Freedom Summer As a Life-Shaping Event

Abstract

In the seventies and eighties, many Freedom School students of 1964 completed their high school education, took jobs, went on to college, began careers, married and had children whose school experience would be very different from what their own experience had been. In June, 1970, the Supreme Court ruled on the petition for certiorari Eleanor Piel had argued before the Court the previous October in my case against Kress. The Court ruled in my favor, declaring that the summary judgment of the lower court had been in error, and my case should have had a hearing. I agreed to Kress’s offer of a settlement rather than renew litigation, and turned my share, after expenses, over to the Southern Conference Educational Fund, which, under the direction of Ella Baker, arranged for the money to be used for the education of Vernon Dahmer’s son and daughter.