Miami remembers Freedom Summer with a photography exhibition

The Spotlight Tours of Miami University hosted a celebration and commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, titled “Through Their Lens; Photographing Freedom Summer.”

On Wednesday, Oct. 16, Jason Shaiman, curator of exhibitions, dedicated a speech to the deep emotional connection between The Richard and Carole Cocks Museum and Freedom Summer.

Freedom Summer was a project during the Civil Rights movement that sought to register as many Black voters as possible. It began in Mississippi, where hundreds of registered white voters volunteered their time to protect Black voters from violence at the polls.

Shaiman said only about 5% of Black people living in Mississippi were registered to vote, even though they accounted for a majority of the population in the 1960s. The training for these volunteers took place at the former Western College for Women, which is located behind the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum.

“I like to think that it's very likely that volunteers were traipsing the very grounds the museum was built on,” Shaiman said. “Where we are walking, they were walking.”

The commemoration focused on photographic work by Danny Lyon, the first official photographer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Shaiman said Lyon was responsible for producing the public relations photos for Freedom Summer. His work cultivated roughly 800 volunteers to travel to Oxford.

The photographs show Freedom Summer volunteers on Miami grounds. One photograph shows volunteers packing a car for a trip to Mississippi with the front of Clawson Hall in the distance.

Shaiman said the main training events for Freedom Summer took place in Oxford. The training was originally planned to occur at Berea College in Kentucky, but was relocated to Oxford after a disagreement with the college. Shaiman added that Miami was not supportive of the training occurring on campus grounds.

Shaiman said the dedication towards Freedom Summer reminds Miami students of their opportunities as free voters. She stressed that the right to vote is an essential human right, and hopes that students take democracy seriously.

“I know a lot of students won’t go home to vote where they are registered, and they often forget about absentee ballots, but thinking about the sacrifices the people made at this time to make that happen, that needs to be taken very seriously,” Shaiman said. “People’s lives were on the line.”

The reactions of students who attended the commemoration found Shaiman’s speech directly relatable to today’s current voting culture. Sam Hammond, an undergraduate student at Miami, felt the speech reminded him to vote with a more educated mindset.

“I think a lot of people take [voting] for granted nowadays,” Hammond said. “They just don't put in the effort to go do it.”

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Emma Smith, another undergraduate student who attended the commemoration, said she feels that there is hope for the younger generation of college students.

“I think that we’ve seen growing voter registration, but I think there’s definitely more that can be done,” Smith said.

olivasid@miamioh.edu