Opinion: It’s been 60 years since Freedom Summer, yet the fight for affordable, compassionate, and equitable health care is still going on
Sixty years ago this month, a courageous initiative created by civil rights activists and physicians aimed to transform the social and medical landscape of the United States by challenging segregation in the South. Called Freedom Summer, the work it began is still going on today.
In 1964, Dr. Robert Smith, an architect of the U.S. community health center model, called activist Dr. Tom Levin for help. Smith wanted Levin — and physicians across the country — to travel to Mississippi and set up medical field stations to support the segregation-defying project that would become known as Freedom Summer. Volunteers from across the nation streamed into Mississippi to set up schools, register Black voters, and fight for meaningful social and political representation in the face of violent opposition from segregationist organizations and members of local and state law enforcement. Health care workers came to provide first aid and medical care in case they were needed by the volunteers. Sadly, they were needed.
