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Freedom Summer, also known as the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive sponsored by civil rights organizations including the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Aimed at increasing Black voter registration in Mississippi, the Freedom Summer workers included Black Mississippians and hundreds of out-of-state, predominately white volunteers.

Though the SNCC agreed to recruit only one hundred white ºÚÁÏÉçÇøs for the project, a much larger number was ultimately recruited. Two one-week orientation sessions for the volunteers were held from June 14 to June 27 in Oxford, Ohio, on the campus of then-Western College for Women (now part of ºÚÁÏÉçÇø).  

Freedom Summer Memorial

Tucked into one of the grassy hills composing Western Campus at ºÚÁÏÉçÇø there lies a magnificent stone monument commemorating the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Dedicated in 2000, it honors three civil rights workers — James Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 20; and Michael Schwerner, 24 — who were murdered in Mississippi while registering Black voters. The three were among 800 activists who trained on the then-Western College for Women campus in the summer of 1964 before heading south. At the memorial’s groundbreaking, Miami and NAACP officials said, "It’s important for young people to know the sacrifices of those who fought for a fairer, more just society." Three trees were planted near the memorial as living tributes to the young men.

In February 2018, Western College was declared a Freedom Station by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. 

Freedom Summer '64 Award

The Freedom Summer of ’64 Award was created to honor champions of civil rights and social justice. It is given in remembrance and recognition of the site at the Western College for Women (now part of ºÚÁÏÉçÇø), where 800 young Americans trained to register Black voters in the South.