The first event of “Keeping the Faith: Civil Rights and Social Justice 45 Years After Freedom Summer” took place Monday night in the Executive Education Center. The goal of the program is to spread knowledge about the importance of valuing diversity in communication.

The keynote speaker of the evening, Dr. Brenda Allen, associate dean and professor at the University of Colorado-Denver, focused on the effectiveness of community organizing in the Freedom Summer Project and the role of Ella Baker in the movement.

Dr. Allen called Baker a hero as a feminist and as a civil rights activist. Baker “committed herself, and refused to stop fighting for justice until her death.” This was a result of her deeply religious and educated background that also allowed her to perceive class dynamics and “the power of words.”

Baker believed in the power of community organizing rather than a motivational leader dictating actions. She believed that leadership should be more related to organizing and empowering other people.

“People have to be made to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves,” Baker said.

Ella Baker wielded the skills she had learned at the political and local level. She became a mentor for Bob Moses and an advisor for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and used the strategies of community organizing to implement the Freedom Summer project in Mississippi.

The Freedom Summer project was dedicated to helping blacks in Mississippi register to vote. They set up a Freedom School to train blacks in how to vote and received education that they were not learning in public schools. After the Freedom School, they hosted a mock state election to prove that blacks were not apathetic toward voting as was commonly believed.

Before the Freedom Summer began, three members, two white men and one black man, were lured into Mississippi, arrested and disappeared by the Ku Klux Klan. Allen showed clips of a film, “10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed the World,” showing footage from the arrest that drew media attention to the project. This event led to the immediate involvement of President Lyndon Johnson and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Dr. Allen explained that community organization made the greatest contribution to the success of the Civil Rights Movement and still motivates citizens today.

“Remember,” Baker said, “we are not fighting for the Negro culture alone, but the entire human spirit.”

Dr. Allen closed her lecture with “Ella’s song” by Sweet Honey on the Rock to honor the efforts of Ella Baker and the goals of the Freedom Summer.