Mississippi Freedom Houses Project

An initiative of The Mississippi Heritage Trust

In 2019, Mississippi Heritage Trust placed Mississippi’s Freedom Houses on the list of the 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Mississippi.

During the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign, hundreds of activists and volunteers worked throughout Mississippi to challenge racial discrimination through voter registration, community organizing, and education. The success of their work relied on an informal network of residences and community spaces, commonly referred to as Freedom Houses.

Today these homes, which served as places of refuge for Freedom Summer volunteers and local residents to organize, educate, strategize, and pursue equal rights in communities throughout Mississippi, are often in poor condition.

Through the Mississippi Freedom Houses Project, Mississippi Heritage Trust is advocating for the preservation of these places of conscience through research, documentation, public engagement, and stabilization work.

With funding from the National Park Service African American Civil Rights Grant Program and Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative, Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, and the Mellon Foundation Monuments Project, Mississippi Heritage Trust has replaced the damaged roofs of the Indianola Freedom House, Unita Blackwell House in Mayersville, Emogene and C.C. Bryant House in McComb and the office of Dr. Felix Dunn in Gulfport, conducted a statewide survey to identify and document Freedom Houses, and held convenings for Freedom Houses owners and advocates in Jackson, Indianola, and McComb.