Preserving Living Monuments For Collective Thriving-  Freedom Houses and Sacred Civic Space

By Vondaris “Von” Gordon

We must preserve spaces and sites across Mississippi that remind us of where we come from and instruct us on how to move forward. At the top of our list are Freedom Houses and Freedom Schools, built during the most tumultuous years of the Mississippi Civil Rights movement.  My colleagues and I at the Alluvial Collective will continue to work with the Mississippi Heritage Trust and others to ensure we preserve these spaces and gain the tools to help us all learn through the stories they hold.

For thirty years, my grandfather has shared many stories about his life, our family, and the Sunflower County, Mississippi, of the 1950s and 1960s that molded him and most of my family.  I’ve always been proud of being born there. 

One of the most memorable stories he ever shared was about the experience of one of my great uncles, barely a teenager, volunteering with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Sunflower County to protect churches and freedom schools from violence and attacks. I was intrigued, so a few years ago, and again recently, I  visited with this elder who reflected on the trauma of being inside the Sunflower Freedom House when it was attacked in 1964.  He and other volunteers were forced to jump out of windows or escape however they could.  He jumped from a window, leaving him with an inches-long cut to his leg, a hospital stay, and a scar to serve as a reminder.  

The Sunflower Freedom House was in the middle of town and was owned by Annie Mae King. It was one of many structures that attacked in a short period in the Delta. My uncle remembers being in the hospital still when the Indianola Freedom School burned to the ground. It was never rebuilt, and the site has recently held a community garden on it.  These tragedies mark a time and history that too many Mississippians don’t fully appreciate, and even fewer seem to see with healing potential or direction to achieve a healthier and equitable future.  

Freedom Houses and Schools emerged out of necessity but spoke to possibility- a potential they still hold.

2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Summer Project in Mississippi. In 1964, student volunteers from universities across the Northeast and Midwest, especially, came to Mississippi for a summer of organizing, local strategizing, and collective action to secure fuller citizenship for the many Black Mississippians who were denied their right to vote and basic dignity throughout the state. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) organized under the umbrella of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), led the efforts in training, housing, protecting, and culturally acclimating the many student volunteers during the Summer Project. 

The Summer Project started freedom schools to help educate local youth with academic and civics lessons. They supported adults and elders in understanding their right to vote and ways to register and secure it.  Community libraries, theaters, and other centers, sometimes almost makeshift, were built and utilized to help expand the project’s impact. 

Freedom Houses also emerged early on as the Summer Project took shape. They were necessary to help make the efforts more localized and to provide an operating base for action and safety.  Freedom houses could be local residences with a couple of rooms or “shotgun” houses and were often in the center of the most oppressed communities. Still, they served as physical spaces for freedom workers to rest, recharge, and strategize.  There were freedom houses across the state.

Freedom Houses reminds us of the best and worst of communities.

The Freedom House Museum in Canton tells the story of George Washington. The museum is in the home of George Washington, a prominent resident of Canton in the 1960s who was a freedom fighter. However, the house itself could only hold 8-10 workers, who slept in thin sleeping bags, chairs, comforters, beds, cots, and any space where they could lay their heads. The house was bombed in 1964. For Madison County, the museum and home should be a learning lab for commitment to freedom and dignity and understanding terror and oppression. 

The home of Unita Blackwell, a resident of Meyersville in the lower Mississippi Delta, is on the Nation Register of Historic Places. Blackwell became Mayor of Meyersville in 1976 as the first black woman elected mayor of a town in Mississippi. She championed public housing development and early childhood education in Meyersville. Many knew Mayor Blackwell’s home for housing freedom fighters from 1964-1970. She hosted several movement leaders and volunteer meetings in Meyersville in the summer of 1964 and beyond.  Residents of Sharkey and Issaquena County can draw lessons of resilience and courage through the Blackwell home and the many stories it tells about who and where they come from and about Mississippi as they seek to rebuild from tragedy. 

 The Work of Leaders and Stewards

Dr. Felecia King, proprietor and steward of the Indianola Freedom House, has worked diligently for years to ensure that the building and community stories entrusted to her through the Freedom House are a source of wisdom and pride.  Her parents operated that home as a safe space during a pivotal and violent point in the struggle for voting and civil rights in the Mississippi Delta.  Like the other freedom houses, it must inspire youth and future generations still committed to keeping the gains of that time period secure.

Judith Roberts and her relatives in McComb are committed to the time and energy-consuming work of preserving the home of her grandparents, C.C and Emogen Bryant,  whose home could be considered as the original Freedom House because it served as a safe space for the earliest organizing which seeded the Civil Rights movements 1664 impact out from Pike County.  When asked about the promise of preserving Freedom houses, Judith shares that “Freedom Houses stand as symbols of perseverance, courage, and resilience.  They serve as spaces and places that value equality, justice, and democracy for all”.  

It is the work of leaders like you, me, schools, grandparents, aunts, and uncles that we should all strive to help support by preserving and highlighting the places and spaces that tell the story of freedom in Mississippi. The stories connected to the spaces give us the history and foundation to continue the work needed to transform Mississippi into all it can and should be. 

Vondaris “Von” Gordon is the Executive Director of the Alluvial Collective (former William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation), a Mississippi-based nonprofit organization whose work seeks to end discrimination and oppression based on difference and deepen the relationships in communities and systems to drive collective thriving.

Von is a father, husband, and proud native of the Mississippi Delta.