Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Highlights Tougaloo College’s Civil Rights Role - Higher Education: Jackson, Miss. — Hayat Mohamed, a Tougaloo College senior, and Laurel Oldershaw, a 2014 graduate of Brown University, recalled their experiences on each other’s campus — an African-American with roots in the Sudan, who spent a semester at the Rhode Island institution, and an Ivy Leaguer from a Jewish background who attended the Mississippi HBCU last fall.
Their conversation, joined by several current and former students from both schools, was part of Freedom 50, a conference on the Tougaloo campus commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bloody 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. It also marked the 50th anniversary of the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, which was sparked by the involvement of students and faculty at both schools in the civil rights struggle in the South.
