Transcript WELCOME! We’re so glad you could join us. Introduce Yourself Get Set Up 1. Adjust your volume using the speaker button (you should see a speaker.

WELCOME!
We’re so glad you could join us.
Introduce Yourself
Get Set Up
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Yes! This program will
be recorded.
We will make the recording,
handouts, and presentation
available to you.
JWA documents Jewish women's stories,
elevates their voices, and inspires them to be
agents of change.
Together we inspire students to consider
who they want to be and what impact they
want to have on the world.
Who is this?
What did she do?
Why did she do it?
Who am I?
What do I do/What do
I want to do?
Why do I do it?
GOALS

Explore the similarities and differences between
Northern and Southern Jewish experiences, and how
Jewish experiences and values informed women’s
participation in Wednesdays in Mississippi.

Examine the unique role of a women’s only organizing
project from a time period that is dominated by the
stories of male activists.

Get practical tools and resources for teaching about
Wednesdays in Mississippi in your community.

Discuss ways that this story could inspire activism or
critical conversations about social justice in your
community.
LESSON CONTEXT
Unit 1:
Personal Identity and Action
Unit 2:
Defining Activism and the
Civil Rights Movement
Unit 3:
Changes and Challenges
Living the Legacy home page
IDEAS FOR ADAPTING THIS LESSON
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Teach along with Freedom Summer
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Freedom Summer Lesson Plan
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Freedom Summer Online Learning Program Recording
Use the approach modeled in this program
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Give some background info (you can use this presentation!) about
Civil Rights and Freedom Summer
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Teach the WIMS-specific pieces of the lesson
Highlight Northern and Southern Jewish experiences
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The “Whys and the Why Nots” Synagogue Board Simulation
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WEDNESDAYS IN
MISSISSIPPI
“We have never sat together before, and we have decided
today that we will never be separated again. We have too
much work to do!”
–Clarie Harvey, National Council of Negro Women
REASONS FOR GOING SOUTH
The Holocaust
Jewish values relating to
social justice
Jews felt like outsiders and
empathized with Southern
African Americans
Escape/rebel against
upper/middle lass lifestyle
WHEN WAS WIMS?
1954
Brown v. Board
1960
Sit-in @ Woolworths in
Greensboro, NC
1955
Montgomery Bus
Boycott
1963
March on Washington,
John F. Kennedy and Medgar
Evers Assassinated
1961
Freedom Rides
1965
Voting Rights Act
1968
Martin Luther King, Jr.
and Robert Kennedy
Assassinated
1966
Black Power Movement
1964
Wednesdays in Mississippi &
Freedom Summer
Source: Chronology from Civil Rights—The 1960s Freedom Struggle by Rhoda Louis Blumberg
FREEDOM
SUMMER
Council of
Federated
Organizations
(COFO)
Student
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee
(SNCC)
Volunteer Profile
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Jews made up an estimated half of all white
Freedom Summer volunteers; less than 1%
of the US population at that time
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Northern volunteers were mostly white,
affluent; many college students. Southern
volunteers were mostly African American,
Christian, college students and working
class individuals from a diverse age range
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Stopped for training in Oxford, OH before
heading to different communities in the
South
“My husband, Michael Schwerner, did not die in vain. If he
and Andrew Goodman had been Negroes, the world would
have taken little notice of their deaths. After all, the slaying
of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my
husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the
national alarm has been sounded.”
Rita Schwerner
LETTER FROM A PARENT
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Letter to Vivian Rothstein (called “Chicky” by her father, the
author)
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German-Jewish descent, parents fled Nazi Germany
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Joined Civil Rights Movement while at UC Berkeley
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Recruited for Freedom Summer, spent 10 days in jail, then
went to work for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
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August 8, 1965
Dear Chicky,
As far as I can remember, I never could have tried to tell you that what you are doing
is wrong. This would by no means be in line with my social conscience or ethical
philosophy.
All what I tried to convey to you and as a matter of fact also to the parent committee
was, that within my knowledge of so very many revolutionary movements in Europe
and elsewhere I never came across a single fact where young girls have been sent
into the front and fireline, except maybe for the so called “children’s crusade”
during the middle ages, which ended in a catastrophe.
[…]
However, whatever the opinions are for ways and means to achieve results, risks
have to match possibilities of results and you should not construct your parents’
concern about your safety as a disapproval of your present activities.
Chicky, do not take unnecessary risks and that is all we ask for, that is all we can
ask for and if you even are able to do that we do not know and doubt it, but we hope
so with all our heart. Keep well, Chicky, and good luck to you.
All my love, Daddy
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.
What is Vivian’s father's concern about what she has chosen to do?
Knowing what you know about Freedom Summer, do you think her father
is justified? Why or why not?
2.
How do you think Vivian understands her father's concern? What is your
evidence?
3.
How do you think Vivian's father really feels about her choice? What is
your evidence?
4.
If you were a parent of a child going to Mississippi during the summer of
1964, how do you think you would have felt? What actions might you have
taken as a result of your feelings?
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
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Polly Cowan was a mother of two
freedom summer volunteers
(Paul and Geoff)
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Volunteered with the National
Council of Negro Women
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Worked closely with the NCNW
Director, Dr. Dorothy Height
Well, Polly [Cowan] knew of the work we were doing with some of the Head Start
people down in Mississippi… So she wrote and she said, ‘The word is out that all
of those young people going from Ivy League colleges are communists.’* And
she said, ‘My children are going, and I know there are other women who’d want
to kind of be there to support their children and to let it be known that we are
responsible people.’
She said, ‘I think if we could get the Cadillac crowd to do something I would call
Wednesdays in Mississippi, that they would prepare and go in on Tuesday, that
they would give some kind of a service.’ She said, ‘We don’t want them to go as
sightseers. They have to be willing to do something that furthers the movement.’
And then we would somehow find a way to get together and then come out on
Thursdays and go home, each one committed to doing something about civil
rights back in their community, but also helping to expose the conditions that
are affecting people in Mississippi…
Then we made a list of women that we thought of who would be very good. We
began to think of women who had skills, who could do something. Augusta
Baker, who was a librarian at the county library, we said, ‘She’s a good
storyteller. We would have her.’ We thought of women like [Ellen] Terry, said if we
had her, she’s a poet and she writes, and the like…
National
Council of
Jewish
Women
(NCJW)
National
Council of
Catholic
Women
(NCNW)
Young
Women’s
Christian
Association
(YWCA)
National
Council of
Negro
Women
(NCNW)
Wednesdays
in
Mississippi
Church
Women
United
League of
Women
Voters
American
Association
of University
Women
“These organizations feel that there is an appropriate framework for women
to render a valuable service for lessening the prospects for excessive
harassment of women and children in Mississippi this summer.”
BUDDY AND ELAINE
Beatrice “Buddy” Mayer
Elaine Crystal
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Northern Volunteer
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Southern Hostess
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Chicago, IL
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Jackson, MS
FILM CLIP:
PORTRAITS FROM WIMS
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Discussion Questions
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What do you think motivated each of these women to take part in
WIMS? What, if any, role does being Jewish seem to play in their
work?
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How do you think Buddy Mayer and Elaine Crystal represent and
defy stereotypes of Northerners and Southerners during the
1960s?
TEAM STRUCTURE
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
Before the Trip
During the Trip

Review study kit and
suggested reading
(before trip)
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Meet with local
hostess, gather
impressions
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Travel to Jackson,
Mississippi
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Visit Freedom
Summer Projects
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Meet-up with racerespective
representative and
other volunteers
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Share knowledge
about Civil Rights
efforts with hostess
appeal to her (and
her network) to take
action
After the Trip
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Write up debrief
including names of
potential allies or
opponents (don’t take
notes in front of the
hostess!)
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Reach out to home
community
FILM CLIP:
WOMEN’S ACTIVISM
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Discussion Questions
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The WIMS activists worked together across racial, geographic, and
class lines, but specifically limited their membership to women.
What do the WIMS volunteers see as the significance of women
working together?
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Do you find this aspect of their work significant? Why or Why not?
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Rabbi Rachel Cowan (Polly Cowan’s daughter-in-law) says that at
the time, she and other activists in SNCC thought that they were
more revolutionary than the WIMS women, but that looking back,
she sees the WIMS women as just as dangerous, if not more so.
How would you evaluate WIMS? What, if anything, do you think was
revolutionary and/or dangerous about these women?
TEXT STUDY- ORAL HISTORY
What were the motivations
and goals of Wednesdays in
Mississippi?
“The original purpose [of WIMS], as I understood it, was to give a sense of
legitimacy to these college kids, to our kids, not mine, but it was a pretty close
neighborhood. Those were our kids. … It sounded like a great idea to me…I felt
it was the right thing to do. First of all, I did have a real connection and a real
sympathy and interest in what the college kids were doing that year. I really did.
And if this was some help to them—and it was presented originally more as a
backup for the kids, and there’s no reason—for the same reason if one of the
kids in the neighborhood fell off his bike in front of your house, you picked him
up and brushed him off. That was the same thing. But of course, it developed to
be much more…
…Mostly we ate in each other’s homes. We didn’t go out for fancy meals at a
restaurant, and we did not take on the right to sit at the same soda fountain
kind of a thing. That’s not what we were after. That was an issue at the time,
too… Polly’s eyes were way above a shared soda. Am I right? And her eyes were
to support the kids and to help guarantee the right to vote and to live where you
wanted to live. I think that’s about as much as we could handle. That’s a big
bite at that time. It doesn’t sound like anything now.”
Excerpt from Sylvia Weinberg Radov Oral History
?

What aspects of the Wednesdays in Mississippi model for
activism seem most relevant/applicable today? What aspects
seem less relevant/applicable?
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What are the issues that galvanize your community, and the sub
communities within it?
TWERSKY AWARD

Win $2,500 plus $500 for your school or
program

For educators working with 6-12 grade
students

Submit an original lesson that creatively
uses primary sources

Demonstrate commitment to integrating
the stories and voices of Jewish women

Application also includes examples of
student work, cover letter, and resume

Deadline is May 12, 2014

http://jwa.org/twersky
WEDNESDAYS IN
MISSISSIPPI
Online Learning for Jewish Educators
Jewish Women’s Archive