community in Lowndes County has been celebrating the Eighth of May as Emancipation Day since then.
In late February 2005, Mississippi School for Math and Science student Renita Holmes suggested to her African American history teacher Chuck Yarborough that the school should honor Black History Month with a program. Since the month was almost over, Chuck told Renita about the Eighth of May and said she should come up with a program around that. MSMS has been hosting Eighth of May Emancipation Day celebrations for the past 19 years.
“I want you to think about the difference you can make, and this is for young people too. All you gotta do is stand up and use your voice,” Yarborough said to the crowd.
For the program this year, MSMS partnered with the Mississippi University for Women, the City of Columbus, the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System, Friendly City Books, Visit Columbus Mississippi, Sweet Peppers Deli, the Columbus Municipal School District, the Mississippi Department of Archives and Two Mississippi Museums.
MUW library dean Amanda Clay Powers reflected on the first community read, Clint Smith’s “How the Word is Passed,” and introduced the next community read, “First Gen: A Memoir” by Alejandra Campoverdi. The community read is aimed at connecting the university with the Lowndes County residents by reading a book together and discussing it in book club settings throughout the year.
MSMS students researched and acted as important figures from the 1800s in Columbus. The MSMS Blue Knightz and Blue Diamondz performed step-dance routines; the MSMS Blue Notes played “Strasbourg-St. Denis” and “Animato”; the Columbus High School Varsity Singers sang “Siyahamba” and “Marvelous Things”; and Columbus High student Vincent Young played “Lift Every Voice and Sing” on the cello. Holmes also led the community sing to close the evening with “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
The Fight for the Right to Vote
Wearing a gray suit jacket with a patterned gray vest, a white button-up shirt and black pants, MSMS student Ramse Jefferson appeared as Simon Mitchell, Sr., who was enslaved in Columbus and later became the city’s first Black police officer.
“I was in Columbus when Union troops arrived. That day was a day of profound hope and joy for me and a majority of this county,” he said as Mitchell.
About 71% of Columbus’ residents were enslaved in 1864 before the Union troops arrived. But the end of slavery did not mean the racial tensions lessened. Before and after Reconstruction, the decade after slavery ended, white Mississippians continued to commit violent acts toward Black people.
Jefferson said that Black Republicans were ambushed on the night before the 1875 state election by white people “who came to Columbus to prevent former slaves from voting.”
He said the white attackers killed four men and also injured a woman and several men that night. Black voters did not show up to vote in large droves as expected the next day; Jefferson said estimates predicted 3,800 Black people would vote, but only a fraction showed up.
From Enslavement to Education
Acting as the proud father of an accomplished businessman and author, MSMS student Maurice Hunter, Jr. wore a white button-up and black pants with a cream-colored apron tied on top.
Henry E. Baker, Sr. was born enslaved in Alabama and later moved to Columbus, Miss. He was the father of Henry Edward Baker, Jr., who was born enslaved in 1857, but was freed at age 7.
At age 16, Henry Baker, Jr. was the first Black Mississippian to be appointed to the Naval Academy. He faced discrimination at the academy, but he graduated and then went on to law school at Howard University and became the highest-ranked Black patent examiner in the U.S. patent industry.
“You see, Henry fought against those that said that Black people didn’t have anything to contribute to our nation,” Hunter said.
Henry Baker, Jr. founded a bank in Washington, D.C., and later wrote a book called “The Colored Inventions,” which documented 50 years of Black people’s inventions.
Light in the Darkness
MSMS student Kelstin Holmes acted as the Rev. Jesse Freeman Boulden, who was buried in 1899 in Sandfield Cemetery just yards away from where dozens of members of the community gathered to watch high schoolers perform historic reenactments on May 8, 2024.
Wearing a long black blazer over a black vest, black pants and a white button-up, Holmes projected Boulden’s lifelong goal of serving God through community activism.
“It is my firm belief that in true service to the Divine, that we transcend the boundaries of race, my brothers and sisters,” Holmes said. “Whether in the classroom, the pulpit or the editor desk, or even through the halls of legislation, I strive to be that beacon of light through the darkness of time.”
Boulden was born in 1820 in Delaware and later followed Union troops to Natchez, Miss., where he helped with the community’s spiritual needs. He also led the first celebration of emancipation in Natchez. He moved to Columbus in 1867 and became the pastor of the Missionary Union Baptist Church. The pastor opened the Freedmen’s Bureau School and enrolled more than 100 students in 1868.
The Freedmen’s Bureau helped formerly enslaved Black people and poor white people attend school, vote, negotiate contracts and buy property. It established Columbus’ Union Academy in 1865 as one of the first schools to educate Black Americans during Reconstruction before white violence began again limiting Black education in the region.
Boulden published The Baptist Reflector to amplify the voices of Black people and fight for equal rights. Lowndes County voters elected him to represent the county in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1870 to 1871. He became a founding member of Alcorn State University.
“I also ratified the 15th amendment to the Constitution, which gave African American men the right to vote,” Holmes said as Boulden.
Navigating the ‘Barriers of Jim Crow Segregation’
Adorned in a white dress and matching white hat, MSMS student Ivie Kirkland acted as Flora Ghist Stringer, who was born in 1920 in St. Louis, Mo., and grew up in her aunt’s home in Oxford, Miss., before settling in Columbus, Miss. She earned degrees from Columbia University and Alcorn State University.
“I navigated the barriers of Jim Crow segregation, where violence and prejudice constantly overshadowed the lives of the people in my community,” Kirkland said.
Flora Stringer taught at Union Academy, while her husband, Dr. Emmett Stringer, established a medical practice in Columbus. The Stringers founded the Columbus NAACP chapter, which soon became Mississippi’s largest chapter and registered Black people to vote. Emmett Stringer was the president of the Columbus chapter and went on to be the president of the state’s chapter in 1953.
That year, he looked for prospective Black students who could apply to the University of Mississippi. The effort resulted in Medgar Evers applying to UM’s law school, but the Oxford university would not desegregate until James Meredith applied in 1962. He recommended civil-rights activist Medgar Evers to serve as the NAACP’s first state field secretary; Emmett Stringer also organized responses to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.
The Stringers faced threats, harassment and stalking for their civil-rights work. Emmett Stringer was one of eight African American leaders on the KKK’s kill list. The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state organization dedicated to opposing civil rights, tracked the Stringers and reported their petition to integrate local schools in 1954.
Local banks canceled their loans with Emmett Stringer, his car insurance company stopped holding his policy and patients would stop him on the street and say they would not be returning to his medical practice. Union Academy fired Flora Stringer.
Emmett Stringer was one of the first Black residents to register to vote in Lowndes County. After stepping down as NAACP’s president, he worked closely with the organization and also became involved with the board of the Child Development Group of Mississippi.
“We’ve struggled and we stood strong because we knew our place in the world could not forever be determined by hatred or loss,” Kirkland said. “We’ve struggled and we stood strong because we know that the children will look up to us as guides.”