The other group at a different restaurant was ignored by the management when they occupied two tables, but not by the patrons, or one particular patron, who was big enough and strong enough to throw each of them out the door as they endeavored to stay non-violent. One white, female civil rights worker was thrown through the plate glass door, ripping open the skin of her thigh. At the local hospital the white doctor stitched her up, then yelled at her to get out and never come back.

It’s always easier to write about the causes of fear than every-day drudgery, and the author’s descriptions of these scares and others make her summer sound exciting — in both senses of the word. She does this as though she’s writing a novel; her account of these events is gripping. But in the long run it’s the drudge work that counts. 

That drudge work produced some sweet moments. One that Sherie cherishes still was when Rebecca Crawford learned how to write her name. Another was taking 150 people to the courthouse to register to vote on the only registration day in July. Or when local blacks packed the courtroom to see that one of them got a fair trial, before being thrown out by the magistrate who didn’t want to be part of "a show."

There were also some comic moments, such as when the FBI showed up to investigate the church burning, and the South Carolina police asked the project workers what they did to cause someone to burn down a church and a school. Or when the sheriff arranged for them to be served in one of the restaurants they had been thrown out of to avoid a threatened lawsuit.

At the end of the summer she left wondering if she had accomplished anything. The obvious success of taking several hundred people to be registered that summer was outweighed by her guilt over the church and school burnings. That summer had left a permanent impact on her life; what had it done for the people she worked with? These questions were on her mind when she returned to South Carolina a few years ago to talk to the people she had worked with (some of whom she had stayed in touch with over the years) and find out what they had done with their lives. 

Sherie Holbrook  came away reassured that the summer project had made a difference. At the very least it gave local blacks a sense of hope, a feeling that others cared about them, and a belief that change was possible. "Once we got the votin’ fever" one said, things just had to change.

©2011 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

Pages: 1 · 2

More Articles

• Stand Your Ground: The 23 States That Have Sweeping Self-Defense Laws Just Like the State of Florida
• "Women Were In It From the Beginning"
• Another Account of the Second Freedom Summer
• Consider CultureWatch's Four Gift Book Suggestions: Murder, Assassination, Racial Hatred and Ageism
• Women Were the Foundation of the Civil Rights Movement
• President Obama Meets Civil Rights Icon Ruby Bridges
• The "most notorious liar in the country" Gets a Memorial on the Mall
• Alabama Machiavelli, Review of Stealth Reconstruction: An Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History
• Book Review of We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi
• Book Review: The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement