WSB-TV newsfilm clip of a press conference with Bob Moses and James Forman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee about the upcoming Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

In this WSB newsfilm clip from the spring of 1964, Bob Moses and James Forman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) hold a press conference about plans for the upcoming Mississippi Freedom Summer.

The clip begins with three African Americans sitting at a table with microphones in front of them. James Forman sits at the right end of the table; Bob Moses is in the middle; and the individual on the left is unidentified. For a time Moses appears to speak, but his comments are not recorded. Later, a newsman adjusts dials on a piece of equipment.

During the audio portion of the clip, Moses speaks about the Mississippi Freedom Summer and explains that civil rights organizations working together on the project hope to send over one thousand "teachers, ministers, lawyers, and students from all around the country" to help. Moses outlines the components of the project, including Freedom Schools, community programs, voter registration, research, and work in the white community. Moses expresses civil rights workers' desire to "get the country to actually take a look at Mississippi." He also indicates that they hope to bring "real change in the state" and to help African Americans vote in the 1964 election. Moses points out that with the ratification of the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which ruled poll taxes illegal in federal elections, African Americans in Mississippi should be able to vote in the 1964 presidential election. The 24th Amendment was ratified on January 23, 1964. The only state to reject the amendment was Mississippi, which was one of five states with a poll tax when the amendment was ratified.

Mississippi Freedom Summer was a cooperative effort of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) under the direction of the local coalition of civil rights organizations, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). The project was headed by Bob Moses of SNCC and David Dennis of CORE and brought over one thousand students to over eighty counties in Mississippi beginning in June 1964.

Title supplied by cataloger.