¹ The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the New York City affiliate of the AFT. In the historical record, the Prince Edward Freedom Schools are sometimes depicted as a UFT initiative, and other times as an AFT initiative. For a list of teaching volunteers, see AFT Teacher's Roster, Prince Edward County, Virginia, United Federation of Teachers Papers, series 2, subseries 2A, box 21, folder 5, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (hereafter UFT Papers).Google Scholar

² See, for example, Winifred Breines, The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

³ John Egerton, “A Gentleman's Fight in Prince Edward County, Virginia,” in Shades of Gray: Dispatches from the Modern South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 124.Google Scholar

⁴ Christopher Bonastia, Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012). See also Jill Ogline Titus, Brown's Battleground: Students, Segregationists and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).Google Scholar

⁵ Kara Miles Turner, “‘Liberating Lifescripts’: Prince Edward County, Virginia, and the Roots of Brown v. Board of Education,” in From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court: Brown v. Board of Education and American Democracy, ed. Peter F. Lau (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 88–104.Google Scholar

⁶ August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, “The Origins of Nonviolent Direct Action in Afro-American Protest: A Note on Historical Discontinuities,” in Along the Color Line: Explorations in the Black Experience, ed. August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 309–494.Google Scholar

⁷ See, for example, R. Scott Baker, Paradoxes of Desegregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926–1972 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2006); and David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994).Google Scholar

⁸ Christopher Bonastia, Southern Stalemate. Edward Peeples, a sociologist and activist who published the first scholarly account of the closings, graciously shared his estimates of lockout victims following the January 8, 2007 interview with author.Google Scholar

⁹ Three black women in the Prospect District of the county ran what were essentially underground schools during the closings. See Amy Tillerson-Brown, “‘Grassroots Schools’ and Training Centers in the Prospect District of Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1959–1964,” in The Educational Lockout of African Americans in Prince Edward County (1959–1964): Personal Accounts and Reflections, ed. Terence Hicks and Abul Pitre (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Christopher Bonastia, Southern Stalemate. See also Christopher Bonastia, “White Justifications for School Closings in Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1959–1964,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 6, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 309–33.Google Scholar

¹¹ Bonastia, Southern Stalemate; Titus, Brown's Battleground. Google Scholar

¹² “Text of Supreme Court's Decision Ordering Virginia County to Reopen Its Schools,” New York Times, May 26, 1964, 26.Google Scholar

¹³ Michael W. Fuquay, “Civil Rights and the Private School Movement in Mississippi, 1964–1971,” History of Education Quarterly 42, no. 2 (June 2002), 159–80; and Kenneth T. Andrews, “Movement-Countermovement Dynamics and the Emergence of New Institutions: The Case of ‘White Flight’ Schools in Mississippi,” Social Forces 80, no. 3 (March 2002), 911–36.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Bonastia, Southern Stalemate.Google Scholar

¹⁵ John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 113. See also Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). SNCC activists also had strong ties to the Highlander Center in Tennessee, which emphasized that oppressed people needed to analyze their problems collectively and experientially to devise responses to their oppression. See Daniel Perlstein, “Teaching Freedom: SNCC and the Creation of the Mississippi Freedom Schools,” History of Education Quarterly 30, no. 3 (October 1990), 297–324.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Daniel Perlstein, “Teaching Freedom”; Jon Hale, “‘The Student As a Force for Social Change’: The Mississippi Freedom Schools and Student Engagement,” Journal of African American History 96, no. 3 (Summer 2011), 325–47; Clarence Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Leonard Buder, “Boycott Cripples City Schools,” New York Times, February 4, 1964, 1; “225,000 Pupils Out in Chicago Rally,” New York Times, October 23, 1963, 1.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Noel Day, “The Freedom Movement in Boston,” Equity & Excellence in Education 2, no. 6 (December 1964), 11–23.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door, 135. These same issues would arise in the heated battle over community control in the late 1960s.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Robert Trumbull, “Freedom School Staffs Varied But Classes Followed Pattern,” New York Times, February 4, 1964, 21.Google Scholar

²⁰ Draft memo, Mark Levy to Queens College Public Relations, May 15, 1989, box 1, folder 2, Mark Levy Collection, Department of Special Collections and Archives, Queens College, City University of New York (hereafter Levy Collection).Google Scholar

²¹ Michael Wenger, telephone interview with author. All author interviews were conducted in 2012 and 2013, unless otherwise noted. The QC chapter was originally affiliated with the NAACP, but later changed to a CORE chapter. With its national headquarters located in New York City, CORE had a particularly active presence there during the early 1960s, with the number of affiliated chapters increasing from three in early summer to fifteen by fall. CORE chapters demonstrated against businesses that employed few or no blacks, poor conditions in slum housing, and school segregation, among other issues. See August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942–1968 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

²² Student Help Project, “A Summer in Prince Edward County,” n.d., box 1, folder 10, Michael Wenger Collection, Department of Special Collections and Archives, Queens College, City University of New York (hereafter Wenger Collection). The South Jamaica project grew quickly, eventually involving roughly 500 QC volunteer teachers and 1,200 students.Google Scholar

²³ Northern Student Movement Records, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/scmmg679.pdf.Google Scholar

²⁴ “College Students to Teach Virginia Segregation Victims,” Queens College Phoenix, February 19, 1963, 3; Phoenix, “To Old Virginny” (editorial), February 19, 1963, 8.Google Scholar

²⁵ Stan Shaw, telephone interview with author. McCarty and Friedman subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Project for reasons that are unclear.Google Scholar

²⁶ Leonard Hausman, telephone interview with author.Google Scholar

²⁷ Brian E. Lee and Brian J. Daugherity, “Program of Action: The Rev. L. Francis Griffin and the Struggle for Racial Equality in Farmville, 1963,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 121, no. 3 (July 2013), 250–87.Google Scholar

²⁸ Rachel Weddington to Reverend L. Francis Griffin, June 19, 1963, box 1, folder 19, Wenger Collection.Google Scholar

²⁹ Carolyn Hubbard Kamunanwire, telephone interview with author; Henry McLaughlin, “Teachers Call First Farmville Day Fine,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 17, 1963, 6; Ponsie Hillman, “Prince Edward County Freedom Schools Teachers Discuss Segregation Fight in 1963,” You Tube video, 44: 12, group video interview with Ponsie Hillman, Ruth Feldblet, Norma Becker and Janice Goldsmith-Bastuni, 2004, posted by the Albert Shanker Institute, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCAL9yxAnIs (hereafter UFT 2004 interview). Becker died in 2006 and Hillman died in 2008.Google Scholar

³⁰ “Meet the Players,” Freedom Riders (Boston, WGBH, 2010), http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/full_roster.Google Scholar

³¹ Jonna Perrillo, Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and Race in the Battle for School Equity (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 3.Google Scholar

³² The Guild was formed in 1935 as “an anti-Communist breakaway organization” from the Teachers Union. In 1940, the AFT expelled the Teachers Union for its Communist affiliations. The Guild received the AFT's charter the following year. See Richard D. Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

³³ Jonna Perrillo, Uncivil Rights; United Federation of Teachers, 50 Years, http://www.uft.org/files/attachments/uft-50-years-book.pdf.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid.Google Scholar

³⁵ Shaw, interview.Google Scholar

³⁶ Robert L. Green et al., The Educational Status of Children in a District without Public Schools (East Lansing: Bureau of Educational Research, College of Education, Michigan State University, 1964), 1; “School Bid Rejected,” New York Times, June 25, 1961, 79; “Negro School Plan Starts in Virginia,” New York Times, July 4, 1961, 13; Claude Sitton, “Negro Pupils Get Help in Virginia,” New York Times, July 10, 1961, 21; “Prince Edward County Negroes Demand Reopening of Schools,” Southern School News, August 1963, 14; Ruth Turner, “Educational Report: SCM SCEP 1962,” Special Collection on AFSC Work in Prince Edward County, Virginia, box 1962, folder 38333, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Archives (hereafter AFSC Papers); Ross Weeks Jr., “N.Y. Group Begins Registering Students,” Richmond News Leader, July 15, 1963, 4; Bill Wall, “Emphasis on Basic Fundamentals in Summer Classes for Negro Students,” Farmville Herald, July 13, 1962, 1. During the three years, according to Green, 38 percent of eligible Prince Edward children surveyed attended for at least one summer, while only 6 percent attended all three summers.Google Scholar

³⁷ William Bennett to “Marjorie,” July 4, 1963, box 1, folder 21, Wenger Collection.Google Scholar

³⁸ David Rudenstine to “Marty,” April 22, 1963, box 1, folder 20, Wenger Collection; David Rudenstine, interview with author.Google Scholar

³⁹ Wenger, interview.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Sidney Simon to Friends of Virginia Student Help Project, April 1, 1963, box 1, folder 10, Wenger Collection.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Michael R. Wenger and Stan F. Shaw, “Northerners in a Jim Crow World: Queens College Summer Experience,” in Hicks and Pitre, Educational Lockout. Google Scholar

⁴² Richard Parrish, “Facts about AFT Education Project, Prince Edward County,” Richard Parrish Additions 2, box 1, folder 20, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library (hereafter Parrish Additions 2).Google Scholar

⁴³ “Why Harlem Teacher Is Joining Task Force to Aid Negroes in Virginia,” New York Post, July 11, 1963.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ AFT Teacher's Roster, UFT Papers; Richard Parrish, “Prince Edward County Story,” August 1963, folder 15, Parrish Additions 2; “Facts about AFT Education Project,” Parrish Additions 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ponsie Hillman, Norma Becker, and Janice Goldsmith-Bastuni, UFT 2004 interview; June Tauber and Deborah Yaffee, interview with author; Jean Stein (Konzal), “Undated Speech Given by Jean Stein upon Return from Prince Edward County,” box 1, Jean Konzal Collection, Department of Special Collections and Archives, Queens College, City University of New York (hereafter Konzal Collection).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hausman, interview.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Stan Shaw, “Prince Edward County Chronicle,” July 20, 1963 (Shaw kindly shared a copy of his journal with the author); Wenger, interview; Phyllis Padow-Sederbaum interview with author; UFT 2004 interview. See also Wenger and Shaw, “Northerners in a Jim Crow World.”Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hausman, interview.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Parrish, “Facts about AFT Education Project”; Ray Abrams, “Youngsters Demonstrate,” Richmond Afro American, August 10, 1963.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Norma Becker and Ruth Feldblet, UFT 2004 interview.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ina Gold (QC student) quoted in Henry McLaughlin, “Teachers Call First Farmville Day Fine,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 17, 1963, 6. UFT teachers in the 2004 interview also recalled playing this game with students.Google Scholar

⁵² “LI ‘Teachers’ Say They Learned Most,” Long Island Press, August 1963 (exact date unknown), filed in box 2, folder 1, Wenger Collection.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Perlstein, “Teaching Freedom.”Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Sandra E. Adickes, The Legacy of a Freedom School (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 30.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Hubbard, interview.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Abrams, “Youngsters Demonstrate.”Google Scholar

⁵⁸ “And They Were Here …” (editorial), Farmville Herald, August 30, 1963, 1C.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ruth Turner to Jean Fairfax, August 2, 1963, box 1963, folder 38544, AFSC Papers.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid.; Bonastia, Southern Stalemate. Turner had also been a member of the SCEP group that taught in the county in 1962.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Erwin Knoll, “A Quiet Summer Night in Farmville,” July 19, 1963, 1, filed in box 1, Konzal Collection. Although the publisher of the article is not entirely clear, it appears to be the Long Island Press. Google Scholar

⁶² Parrish, “Facts about AFT Education Project.”Google Scholar

⁶³ Hillman, UFT 2004 interview. The teachers recalled singing “We Shall Overcome” and “We Are Soldiers,” among other songs.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Stan Shaw Journal, August 5, 1963, in author's possession. Mike Wenger recalls that the volunteers, at Griffin's invitation, did take part in one march to the local jail, where some local teenagers were being detained after taking part in demonstrations.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Shaw, interview.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Wenger, interview.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Padow-Sederbaum, interview.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ For an impressively detailed account of the 1963 demonstrations, and Griffin's pivotal role in them, see Lee and Daugherity, “Program of Action.” Local ministers Goodwin Douglas and Samuel Williams coordinated the protests.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Bonastia, Southern Stalemate, and Titus, Brown's Battleground, devote considerable attention to the Free Schools.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Egerton, “A Gentleman's Fight,” 124.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Robert L. Green and Louis J. Hofmann, “A Case Study of the Effects of Educational Deprivation on Southern Rural Negro Children,” Journal of Negro Education 34, no. 3 (July 1965), 340.Google Scholar

⁷² William vanden Heuvel, e-mail correspondence with author, February 4, 2013.Google Scholar

⁷³ Dittmer, Local People; Adickes, Legacy of a Freedom School; Carson, In Struggle. Other attendees at the initial Freedom Summer planning meeting included Charles Cobb (SNCC), Noel Day, Septima Clark (Citizenship Schools), Bayard Rustin (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Myles Horton (Highlander Center), and Bob Moses.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Lois Chaffee to Norma Becker, March 2, 1964, Becker—Mississippi Freedom Summer Project—General papers, 1964–1965 (Norma Becker Papers, 1961–1975; Historical Society Library Microforms Room, micro 817, reel 1), http://cdm15932.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15932coll2/id/44367. In the letter, Chaffee expresses interest in contacting Rupert Picott (misspelled “Peaco”) of the VTA and Rachel Weddington (misspelled “Reading”).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ “Court Va. Ruling Spurs Mississippi Freedom Schools,” United Teacher, June 4, 1964, 1; “Want Teachers & Supplies; Avoid Educational Disaster of Prince Edward County,” United Teacher, October 27, 1964, 5. Copies of the articles were kindly provided to me by Leo Casey, executive director of the AFT's Albert Shanker Institute.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Perrillo, Uncivil Rights. Evidently two other New York teachers, Bruce Glushakow and Sylvia Woog, also volunteered in both Prince Edward and Mississippi. Both were stationed in Columbus, Mississippi—Glushakow worked in voter registration, and Woog in the Freedom Schools. See “Master List, 1964 Freedom School Volunteers” and untitled list of union teachers in Prince Edward County. Both were kindly provided to me by Leo Casey.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Mark Levy, “COFO (SNCC/CORE), 1964, 1965, Mississippi,” http://www.crmvet.org/vet/levym.htm.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Tauber, interview; Yaffee, interview.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Larry Simonberg, “Fair's NYC Pavilion Is Target for Collegians’ Demonstration,” Phoenix, April 28, 1964, 1; Charles Delafuente, “Freedom Week Rallies Fight for Civil Rights,” Phoenix, April 28, 1964, 1; Stuart Zipper, “CORE, NAACP Demand Integrated Schools Now,” Phoenix, May 20, 1964, 5.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Goldsmith, UFT 2004 interview.Google Scholar

⁸¹ In Freedom Summer, McAdam notes that Mississippi Project recruitment focused on students at elite colleges and universities who could self-fund their volunteer work. Since blacks made up fewer than 3 percent of all undergraduates at the time, the proportion of black volunteers in Mississippi was consequently low. Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

⁸² Kristen Green, Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle (New York: Harper, 2015). For my critique of Green's approach, see “When a Memoir Tells Half the Story: Prince Edward County and School Desegregation,” JSTOR Daily, November 11, 2015, http://daily.jstor.org/prince-edward-county-desegregation/ Google Scholar

⁸³ McAdam, Freedom Summer.Google Scholar