WELCOME! We ’ re so glad you could join us.

WELCOME! We’re so glad you could join us. Get Set Up Introduce Yourself • Adjust your volume using the speaker button (you should see a speaker icon in the top, black menu of your meeting room). • Enable your microphone using the drop-down menu under the microphone icon. • Practice muting your microphone (the icon will be green with a line through it). Once the program begins, please leave it on mute when you are not speaking. • Enable your webcam if you would like other participants to be able to see you (the webcam icon will turn green). This is optional! • Practice raising and lowering your hand. This will allow you to ask questions without interrupting the flow of the program. • Locate the group chat pod (usually in the bottom right of the meeting room). • Introduce yourself by typing in some information: • Your name • Your job title/educational role • Your location • Feel free to ask questions or catch up with your colleagues until the program begins!

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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.

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 • Teach along with Freedom Summer • Freedom Summer Lesson Plan • Freedom Summer Online Learning Program Recording • Use the approach modeled in this program • Give some background info (you can use this presentation!) about Civil Rights and Freedom Summer • Teach the WIMS-specific pieces of the lesson • Highlight Northern and Southern Jewish experiences • The “Whys and the Why Nots” Synagogue Board Simulation

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? 1963March on Washington, John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers Assassinated 1968Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy Assassinated 1960Sit-in @ Woolworths in Greensboro, NC 1965Voting Rights Act 1954Brown v. Board 1955Montgomery Bus Boycott 1961Freedom Rides 1966Black Power Movement 1964Wednesdays 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 • Jews made up an estimated half of all white Freedom Summer volunteers; less than 1% of the US population at that time • 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 • 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 • Letter to Vivian Rothstein (called “Chicky” by her father, the author) • German-Jewish descent, parents fled Nazi Germany • Joined Civil Rights Movement while at UC Berkeley • Recruited for Freedom Summer, spent 10 days in jail, then went to work for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party • 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 • 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? • How do you think Vivian understands her father's concern? What is your evidence? • How do you think Vivian's father really feels about her choice? What is your evidence? • 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 • Polly Cowan was a mother of two freedom summer volunteers (Paul and Geoff) • Volunteered with the National Council of Negro Women • 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 Negro Women (NCNW) National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) Church Women United Wednesdays in Mississippi National Council of Catholic Women (NCNW) League of Women Voters American Association of University Women Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) “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 • Northern Volunteer • Chicago, IL • Southern Hostess • Jackson, MS

FILM CLIP: PORTRAITS FROM WIMS • Discussion Questions • 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? • 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 After the Trip • Review study kit and suggested reading (before trip) • Travel to Jackson, Mississippi • Meet-up with race-respective representative and other volunteers • Meet with local hostess, gather impressions • Visit Freedom Summer Projects • Share knowledge about Civil Rights efforts with hostess appeal to her (and her network) to take action • Write up debrief including names of potential allies or opponents (don’t take notes in front of the hostess!) • Reach out to home community

FILM CLIP: WOMEN’S ACTIVISM • Discussion Questions • 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? • Do you find this aspect of their work significant? Why or Why not? • 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? • 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 INMISSISSIPPI Online Learning for Jewish Educators Jewish Women’s Archive

WELCOME! We ’ re so glad you could join us.