Summary Of A Chance For Change

After living in Mississippi my entire life, I thought I knew a lot about the history of my home state. After reading Crystal R. Sanders’ book, my opinion was completely changed. Before reading A Chance For Change, I had never heard of Mississippi’s most influential civil rights worker. Unless their names were Martin Luther King, JR or James Meredith, I was probably unaware of their influence on society. Mississippi is full of history and I feel that today’s education system completely skips what is arguably the most important part of our history. I enjoyed reading Crystal Sanders’ book because I felt it educated me on one of the most influential and controversial parts of our great state. In Crystal R. Sanders’ A Chance for Change, she demonstrates
Crystal R. Sanders’ writes, “White supremacists sought to limit black educational opportunities to maintain a large supply of cheap black labor” (14). What she says here is that, basically, white supremacists wanted to limit African American’s educational rights so that the only job opportunity they would have would be to farm. Finally, African Americans decided that they were going to take their own rights— specifically rights in education— into their own hands. One way, and possibly the most significant, African Americans took control of their own educational destiny was with the creation of preschool program called Child Development Group of Mississippi. This program was based off of the already existing Head Start Program. Preschools during this time were nonexistent and northern whites, along with African Americans in Mississippi, knew that that this lack of education was already separating blacks and whites. In April of 1965, two female leaders looking to make a change in Mississippi travelled to Edwards, Mississippi. These two leaders, Winson Hudson and Minnie Lewis, were looking to learn more about the already existing program Head Start and to see if the workers of Head Start could help them start their own agency. In the summer of 1965, devoted white liberals from the North, along with brave African Americans in Mississippi, including Hudson
One of the most critical of the work done by Children Development Group of Mississippi was Senator John Stennis. Stennis began rigorously investigating the Child Development Group of Mississippi and did find some mistakes made by the group. For example, most of the employees of Child Development Group of Mississippi were just volunteers who had no educational background. Because of the volunteers lack of education, many employees had a hard time working with budgets or keeping correct paperwork. This made most of the program’s records wrong. Another accusation that Senator Stennis presented was that, “CDGM used federal government money to pay fines and bail for protest activity”(128). The program claimed that they were given permission to pay the legal fees of some employees. These minor mistakes were enough to catch the eye of Senator Stennis, who was thirsty to find any irregularity possible, in order to rid the state of the Child Development Group of Mississippi. By pointing out the Child Development Group of Mississippi’s mistakes, Senator Stennis was able to take away the program’s funding. Because of the success of the program, Child Development Group of Mississippi was able to operate for a few months after their funding was taken away, but they eventually had to close down. I believe the effects that the Child Development Group of Mississippi had