Freedom Vote
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The 1963 Freedom Ballot (also known as the Mississippi Freedom Ballot or simply Freedom Vote) was a mock-election organized in the United States to combat the disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi.
The effort was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of Mississippi's four most prominent civil rights organizations, with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) taking a leading role. By the end of the campaign, some 78,000 Mississippians had participated[1]. The Freedom Ballot led to the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).
Background
In addition to a poll tax, the Mississippi voting registration procedure in 1963 required Mississippians to fill out a 21-question registration form and to answer, to the satisfaction of the registrars, a question on interpretation of any one of 285 sections of the state constitution.[2]
Freedom Vote
References
- ^ "Over 70,000 Cast Freedom Ballots." The Student Voice, vol. 4, no. 4, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, November 11, 1963, http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15932coll2/id/50136 (Links to an external site.). Freedom Summer Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society, 2014.
- ^ Sargent, Frederic. The Civil Rights Revolution: Events and Leaders, 1955-1968. McFarland, 2004, p 72