For Teachers

Database Searches

The Student Voice -- articles about Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) candidates
  1. Students could search the database for documents about the 1964 Neshoba County murders of three civil rights workers: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. Searching on their names should bring up three documents from different points of view: Students might look at these documents in the context of current discussions about reopening the trial. The Clarion Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi's newspaper, has published several articles on the issue, which students can find by searching the newspaper's archives for the names of the Civil Rights workers.
    • Background on the murders and the resulting trial can be found in:
    • Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia
    • John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
Photograph, Professor Ernest Borinski and community children, Tougaloo College
  1. Students could search the database for any of the following terms:
    • Freedom Summer
    • Christmas
    • Jackson Movement
    • Tougaloo College
    /projects/FreedomNow/scans/IF0005.jpg and write an essay explaining the history and importance of this group, event, or institution to the Freedom Movement. Students can think about what they can and can't learn from the documents in the database and the work of writing history.

  2. Assign students an individual important in the Freedom Movement (Fannie Lou Hamer or Aaron Henry would be good choices) and have them search the database for documents that mention these people. Write an essay on the activities of this person using the documents they find. Students can find transcripts of oral histories with Hamer and Henry in the University of Southern Mississippi's Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archives.
  3. Ask your students to search the database and find any group of related documents. Have them write a cluster essay about the documents they picked and how they relate to each other. The website contains examples of the essays written by Brown and Tougaloo students. Send us examples of your students' work and we will consider posting it on the website.