In the spring of 1964 Dorothy I. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, working with NCNW volunteer Polly Cowan, came up with the idea of sending weekly teams of northern women to Mississippi as a way to join the civil rights movement’s search for justice.
The teams would be interracial and interfaith. They would leave on a Tuesday and return on a Thursday. Since they would be there all day on Wednesday, the program became known as Wednesdays in Mississippi. Competent, well-connected, and educated, these women would observe the Freedom Summer and the Freedom Schools, an activity that was appropriate for women and mothers. They would bring local women together and extend HOPE as they opened up what James Silver had called “The Closed Society.” They hoped to bring resolve, empathy, and understanding to the women of Mississippi.