http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/the_kids_of_freedom_summer_070109/
by Jonathan O'Keefe
July 1, 2009
In 1964, Tracy Sugarman began participating in and covering the
Freedom Summer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
His reporting and illustrations are captured in "We Had Sneakers,
They Had Guns" (Syracuse University Press, 2009, $34.95). The book
focuses on SNCC's campaign to educate and help the black community
register to vote. More than 1,000 SNCC freedom riders traveled from
Ohio to the Mississippi Delta to participate in the project. During
his journey, Sugarman interviewed civil-rights leaders, SNCC members
and locals about the events unfolding in their region.
"We Had Sneakers" gives readers insight into the emotion and hardship
young freedom riders faced to promote justice and equality in
Mississippi. Sugarman tells about the Nightriders shooting up homes,
burning churches and lynching some of the black leaders in the area.
Many of the students from the North had never witnessed the brutal
violence toward the black community in the South, which made the
struggle to fight for their cause greater. Sugarman shows the
treatment of the students by the opposition as harsh and unjustified.
He informs how the students were constantly harassed, arrested,
beaten by police and how three of the students were killed.
The author separates the book into four parts, beginning with "The
Long, Hot Summer, 1964," which tells about the actual clash between
civil-rights leaders and the opposition. During this time, Congress
passed the Civil Rights Act, but the struggle against Sen. James
Eastland for voters' rights was still an issue. Throughout the book,
Sugarman dedicates chapters to individuals who significantly affected
the movement in a significant way, including Charles McLaurin and Len Edwards.
The book concludes with "Mississippi, October 2001," where Sugarman
takes readers along as he revisits Mississippi and his reconnection
with the summer he will always remember. He will return, yet again,
July 7 for a book-signing event at the Jackson State University
Liberal Arts Gallery at 4:15 p.m. Free; call 601-979-1562.
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