Western College — Freedom Summer Memorial

Western College for Women opened in 1853 as one of the first institutions in the United States to offer women a rigorous college education. It operated as an independent liberal arts college until 1974, when it merged with Miami University. The historic buildings of the Western Campus now form a distinct western section of Miami's grounds.

The site's most historically resonant chapter is Freedom Summer. In June 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chose Western College as the training ground for over a thousand volunteers preparing to register Black voters in Mississippi. The orientation sessions — two one-week programs from June 14 to June 27 — were where participants were briefed on the dangers they would face. The dangers were real: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, all trained here, were murdered in Mississippi within weeks.

A memorial near Kumler Chapel marks the connection. It is a quiet and important piece of American civil rights history in an unlikely setting.

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A story
In June 1964, more than a thousand volunteers gathered at Western College for Women to be trained before heading to Mississippi for Freedom Summer. Among those who left Oxford for the South were James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner — three civil rights workers who were murdered by Klansmen and local police within days of arriving in Mississippi. Their names are on the memorial here.