2024 Mississippi Summer

More about “Mississippi Summer”

Based on historical events, Mississippi Summer tells a story of the 1960s civil rights movement. The play focuses on the friendship between Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (aka SNCC), who launched the black power movement, and the young Jewish volunteers from New York, who joined the struggle against racism and segregation.

The play is based on the personal experiences and the journal he kept at the time of playwright Art Feinglass, who was a young civil rights worker with SNCC in Jackson, Mississippi in 1965, where he and his fellow workers were beaten and jailed by police for their part in the struggle for civil rights.

Written and directed by Actors’ Temple supporter Art Feinglass, “Mississippi Summer,” looks at the role of Jews in the battle against racism and segregation in the 1960’s South. The play focuses on two young Jewish volunteers who traveled to Mississippi in 1965 to fight for civil rights, the Jewish lawyer who defended them and the heroic local rabbi who played a key role in the struggle.