Wednesdays in Mississippi: Proper Ladies Working for Radical Change, Freedom Summer 1964
Debbie Z. Harwell
Abstract
When you think about civil rights activists, do you picture middle-aged, middle-class northern women in white gloves and tidy dresses meeting for coffee with their southern counterparts? This book tells the story of a group of women who did exactly that. As the civil rights movement reached a fevered pitch during Freedom Summer, Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS) brought interfaith, interracial teams of northern women to Jackson, Mississippi, to meet with southern women to challenge injustice and open lines of communication where others had failed. By presenting themselves as proper ladies, the ... More
When you think about civil rights activists, do you picture middle-aged, middle-class northern women in white gloves and tidy dresses meeting for coffee with their southern counterparts? This book tells the story of a group of women who did exactly that. As the civil rights movement reached a fevered pitch during Freedom Summer, Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS) brought interfaith, interracial teams of northern women to Jackson, Mississippi, to meet with southern women to challenge injustice and open lines of communication where others had failed. By presenting themselves as proper ladies, the Wednesdays women effectively built bridges of understanding across race, region, and religion, demonstrating women’s power to advance social action by exploiting their gender, age, and class. Sponsored by the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), WIMS was the only civil rights project organized by women for women as part of a national women’s organization. This book offers a new paradigm through which to study civil rights activism. It explores how religion influenced the attitudes of both supporters and opponents of civil rights in Mississippi. It confirms that the NCNW involved itself in civil rights work by promoting integration and black voting rights as well as by addressing poverty, hunger, education, housing, and employment. Challenging the view of Freedom Summer activists as young, student radicals working alongside poor blacks, this book demonstrates the effectiveness of women presenting themselves as proper ladies all the while working for radical change.
Keywords:
Civil rights,
Wednesdays in Mississippi,
Women’s activism,
Freedom Summer,
National Council of Negro Women
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781628460957 |
| Published to University Press of Mississippi: May 2015 |
DOI:10.14325/mississippi/9781628460957.001.0001 |
