Letters from Mississippi by Edited by Elizabeth MartinezDuring the summer of 1964, a presidential election year, SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) sent volunteers into Mississippi to expand black voter registration in the state, to organize a legally constituted Freedom Democratic Party that would challenge the whites-only Mississippi Democratic party, to establish freedom schools to teach reading and math to black children, and to open community centers where individuals could obtain legal and medical assistance. 800 students gathered for a week-long orientation session at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, that June. They were mostly white and young, with an average age of 21. Letters from Mississippi is a collection of moving, personal letters written by volunteers of the summer.