For a Voice and the Vote

In this detailed memoir of political action, a civil rights volunteer recounts her experience with the MFDP during 1964's Freedom Summer. During the summer of 1964, hundreds of American college students descended on Mississippi to help the state's African American citizens register to vote. Student organizers, volunteers, and community members canvassed black neighborhoods to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a group that sought to give a voice to black Mississippians despite the terror and intimidation they faced. In For a Voice and the Vote, author Lisa Anderson Todd gives a fascinating insider's account of her experience volunteering in Greenville, Mississippi, when she participated in organizing the MFDP. The party provided political education, ran candidates for office, and offered participation in local and statewide meetings for blacks who were denied the vote. For Todd, it was an exciting, dangerous, and life-changing experience. Offering the first full account of the group's five days in Atlantic City, the book draws on primary sources, oral histories, and the author's personal interviews of individuals who were supporters of the MFDP in 1964.