In 1965, a Head Start program called the Child Development Group of Mississippi offered an alternative education for children in low-income communities. It also gave working-class black Mississippians a chance to secure jobs outside of the local white power structure.
In her new book, "A Chance For Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle" (UNC Press/2016), Crystal Sanders examines how black Mississippians used this employment opportunity to exercise their voting rights in a state adjusting to de-segregation.
Host Frank Stasio talks with Sanders, assistant professor of history and African American Studies at Penn State University, about the social and political climate of Mississippi in the 1960s. Sanders reads at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 10.
