Lessons from Freedom Summer: Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Movenments

“Can we bring teachers and students together, not through the artificial sieve of certification and examination, but on the basis of their common commitment to an exciting social goal? Can we solve the old educational problem of how to teach children crucial values, while avoiding a blanket imposition of the teacher’s ideas? People Make Movements asks the questions that get at the heart of what education should be about.”—Howard Zinn, from the introduction

“Part history text, part curriculum, part invitation to activism, when our students consider who ‘we’ are, People Make Movements will provide important insights. Every social studies or language arts teacher can benefit from this new resource.”—Bill Bigelow, editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and author of The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration

“By looking at past achievements, all the human connections made in the struggle against racism, and the possibilities ahead, the message comes across: You Are History.”—Elizabeth Martinez, editor of Letters from Mississippi

People Make Movements provides the historical context to the Freedom Schools of Mississippi in 1964. It tells the story of how the four major civil rights organizations ended up joining together in Mississippi to break the back of segregation in the South. It is a case study illustrating important elements that are crucial to the success of a social movement. It behooves social justice advocates today to know these lessons if we are to contribute to the creation of the next social movement.