this is edgar and randy williamson. they were in jones county, the county north of hattiesburg.nd so these two boys were eight , and nine years old and never attended a day of school. i find information about them in the johnson papers. paul johnson was governor at the time of mississippi in 1964. this is particularly about this letter. this is the condensation of a very voluminous file. the sovereignty commission on the williamson boys showed on the birth certificate to be white males because of white parents, but they were believed 1/32 of negro blood. so, this shows you that they had never been to school because they could not find a school that would take them. they were legally, according to the 1/8 rule in mississippi, they were legally white, but because they did have this one drop of blood, they were discriminated against. so eventually they did get into school, but i think this is a perfect example of the day to day things of how african-american it -- how african-americans or people of african-american ancestry were really impacted before freedom summer. so, mississipp

edgar and randy williamson. they were in jones county, the county north of hattiesburg. these two boys were eight and nine and had never attended a day of school. the information about them was in the paul johnson papers. he was the governor at the time in 1964. this is particularly about this letter. this is the condensation of a very voluminous file. that they had you never been to school because they could not find a school that would take them. legally according to the 1/8 rule in mississippi, they were legally white, but because they did have this one drop of blood, they were discriminated against. they did get into school but this is a perfect example of the day today things of how african-americans or people of african-american ancestry were really impacted before freedom summer. so, mississippi was chosen .ecause of the dire need the race relations in the state were not the best. under the main umbrella organization of civil rights groups, you had various other organizations involved. including the naacp, sclc, and core. these groups came together to brainstorm a

this is edgar and randy williamson. they were in jones county. were eight and nine years old and never attended school. johnson was the governor at the time of mississippi in 1964. this is about this letter. this is a condensation of a voluminous file. boys are shown to be white, male, possessing an amount of negro blood believed to be between 1/16 and one 32nd. they had never been to school because they could not find a school who would take them. they were legally white, but ofause they had one drop blood, they were discriminated against. eventually, they did get into school. this is a perfect example of the day-to-day of how people were freedom summer. mississippi was chosen because help and theeed of race relations in the state was not the best. you had various organizations , core.d, including naacp these groups came together to brainstorm and organize. prior to freedom summer, the summer of 1964, 12 weeks during ,he summer of 1964, volunteers started advertising and getting people to come to mississippi to set up freedom schools to help the