Local People

In 1964, nearly a thousand volunteers went to Mississippi to work with veteran civil rights organizers and local people on various projects. The summer began with three Ku Klux Klan murders and ended with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party's challenge to the state's segregationist delegation. This definitive analytical history--well-written and well-researched--tells the dramatic story. Photos.

John Dittmer, a professor of history at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, is the author of Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920. From 1967 to 1979 he taught history at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
 

"The definitive analytical history of the black freedom movement in the nation's most recalcitrant state... An exciting and dramatic story of unknown heroes and heroines persevering over decades of quiet struggle against rampant terror." -- Julian Bond. "A gripping portrait of largely forgotten civil rights workers who forged racial change in the face of violence and murder." -- William Ferris, New York Times Book Review "A gripping portrait of largely forgotten civil rights workers who forged racial change in the face of violence and murder... Redefines the roles of national leaders who were forced to act by the unswerving determination of local people."--William Ferris, New York Times Book Review "At once the movement's history in microcosm and a powerful story in its own right."--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World "Dittmer's stirring history of the struggle for racial justice in Mississippi tells the story in all its grim, often shocking detail."--Publishers Weekly