Skip to main content

What are the Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, SNCC, and the Voting Rights Act; does this act still exist? ...

The Freedom Summer, also referred to as the Mississippi Freedom Project, took place in the summer of 1964, when civil rights groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) tried to register African-Americans, who were largely disenfranchised, to vote in the state. The civil rights workers were harassed by groups such as the KKK, and two civil rights workers from New York--Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman--and one local activist--James Chaney--were murdered in June of 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. SNCC, an offshoot of Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), involved students across the country, African-American and white, in advocating for civil rights through sit-ins, protests, voter registration drivers, and other forms of activism.


The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was a political party organized to represent Mississippi in 1964 as an alternative to the Mississippi Democratic Party, which was all white. The MFDP, which included African-American activists, went to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and sought to be seated at the convention. The party, represented by Fannie Lou Hamer and others, were offered two at-large seats on the convention floor, but they left the convention rather than submit to not receiving regular seats on the floor. 


The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was intended to prevent discrimination in voting and to enforce the right of African-Americans and other racial or ethnic minorities to vote under the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Though the law is still in effect, the Supreme Court gutted some of it's key provisions in a controversial 2013 ruling. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more