Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy

by Bruce Watson

Overview

A riveting account of one of the most remarkable episodes in American history.

In his critically acclaimed history Freedom Summer, award- winning author Bruce Watson presents powerful testimony about a crucial episode in the American civil rights movement. During the sweltering summer of 1964, more than seven hundred American college students descended upon segregated, reactionary Mississippi to register black voters and educate black children. On the night of their arrival, the worst fears of a race-torn nation were realized when three young men disappeared, thought to have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Taking readers into the heart of these remarkable months, Freedom Summer shines new light on a critical moment of nascent change in America.

"Recreates the texture of that terrible yet rewarding summer with impressive verisimilitude." -Washington Post

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143119432
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/31/2011
Pages:	392
Sales rank:	1,124,688
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bruce Watson is an award-winning journalist whose articles have been published in Smithsonian, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Examiner, Yankee Magazine, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003.

Table of Contents

Book 1 Crossroads 3

Prologue 5

Chapter 1 "There Is a Moral Wave Building" 15

Chapter 2 "Not Even Past" 38

Chapter 3 Freedom Street 56

Chapter 4 "The Decisive Battlefield for America" 77

Chapter 5 "It Is Sure Enough Changing" 105

Chapter 6 "The Scars of the System" 129

Interlude: "Another So-Called 'Freedom Day'" 152

Book 2 A Bloody Peace Written in the Sky 167

Chapter 7 "Walk Together, Children" 169

Chapter 8 "The Summer of Our Discontent" 191

Chapter 9 "Lay by Time" 215

Chapter 10 "The Stuff Democracy Is Made Of" 237

Chapter 11 "Give unto Them Beauty for Ashes" 262

Epilogue 277

Acknowledgments 301

Notes 303

Bibliography 341

Index 353

Editorial Reviews

"Recreates the texture of that terrible yet rewarding summer with impressive verisimilitude."
-Washington Post

"Remarkable...a well-researched, vivid retelling of the 1964 civil rights crusade to put Mississippi's 200,000 disenfranchised blacks on the voting rolls...[an] important book."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"Elegantly written...A fascinating look at ordinary people at their best and worst...Riveting."
-Richmond Times-Dispatch

"An amazing account of one pivotal summer in the history of civil rights...with a thriller's pacing, the book forcefully describes the depravity and treachery behind the bombings, beatings and intimidation...and shows the physical and emotional costs of such a fight."
-The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Engrossing"
-The Economist

From the Publisher