Freedom Summer

“Freedom Summer” (2013) is a commemorative poem by American children’s author J. Patrick Lewis (b. 1942). The prose poem is a free-verse narrative written from the perspective of 1960s civil rights activist James Chaney, who was murdered in 1964 in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan. While dealing with a traumatic and disturbing subject, the poem was part of Lewis’s middle-grade collection of poems about various civil rights leaders. Because of this intended audience, Lewis writes the poem in a very accessible style that focuses on Chaney’s narrative more than focusing on a complex poetic style.

The poem is about the preservation of hope and the values of a movement that lives on even after those involved in the movement are gone. The poem also serves as a kind of ode and eulogy for Chaney and the other freedom riders who went to the South during the 1960s to fight for civil rights. While the poem is powerful, it is not particularly well-known. This might be because Lewis is primarily a children’s writer, and such writers often don’t receive much popular or scholarly attention.

Content Warning: This study guide references graphic, racist violence, including kidnapping, torture, and murder.

Poet Biography

J. Patrick Lewis was born in Gary, Indiana, in 1942. Lewis was not a writer as a child, and he ended up studying economics at Ohio State University, where he would eventually earn his Ph.D. In fact, Lewis did not begin writing until he was 40, when he discovered a love for poetry. Upon learning that he loved poetry, Lewis took time to study the art form, and he eventually became a self-taught poet.

During this time of discovery, Lewis was working as an economics professor at Otterbein College in Ohio. Initially, his poetry career did not take off, as it took him seven years before his first manuscript was accepted for publication. And though Lewis believed poetry was his true calling, he was not able to retire from teaching for another decade. During this time, Lewis’s poetry career began to take shape, and now he is recognized as one of the most successful children’s poets in America, as he has published over 100 books of poetry and has received numerous awards.

Perhaps Lewis’s most notable achievement was being recognized as the Children’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2013. This post, along with various poetry and teaching awards, grew his status as a notable children’s poet. Lewis has embraced this role and spends a good amount of his time advocating for poetry in schools across the country.

Among Lewis’s published works are several popular titles, including The Last Resort (2002), which received attention and praise from The New York Times upon publication.

Lewis lives in Ohio, where he continues to write and publish.

Poem Text

Lewis, J. Patrick. “Freedom Summer.” When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders, Chronicle Books, 2013.

Summary

The poem opens from the perspective of an unnamed speaker. He says he arrived in Meridian in June, and he had a penny in his pocket that he named Hope. In Meridian, the speaker visits a Black barbershop and gets a haircut.

Suddenly, the scene shifts to Longdale, Mississippi, where the speaker says the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) burned down Mount Zion Church. There, the speaker is arrested by “Sheriff Price” (Line 6), and he describes his fear in the back of the police car as he urinates in his pants. The speaker’s friend, Mickey, tells him that they shouldn’t expect to get their phone call at the police station, and Mickey is proven right when they arrive.

At the police station, the speaker describes the food he and his friends are served and describes it as their Last Supper. After they eat, he says that a KKK ambush has been set up, so the police let them go with a fine and a warning to never return.

At this point, the poem’s tone shifts as the speaker says, “Then the whole / thin shimmer of our lives evaporated like / smoke in a fog” (Lines 14-16). The speaker describes being ambushed by the KKK as the Klan sinks their car in Bogue Chitto Swamp. The speaker then says that the Klan murders Mickey and Andrew (the speaker’s other friend) with one bullet to the head each. The Klan saves him for last, and they murder him with three bullets.

At the end of the poem, while the speaker's body is being abandoned by the Klan on Old Jolly Farm, his hand holds on to the penny in his pocket, which he reminds the reader is named Hope.