Midterm Identification

Part 1: Identification

Bob Moses – Bob Moses was an activist who was born New York City, educated at Harvard and was a math teacher before going South to Mississippi. He joined the organization, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee in 1960 to organize voter campaigns. In Mississippi he focused his efforts in the impoverished Delta region of the state, and began to set up citizenship freedom schools and making connections with local residents. Drawing in local and national leadership from SNCC and the NAACP he helped organize “Freedom Summer” which brought outside helpers to assist with voter registration from around the country. His efforts increased the number of registered African American voters and radically altered the balance of power in all levels of state government.

The Summer Project – Originally conceived by Bob Moses with assistance from Amzie Moore, Charles Sherrod, James Foreman and Dave Dennis, the Summer Project sent invitations to thousands of northern college students to assist with voter registration in Mississippi. Between 1,000 and 3,000 volunteers, both black and white came from their respective institutions to live with black families all over the state. Poor and rural African Americans were educated in Freedom and citizenship schools at night while volunteers canvassed neighborhoods often at great personal risk to inform African Americans of their voting rights. The project proved to be an overwhelming success: the closed society had been infiltrated and local grassroots leadership was created to continue the practices started by the Summer Project. Furthermore, the Summer Project helped the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the first party to nominate African Americans since Reconstruction.

Brown II - After the landmark decision of Brown Versus the Board of Education ruled school segregation and “separate but equal” unconstitutional several ambiguities in the law remained. Southern resistance intensified in the wake of Brown when Southern governments claimed they would use the outdated Doctrine of Interposition. As a response, the Supreme Court modified the Brown decision by strengthening the wording and attempting to clarify the ambiguous language. Unfortunately, certain phrases left the Interpretation of Brown II up state and local government. The phrase that districts should desegregate with a “reasonable start, as soon as is practicable, and with good faith with compliance with all deliberate speed,” severely weakened the interpretation of the law.

Bayard Rustin – Bayard Rustin was a figure of the civil rights movement who remained largely under radar of national consciousness, yet played a crucial role in many of its most important organizations. Early in the modern civil rights struggle, Rustin founded CORE, an organization dedicated to ending racial hatred and segregation through non-violence and mass movements. Rustin proved to be an important advisor to Martin Luther King, who adopted Rustin’s strategy of non-violence as a framework for resistance to oppression in the newly formed SCLC. Rustin also oversaw many of the operations for the 1963 March on Washington insuring its success.