We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi

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Syracuse University Press, Jul 8, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 354 pages
No one experienced the Freedom Summer of 1964 quite like Tracy Sugarman. As an illustrator and journalist, 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. He interviewed these activists, along with local civil rights leaders and black and white residents not directly involved in the movement, and drew the people and events that made the summer one of the most heroic chapters in America’s long march toward racial justice. In We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns, Sugarman chronicles the sacrifices, tragedies, and triumphs of that unprecedented moment in our nation’s history. 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—whites united with heroic black Mississippians to challenge segregation—resonated across the nation. The United States Congress was finally moved to pass the civil rights legislation that enfranchised the millions of black Americans who had been waiting for equal equal rights for a century. Blending oral history with memoir, We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns draws the reader into the lives of the activists, showing their passion and naïveté, the bravery of the civil rights leaders, and the candid, sometimes troubling reactions of the black and white Delta residents. Sugarman’s unique reportorial art, in word and image, makes this book a vital record of our nation’s past.
 

Contents

Charles McLaurin
3
Oxford
7
Charles McLaurin at first organizing meeting in Ruleville
25
The Delta
26
Goodman Schwerner Chaney
32
The Lindseys
40
Blacks Whites and Whites
52
Drew
56
June Johnson
175
Dorsey
181
Charlie Cobb
183
First organizing meeting in Mound Bayou
186
Martha Honey
192
Student volunteer Martha Honey
193
Owen Brooks
195
Leslie McLemore
197

Freedom School
72
Fannie Lou Hamer
81
Drawing Conclusions
86
Indianola
91
The Civil Rights Bill
99
Mrs Rennie Williams and her granddaughter
100
Birth of a Party
102
Part Two Return to the Delta
111
June 1965
113
Seals Grocery on Highway 41
115
Return to the Lindseys
119
Durrough
126
Three ladies from the Sanctified Quarter
127
Richard
132
Rennie Williams at kitchen table
133
Linda
136
Cephus
142
The blessed shadow of the Sanctified Church
144
Marguerite
147
Liz
151
Liz Fusco with Ruleville women
152
Farewell to the Lindseys
157
Farewell to the Delta
162
A black boy
163
Part Three The Roads from the Delta
165
Legacy
167
My Road
170
Bette Lindsey
172
In Memoriam
199
Linda Davis
202
Linda Davis with dance class
203
John Lewis
210
Calling Washington
211
Nonviolence
214
Julian Bond
221
Canvassing voters in Drew
222
Part Four Mississippi October 2001
229
Mississippi Redux
231
Return to Ruleville
235
The James Williams house in Ruleville
237
Jack Harper
252
Summer volunteers in Indianola
253
Losing the Children
255
The Story to Tell
264
Long Time Passing
275
Dale Gronemeier
278
Fortieth Reunion 2004
284
Confrontation with white students from Delta State
285
John Harris
293
Freedom Day celebration in Cleveland Mississippi
295
Liz Fusco
300
Liz Fusco with Freedom School teachers
301
Chris Hexter
307
Unsettling Memories
314
Not a Stranger
330
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About the author (2009)

Tracy Sugarman is a nationally recognized illustrator whose art has appeared in magazines and books, and has been featured on PBS, ABC TV, NBC TV, and CBS TV. His entire collection of art from World War II has been acquired by the U.S. 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, the latter published by Syracuse University Press.

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