A second Freedom School began in Benton County a week later. The rural school was different in that some students had to walk as much as five miles to reach the little church beside a cotton field. Most students came by car or in the back of a pickup. The adults also were involved in the school, and it soon became a community affair, daily involving 60 people from four to 70 years old.

In Mississippi the rural schools are open during the summer and so Freedom School classes have to be held in the evening. Mississippi students get their "vacation" in September, October, and November when they join their parents in the fields, working 10 hours a day, six days a week, picking the 'white gold' for $2.50 a day (standard wage for adults in Benton and Marshall counties). Another school break occurs in May and June, so that the children can help 'chop' cotton (essentially weeding with a hoe).

Negroes Receptive

The reaction of Negroes to the summer project was uniform; the mother of twelve children said quietly, "For years we've heard of the freedom workers, but I never thought I'd live to see them in -- County. And then I heard that they were in Holly Springs, but still it was hard to believe that they would come here, but every day I hoped they would. And then you came here and all my prayers were answered."

An 18 year-old girl wrote "...To us this is one of the most wonderful things that has happened since we were actually freed from slavery ... The freedom workers have the blessings and prayers of the Negroes of Mississippi. We will be forever grateful." An older farmer addresses a meeting, "Mr. -- and Mr. -- have come to us like Moses and opened the door to freedom. Now we just have to get together and walk through..."

Another farmer, to a white freedom worker: "If anyone, white or black, so much as hurts your little fingernail, he'll have to reckon with me and all the rest of us."

White reaction was considerably different and more varied. Before the summer was over, perhaps a dozen whites had expressed sympathy for the freedom movement and a desire to help. But even those few who spoke up are afraid of what might strike them if they did anything. So they do nothing. "I think it's terrible what's happening down here. If a man can pay for the meal, why shouldn't he eat at the same lunch counter with me? Really, I was brought up in this custom, you know, but I just feel like I'm sinning every time I sit in a citizen's council meeting and don't say what I feel. Those meetings aren't helping anybody. I wish I knew what I could do about it."

Whites Curious

Many whites are just curious about the "commie-Jew-beatnik-nigger-lovers" that have invaded their town. Most of the freedom workers seem polite and friendly and this puzzles many whites. A white female cashier in a Holly Springs five and ten stopped serving customers in order to get a better look at the group of young men escorting Negroes to the court house; then she commented to a friend, "I didn't know communists were so handsome,"

But by and large those are not the kind of white people that the civil rights worker gets to know in Mississippi. Most workers get used to the cars that slowly circle the freedom house, drivers glaring at summer volunteers who sit on the porch. Or the carloads of white men, speeding past on the highway screaming curses into the wind and thrusting their arms into the air in obscene gestures. Every field worker experienced the automobile chases by dark and daylight. Seventeen cars chased freedom workers back to Holly Springs at speeds over 100 m.p.h. after one night meeting in Oxford, Miss. But more often its just a pickup without any license plates or a police car.

"After I heard the first shot I rolled down the car window and looked back, just in time to see him (a Lafeyette County deputy) aim his shotgun and fire the second shot. Then I just said, 'OK Ford baby, show your stuff 'cause it's time for you and me to get out of here,' and I put the pedal on the floor. When I got over the county line I changed the tire that he had shot and then went back into the county."

Ivanhoe Donaldson SNCC staff and director of the Holly Springs project tells his story with a smile and most workers can't help but laugh.

Routine Scares

True, when a worker is chased he may be honestly frightened, but soon the scares of the day become routine and serve as exciting tales for the evening while hungry freedom workers devour plates of butter beans and corn in the "living room" of the freedom house. Cleveland Sellers, SNCC staff workers, jokes with a vounteer, "What you need is someone to ride shotgun."

The first arrest shook up a few of the summer volunteers and excited everyone. But the Holly Springs project had over 18 arrests (mostly traffic charges) and soon they too just became an interesting part of the job, "Dave's in jail again? How does he do it, he was just in yesterday...Driving without an inspection sticker?...How soon will he be out? Good. You eaten yet?...