Gracie Hawthorne Civil Rights Collection

Ms. Gracie Hawthorne was only seventeen when she began voter registration work during Freedom Summer in 1964. Ms. Hawthorne became involved with the Civil Rights Movement because she felt it was unfair to pay the same bus fare as whites only to be forced to sit in the back of the bus. Ms. Hawthorne who was a native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi and grew up in Newsman’s Quarter participated voter registration work in Canton, Jackson and Hattiesburg. While working in Canton, Ms. Hawthorne was arrested and almost lynched for her activism efforts. Ms. Hawthorne’s photo is on the cover of the book Faces of Freedom Summer that contains the photographs of Herbert Randall during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer.

The 1964 Freedom Summer Project (also called the Mississippi Summer Project) focused on establishing freedom schools, voter registration and building the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and was directed by civil rights activist Bob Moses. Volunteers from all over the country traveled to Mississippi to help achieve these goals and many of the volunteers were comprised of college age students, professionals, and clergy. The primary organization body responsible for organization efforts in Mississippi was the Council of Federated Organization (COFO) and it was mostly staffed by workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This collection would be of interest to a researcher interested in the Civil Rights Movement and the movement in Mississippi.