For Freedom's Sake Analysis

When people think back to the civil rights movement they think of the speeches by MLK, sit-ins and boycotts, or the freedom riders, but few people think of the grassroot tactics and other strategies individuals used to push the agenda of equality for all. In the novel For Freedom’s Sake, Chana Kai Lee outlines the efforts of Fannie Lou Hammer with Student Nonviolent, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and other groups. They combine grassroot efforts with protest to create the greatest changes. These groups focused on registering African American citizens to vote and educating them in order for them to pass voter registration test. Activist believed that involving constituents in the democratic process efficiently led to putting people in
Groups like SNCC used tactics such as knocking door to door encouraging African Americans to register to vote. Hammer helped lead a clothes and food drive and was used as a tool to convince individuals to register to vote (65). The grassroots strategies used by these groups succeed at getting more individuals involved in their causes and wanting to make a difference. As African Americans citizens went to go vote they found more difficulties than successes. Most African American Mississippians could not vote due to the “repressive political state” that used “legal and extralegal means” and required African Americans to pass voter registration exams (85). In response to the difficulty of the exam, civil rights activist set up schools to teach people the questions on the literacy exams. Even once they received the democratic right to vote they faced aggression at voter locations. As increasing numbers of individuals in Mississippi became more and more frustrated with the lack of African Americans in political officer positions, they started to protest on a national
Individuals viewed the convention as an utter failure, and they no longer encouraged voter registration as the primary source of change. The NAACP served as a great opposition to the local strategies of groups like SNCC, and they “thought [themselves] superior” enough to make decisions for local activist groups (115). People no longer relied strictly on helping their community through voting, instead people wanted to help themselves. Hammer joined with the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union, formed in 1965, to promote “economic self-help organizations and projects”(121). The group encourages individuals to join the union and to protest working for low wages. The Union demanded a $1.25 hourly wage, an eight hour day with overtime pay, and other benefits (126). They made these demand through picketing and strikes. Both the movement and Hammer’s tactics shifted. As the MFLU intensified, Hammer gave speeches calling for retributive violence (130). The progression towards the Black Nationalism phase of the civil rights movement occured in steps. After the convention, more and more people started to take their rights in their own hands as part of a self-help ideology, and consequently a period of violence became a way to make the