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Celebration Of "Freedom Summer" Anniversary This Week At Miami University

The college campus where hundreds of civil rights activists gathered in June 1964 to prepare for registering blacks to vote in racially segregated Mississippi is commemorating the 50th anniversary of that "Freedom Summer." Three activists who trained at the Western College for Women that is now part of Miami University in Oxford disappeared the day after leaving the training. Their bodies were found, beaten and shot, a few weeks later near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Miami will hold a ceremony Friday near its Freedom Summer Memorial honoring all the volunteers. Three trees also are being planted near the memorial as tributes to the slain young men. Miami is inviting 1964 volunteers to a Freedom Summer reunion and conference in October.