Muriel Tillinghast is an American civil rights activist and former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary. Her efforts include volunteering for the

Freedom Summer Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...

Project in Mississippi where she helped start the famed 1964 Freedom School and led Mississippi's

Council of Federated Organizations The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the sta ...

(COFO).

Civil rights activism

SNCC and Freedom Summer

Immediately after graduating from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

, Tillinghast volunteered to lead a SNCC project in Mississippi. At the dismay of her family, she decided to accept a position in

Greenville, Mississippi Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta. Hi ...

as part of the 1964 Summer Project. Her involvement in the Summer Project included organizing a Freedom School to teach African American history and discuss civic participation and voting rights. As a SNCC activist, she worked to register voters and canvass across the county. Despite the unfamiliar environment and the historical racial violence in Mississippi, Tillinghast went on to lead SNCC's projects within

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, Issaquena, and

Sharkey Sharkey ( ga, Ó Searcaigh) is a surname of Irish origin. Notable people with the surname include: * Bill Sharkey (1873–1946), Australian rules footballer * Brendan Sharkey (born 1962), American politician * Catherine Sharkey (born c. 1970), ...

counties. Later, she became the director of the

Greenville project Greenville is the name of several places: Canada * Laxgalts'ap, British Columbia, formerly named Greenville * Greenville, Nova Scotia, in Yarmouth County * Greenville Station, Nova Scotia, in Cumberland County * Lower Greenville, Nova Scotia, in ...

and the state of Mississippi's

COFO The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the sta ...

, the umbrella organization that oversaw SNCC and the 1964 Summer Project. Tillinghast was one of only three women to become project leads in Mississippi.

Continued activism and political career

Following Muriel Tillinghast's involvement in SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement, she has remained an advocate for human and civil rights. In the 1970s, she became a tenured instructor at the Atlanta University School of Social Work. Since then, she has worked extensively on issues of tenant rights and prison education through her role as an administrator in New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and as a prison educational administrator at the Brooklyn House of Detention and Rikers Island. In 1996, Tillinghast was selected as the New York Green Party candidate for vice president alongside

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tillinghast, Muriel Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Civil Rights Movement portal