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It was a brisk evening on the Quad for the free barbecue. (Photo by Dylan Crouse ’15)

Last Friday, hundreds of first-year students gathered on the Academic Quad to watch a screening of Freedom on My Mind, a 1994 Academy Award-nominated documentary directed by Connie Field.

The film was presented as part of a campuswide initiative called “.”

The initiative builds on the themes of civil rights, justice, and social activism that were prevalent in the first-year summer reading, Freedom Summer, by Bruce Watson.

The 2010 historical nonfiction novel was chosen to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the pivotal summer in Mississippi that helped make Americans realize the civil rights offenses occurring in their own country through the engaged efforts of college students from across the United States.

The Friday night film, which chronicles the effort to register African American voters in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, was preceded by a barbecue and an introduction from Field.

The documentary tells the story of Freedom Summer from the perspective of the people in Mississippi, beginning before the volunteers came to the state to register voters and ending with the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

“We used Freedom Summer as a springboard into a yearlong discussion on civil rights,” said Provost and Dean of the Faculty Doug Hicks. “We have a series of programs across different academic areas, and they have teamed up, faculty and students, to create a whole set of events.”

Those events include a screening of American Promise, a documentary following two students of color through the education system in America, and a brown bag with Professor Jay Mandle and Professor Joan Mandle, emerita, who both participated in the Mississippi voter registration movement in the summer of 1964.

A complete list of events can be found .