Letters from Mississippi offers a riveting, personal and multi-faceted narrative of the dramatic events that took place during the summer of 1964, "Freedom Summer," when hundreds of people came to Mississippi to volunteer with the Mississippi Summer Voting Project. The book covers the disappearance and murder of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the Freedom Schools, the violence and tensions at voting registration centers, and the political struggles in the halls of power.
The original publication of Letters from Mississippi in 1965 was an immediate record of the mostly white volunteers in the Mississippi Summer Voting Project of 1964 ("Freedom Summer"). It went out of print in 1970. Zephyr Press' 2002 edition took the original text and placed it in a context of the history of the civil rights movement, of the broader scene in Mississippi during that summer, and of the subsequent lives of the volunteers. That edition has become a staple in studies of the civil rights movement, but it still focuses mostly on the "outsiders" in their Mississippi communities. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes: expanded biographical notes from previous editions, additional biographies of contributors to the original book, expanded notes, a filmography, and 40 pages of poetry written in the Freedom Schools by Mississippi students in 1964. The result is a wider resource for scholarship as well as for a general understanding of this critical moment in civil rights history.
Elizabeth Martínez (1925-2021), edited and wrote the preface for Letters from Mississippi. She published six books and numerous articles on popular struggles in the Americas including De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century.
Julian Bond (1940-2015) wrote the introduction to the book. He served four terms on the NAACP National Board and was chairman from 1998 to 2010. He was president of the Atlanta NAACP from 1978 until 1989.
Elizabeth Martinez was a social justice activist who published six books and numerous articles on popular struggles in the Americas including De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century. Her anti-racist work began in 1960, and became full-time when she travelled to Mississippi for the 1964 Summer Project for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later joining its staff. She moved to New Mexico in 1968 to found a Chicano Movement newspaper and later the Chicano Communications Center. Also involved in the women's and anti-Viet Nam war movements, she later moved to the Bay Area where she worked as an anti-racist workshop organizer, adjunct professor, mentor to youth groups, and director of the Institute for MultiRacial Justice to help develop alliances among people of color.
Julian Bond served for twenty years — first as a representative and then as a senator — in the Georgia State legislature. He served four terms on the NAACP National Board and as its Board Chairman from 1998 to 2010. He was President of the Atlanta NAACP from 1978 until 1989. He was President Emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center and served on its Board.
