The Kids of Freedom Summer

Courtesy Syracuse University Press

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.