The Call to Mississippi

• Wednesdays in Mississippi: The Cadillac Crowd
  A few weeks after the Atlanta meeting, Cowan wrote a short note to Height suggesting a weekly program of visits by northern women to Mississippi. Height in turn contacted Clairie Harvey, in Jackson, who signaled her approval. Cowan took over the role of project coordinator.
• Wednesdays in Mississippi: Meeting the Women in Mississippi
  Cowan and Height began to talk over the idea of sending teams to Mississippi. They soon realized that they had to have a reason to go there; they needed a way to meet the women of Mississippi.
• Wednesdays in Mississippi: The Teams
  The team members were all well-educated, middle class, middle aged, and well connected. Women of different races and faiths were encouraged to participate.
• Wednesdays in Mississippi: May 1964
  By late May of 1964, Cowan and her staff were well on their way. They had considered the necessary procedures for selecting team members, how to fund the costs of the trips, how the women would prepare for the trips, and had even put together a preliminary schedule.
• Wednesdays in Mississippi: The Staff for Jackson
  Cowan and her colleagues pulled together a staff who would live in Jackson over the summer of 1964 and take care of all the local work and planning.
• Wednesdays in Mississippi: A Family Member's Reaction
  Height recruited Susie Goodwillie to be the first white staff member in Jackson. Fresh out of Stanford University, Goodwillie had spent the past year working for civil rights in Washington, D.C. as first white employee of the National Council of Negro Women. Height enlisted Doris Wilson to be the first black staff member in Jackson. Wilson was more experienced, having been a colleague of Heights at the YWCA. Wilson’s family accepted her assignment; Goodwillie’s family worried.