Freedom Summer 1964

Side A: In what was called the “Freedom Summer” of 1964, more than 800 volunteers, most of them college students, gathered at the Western College for Women (now Western Campus of Miami University) to prepare for African-American voter registration in the South. Three of the volunteers – James Chaney of Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner of New York – disappeared on June 21, 1964, in rural Mississippi mere days after leaving Oxford, Ohio. Their bodies were discovered forty-four days later, buried in an earthen dam. Ku Klux Klan members were later convicted on federal conspiracy charges. Erected in 1999, this outdoor amphitheater is a memorial to the slain activists, other volunteers, and ideals of the Freedom Summer movement. Side B: Same