microphone -- with your questions. if you are not able, we'll try to get the microphone to you. the speaker will speak, i hope, i expect quite briefly, and we will then throw this open into a conversation. it is as all of you know if you've been watching your c span today, this is a signal day in american history. barack obama gave a speech today in austin, texas at the lbj library where there is a civil rights round table taking place there reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1964, and i think it will be very interesting to go through the transcripts in future of the events that they are having in austin. i suspect the conversation that we're going to have here might be rather different. given that this is a conference that focuses on the theme of

boundaries, it seemed to me that this is noteworthy that the movement that we're going to be talking about today, the movement that emerged in mississippi, and that reached a culmination of sorts in the 1964 summer project, was a movement that challenged boundaries, and a movement that brought different categories of people into different or unexpected kinds of relationships. most obviously, it challenged in many ways the boundary between black and white. this was a movement which also raised profound questions about the relationship between women and men, between mississippians and those who came from outside of mississippi. between the young and the older. and the panelists today all have, i think, quite interesting perspectives on each of those boundaries. let me introduce them and this is not actually i think the order. they have just announce the. these are organizers.

they will choose in the order they choose to speak. the first person i'm going to introduce here is dory ladner. she comes from hattiesburg, mississippi, and she is a foundation member of the mississippi movement. she was recruited into the movement, among others, by clyde kanard who was adviser to the local naacp chapter. his name will not be mentioned in the events taking place in austin. he should be remembered. he's one of three mentors that dory would have occasion to bury. the others being vernon damar and metger evers. as a student, she was drawn into protests. she was expelled from jackson

state for protesting in defense of the tugalu 9. she participated in sit-ins. she work with the freedom riders. she was a founding member of cofo. she was one of the organ iers of the mississippi summer project. she was director of the project in nach he's, mississippi miss. she's one of the few people i know that participated in the march in washington and, the selma march and the poor people march. she has continue to work as an activist from the movement to the end of the war in vietnam, to community ak programs to end profort. she eventually would spend her professional career as a social worker practicing in st. louis and washington, d.c.

rita bender is also a person of an extraordinary civil rights pedigree. she was first drawn into activism as a member of the down ton chapter of core. the congress of racial equality in the lower east side of manhattan. she worked along her husband. michael and rita in 63-64. drove to mississippi in their vw beetle. opened up their cofo center in the 4th congressional district in meridian, mississippi. there they endured in extraordinary harassment, which culminated when michael along with his companions were murdered. rita she continued to work in the movement thereafter.