TITLE: We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi
SPEAKER: Tracy Sugarman
EVENT DATE: 05/05/2009
FORMAT: Video + Captions
RUNNING TIME: 54 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript (link will open in a new window)
DESCRIPTION:
As an illustrator and journalist, Tracy Sugarman covered the nearly one thousand student volunteers who traveled to the Mississippi Delta to assist black citizens in the South in registering to vote. Two white students and one black student were slain in the struggle, many were beaten and hundreds arrested, and churches and homes were burned to the ground by the opponents of equality. Yet the example of Freedom Summer resonated across the nation. The U.S. Congress was finally moved to pass the civil rights legislation that enfranchised millions of black Americans.
Blending oral history with memoir, "We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns" chronicles the sacrifices, tragedies and triumphs of that unprecedented moment in American history.
Speaker Biography: Tracy Sugarman is a nationally recognized illustrator whose art has appeared in magazines and books, and has been featured on PBS, ABC, NBC and CBS. His collection of art from World War II has been acquired by the Veterans History Project, a program of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. He is the author of "Stranger at the Gates: A Summer in Mississippi," "My War: A Love Story in Letters and Drawings" and "Drawing Conclusions: An Artist Discovers His America."
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SERIES: Benjamin Botkin Lecture Series
