Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement is happy to announce that a new edition of the 1964 book LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI, edited by one of our members Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez, has just been published.

The book, a collection of letters written to family and friends by some of the volunteers in the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project that aimed to expose and break through the iceberg of that state's racism. They worked on voter registration, in Freedom Schools and community centers, and help to build the new Missiddippi Freedom Democratic Party that challenged the all-white Democrats at the convention that year. Two of them were killed by Klansmen in the first week of the project, together with a local black youth James Chaney.

The new edition of LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI has an Introduction by Julian Bond and reports on the current activities of almost half of the original letter writers, who were located through months of effort. Also, many references to now-obscure events and organizations have been footnoted for the benefit of young readers. All in all , the book is intended to make inspiring, enlightening reading for today's youth, who often romanticize "the 1960's" while being given little actual information about it.

Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez was a staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and participated in the 1964 Summer Project. She has published 5 other books about struggles for social justice in the Americas, and many articles. She is currently Director of the Institute for MultiRacial Justice in San Francisco, an adjunct professor at California State University Hayward, and an anti- racist workshop organizer.

Two other members of Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, Chude Pam Allen and Hardy Frye, have letters in the book.

To order the book ($14.95 per copy, paperback), go to the the Zephyr Press website.

LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI, 2002, is 286 pages, paperback, and costs $14.95. It can be ordered by postal mail from:
Zephyr Press
50 Kenwood St.
Brookline MA 02446
(617) 713-2813
Email: editor@zephyrpress.org

Copyright © 2002
Last Modified: September 3, 2002.
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