This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) demanding representation at the Democratic National Convention, one of the most important struggles for real democracy in this country's history. Unlike the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, the national news has made little mention of this historic event. Please read and share our Teaching for Change article, published with Rethinking Schools for the Zinn Education Project, "'Is This America?': 50 Years Ago Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation" and the role play we wrote for teaching about the MFDP.

As students return to school in these next few weeks, another topic for every classroom should be the roots of the crisis and the lessons we can learn from Ferguson. Here are resources for Teaching About Ferguson.

Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary

Timothy L. Jenkins

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. One of our board members, Timothy L. Jenkins, gave a moving speech at the commemorative events at Tougaloo College in June. He noted:

In Freedom Summer, we moved beyond human rights as sentiment to translate those rights into moral action. . . . Our pledge was to end white ignorance concerning all that was everyday black knowledge. And that struggle continues fiercely in the high and low courts of our land as well as in the hearts and minds of the people. Read more.

Share the Lessons of
Freedom Summer

Encourage everyone you know to read "'Is This America?': 50 Years Ago Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation"
Donate to receive your "Ask Me About Freedom Schools" button
Check out resources for teaching about Freedom Schools

Teaching Civil Rights in Mississippi

	Students from Mississippi Visit D.C. We hosted a group of McComb, Mississippi students for the third annual educational journey to D.C. They met high school students in D.C., shared their work at the African American Civil War Museum, spoke on WPFW, and much more.
	Plans for Mississippi Teacher Fellowship Thanks to a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we are launching a program to support teaching about the civil rights movement and labor history in Mississippi. A planning meeting was held at Tougaloo College last week.
	Julian Hipkins III Joins Teaching for Change Staff Award-winning high school teacher Julian Hipkins III is joining the Teaching for Change staff as the Civil Rights Movement and Labor History Initiative for Mississippi Project Director and overall Teaching for Change Curriculum Specialist.

Book Awards and Events


We are pleased to announce that Teaching for Change board member Michael J. O'Brien's book, We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth Sit-In and the Movement it Inspired, won a 2014 Lillian Smith Book Award.		We look forward to a very special event with Charles E. Cobb on September 24 at 6:30pm for This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.

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Photo credit for top image with Victoria Gray in Atlantic City, George Ballis/Take Stock