The Autobiography of Brenda Lavern Travis, c. 1961
I had the honor of meeting Mrs. Brenda Travis in 2023. Ms. Marilyn Lowen called and asked if I could drive Mrs. Travis from Jackson to the Delta for a two-day event commemorating the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer. It was a quick yes! That is how our friendship began, in my car, during a…
July 5, 1964 in McComb, MS
On July 5, 1964, dynamite went off at a house on 702 Wall Street in McComb, Mississippi. Four different documents tell a piece of what occurred that night. Civil rights workers used the home as a gathering place for the Movement and conducted voter registration work. Willie May Cotten owned the property and leased it…
Freedom Summer Volunteer Profile: Rev. Harry J. Bowie
The above statement serves as the typical description writers use when introducing Rev. Harry J. Bowie (1935-2006). I was immediately interested in writing about Rev. Bowie because he was a Black Episcopal priest who came down to Mississippi, joining the wave of volunteers participating in Freedom Summer. Although a large number of ministers arrived through…
“One of the Sleepless Ones:” The Autobiographies of Winson Hudson
The Autobiography of Mrs. Winson Hudson, A Black Woman of Mississippi (an excerpt)—I live in Leake County. I was born here. My father and mother was born here. My husband and I moved to Chicago a year after we were married, neither one of us liked it there. It was not long after we got there that we…
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About Me
My name is Dr. Christina J. Thomas & I am a public historian interested in twentieth-century Black women’s history, civil rights, & Black girlhood.
Diary of a Historian 