In ear­ly June, the West­ern Col­lege for Women in Oxford, Ohio, wel­comed vol­un­teers for Free­dom Sum­mer. The par­tic­i­pants came from diverse back­grounds and states, with a major­i­ty being white and male. The train­ing empha­sized real and poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous sce­nar­ios, recre­at­ing the atmos­phere of activism John Lewis had expe­ri­enced five years ear­li­er. His­tor­i­cal fig­ures like Fan­nie Lou Hamer and Bayard Rustin led ses­sions, empha­siz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of non­vi­o­lence and mutu­al respect, not just in polit­i­cal con­texts but per­son­al ones.

Con­cern over poten­tial vio­lence loomed large. Lewis and oth­ers were warned that they might nev­er return home, fore­shad­ow­ing the dan­ger they would face. Ten­sions in dis­cus­sions illu­mi­nat­ed dif­fer­ing opin­ions with­in the group regard­ing the move­men­t’s direc­tion. Despite the wor­ries, Lewis felt encour­aged by the uni­ty between the Stu­dents Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC) and the Con­gress of Racial Equal­i­ty (CORE) dur­ing train­ing.

Just days into Free­dom Sum­mer, trag­ic news emerged: three civ­il rights workers—Mickey Schw­ern­er, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman—went miss­ing in Nesho­ba Coun­ty. They had been inves­ti­gat­ing a church burn­ing and were arrest­ed under false pre­tens­es by the local deputy, Cecil Price. After their release, they van­ished, prompt­ing fears for their safe­ty and rapid media atten­tion on the cri­sis. As search­es by both fed­er­al agents and locals ensued, the men’s car was dis­cov­ered burned and sub­merged in a creek, rais­ing the alarm about their fate.

Lewis’s arrival in Merid­i­an revealed a scene of height­ened ten­sion; police pres­ence was over­whelm­ing, and offi­cials denied knowl­edge of any wrong­do­ing. Heart­break­ing­ly, the men’s bod­ies were lat­er dis­cov­ered buried under an earth­en dam. Lewis griev­ed for the men, grap­pling with the real­iza­tion of the vio­lence that those try­ing to reg­is­ter Black vot­ers faced. Pub­lic out­rage surged, although Lewis not­ed that media atten­tion was often disproportionate—showing a stark racial bias in soci­ety’s empa­thy regard­ing who had gone miss­ing.

While the strug­gle for civ­il rights con­tin­ued, demon­strat­ing how entrenched racial divi­sions were, Lewis remained com­mit­ted to activism. He under­stood the vital role advo­ca­cy played in con­fronting injus­tices, despite the threats and vio­lence that they led to. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the polit­i­cal land­scape forced civ­il rights activists to nav­i­gate com­plex chal­lenges, includ­ing how to uni­fy the move­ment while respond­ing to nation­al issues and local vio­lence against Black cit­i­zens. The chap­ter con­cludes with a reflec­tion on the deep and painful impli­ca­tions of the Free­dom Summer—a piv­otal cam­paign chang­ing the tra­jec­to­ry for civ­il rights in the Unit­ed States .