Freedom Summer Fellow

Program Description 

The summer of 2024 will mark the 60th Anniversary of Freedom Summer. To commemorate that incredible summer of change, JULIAN and a coalition of civil and human rights organizations will launch and host Freedom Summer ‘24. This coalition will recruit and bring students and advocates from across the country to Mississippi from June-July of 2024 with the goals of (1) organizing rural communities (including voter registration), (2) creating new policy proposals, (3) providing indigent legal defense, and (4) operating two Innovation Labs in the state. 

Freedom Summer ‘24 will consist of five focus areas: organizing, policy, legal services, and innovation. 

Requirements 

Must be an undergraduate/graduate student or an advocate 18 to 40 years of age. 

Must have a deep reverence for freedom workers and organizing.

Must be open to being flexible to concepts and learning Mississippi’s landscape and culture.

Only law students, paralegals, or practicing attorneys may participate in the Legal Services cohort.

Only medical students or trained medical personnel, ie: nurses, phlebotomist, practitioners, etc., may join the Medical Care cohort. 

Duties and Responsibilities 

● Organizing: Organizers will engage in grassroots campaigns as well as registering voters and supporting the work of the policy, medical, and legal teams. Those in the organizing cohort may participate for 1-3 weeks.

● Policy: Participants on the policy track will research and analyze policy problems facing Mississippi’s communities and develop proposals to address these issues at local, state, and federal levels. 

● Legal Services: Students will represent indigent individuals in criminal cases, advocate for communities through movement lawyering, and assist in statewide expungement clinics. Those in the Legal Services cohort may participate in the project for the entire two months so as to see a case through as much as possible.

● Medical Services: Medical students will work with Plan A Health, a mobile health clinic, to provide vaccines, check-ups, preventative care, and urgent care to the state’s most vulnerable populations. Those in the Medical Services cohort may participate in the project for the entire two months so as to better monitor patients.

● Innovation: Freedom Innovation Labs will be a place for solution-based thinking. Facilitators will guide individuals through systematic thinking, such as design thinking, foresight, and white-boarding in order to better develop their ideas for addressing systemic harm.

Fellows will be compensated for travel, lodging, and food for the duration of their stay. 

If you have any additional questions please email kadin@julianfreedom.org