After Freedom Summer: The Civil Rights Photographs of Sue Lorenzi Sojourner

Civil rights activist Sue Lorenzi Sojourner travelled to Mississippi in the wake of Freedom Summer to work on a project established to register African Americans to vote, open Freedom Schools, and promote activities to aid African American communities.  She remained in the state until 1969 documenting the transformation of Holmes County, Mississippi, through oral histories and photographs. 

A selection of Sojourner’s photographs are currently on display in McCain Library and Archives. These images highlight men, women, and children living and working toward equality in Holmes County.  Children were captured on film smiling and enjoying their youth, and in the photographer’s words, were not “a movement actor … Still, the Movement was theirs … [they] were the hope of the future.”  A future that men like John Daniel Wesley, pictured in the exhibit speaking to a group at the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s countywide meeting in 1969, and women like civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer worked diligently to obtain. 

After Freedom Summer: The Civil Rights Photographs of Sue Lorenzi Sojourner, curated by history PhD student Eve Wade and curator Jennifer Brannock, is on display Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. until January 2015 in McCain Library and Archives 305.  If you have questions about the exhibit, contact Jennifer Brannock at or 601.266.4347.