Letters from Mississippi

During the summer of 1964, a presidential election year, SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) sent volunteers into Mississippi to expand black voter registration in the state, to organize a legally constituted "Freedom Democratic Party" that would challenge the whites-only Mississippi Democratic party, to establish "freedom schools" to teach reading and math to black children, and to open community centers where individuals could obtain legal and medical assistance. 800 students gathered for a week-long orientation session at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, that June. They were mostly white and young, with an average age of 21. Letters from Mississippi is a collection of moving, personal letters written by volunteers of the summer. Out of print for thirty years, this edition contains new introductory remarks by its editor, Elizabeth Martinez and by Julian Bond, and is augmented with explanatory notes and never before published photographs. "Elizabeth Martinez's work comprises one of the most important living histories of progressive activism in the contemporary era. . . . [Martinez is] inimitable . . . irrepressible . . . indefatigable."-Angela Y. Davis Elizabeth Martinez is a Chicana writer, activist and teacher. She speaks on racism, multiculturalism, women's struggles and today's new movements. In the 1960s and 70s, she worked in the Black civil rights movement and the Chicano movement. She co-founded and currently chairs the Institute for MultiRacial Justice to help build alliances between communities of color. Martinez is the author of six books and numerous articles.Martinez, Elizabeth is the author of 'Letters from Mississippi', published 2002 under ISBN 9780939010714 and ISBN 0939010712.