The tale of "Two Voices": an oral history of women communicators from Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964 and a new black feminist concept

Abstract

This study developed a new concept of Black Feminist thought and employs it to examine the intersection of press and communication practices among women involved in Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964. The study draws on oral histories of women participants in this project as a way to contribute these omitted "voices" to the canon of journalism, civil rights, and women's history. In analyzing these stories, this study discovered generational differences among the women in terms of Freedom Summer's influence on their worldviews and subsequent vocations. Although all of the study's participants performed journalistic tasks, the older women of this group continued their lives as social activists and the younger women became professional communicators. The rationale for this phenomena helps explain, in part, the omission of women from the historical "image" of African American civil rights leaders.