Henry and I moved to the shack in Balance Due in 1965. Here I am walking on the swaying footbridge, the most direct way to get there from town. This photograph was taken by Henry.

Annie Bell Mitchell and her husband Ozell were among the First Fourteen in Holmes, who dared to try to register to vote in 1963.

Robert Head with granddaughter Patricia and wife Pecolia. The Heads lived on the highway at Mileston with several children and grandchildren. Mr. Head, a carpenter, helped construct the Holmes County Community Center at Mileston along with Californians Abe Osheroff and Jim Boebel.

Hartman Turnbow was a master orator. Here he speaks at a Third Sunday Countywide Meeting. Also pictured are James Moore ( center ), from Pickens, and Walter Bruce ( far right ), from Durant.

The older Mileston women sometimes gathered before the regular Wednesday night meeting at the Community Center at Mileston. Left to right: Alma Mitchell Carnegie, Annie Bell Mitchell, Caldonia Davis, Florence Blackmon, and Maude C. Vance.

These children, sitting on a tire, lived in Lexington's Pecan Grove neighborhood.

The children in Pecan Grove were often underfoot outside the office, providing the staff with headaches and laughter.

The child squatting in the center, Otha Lee, was mimicking me as I took the picture.

Edith Quinn, along with her neighbors the Louies and the Moores, was a movement leader from the Howard area.

Boys often would hang out in McGee's Café, the only business in Pecan Grove.

Young women took on leadership roles in the movement. Rosie Head ( right ) and Elease Gallion ( behind Rosie ) were both living with their parents when the movement sparked them to action at the Greenwood meetings. They worked with the 1964 Summer Project volunteers and later ran the kindergarten an

Reverend Joseph McChriston, a pastor and a hill farmer, was one of the men who guarded the community center at Mileston during the first dangerous years.

The Freedom Democratic Party office in Lexington. Leaders often met at this “shotgun shack” office in Pecan Grove, which functioned as the movement hub. Lexington was a predominantly white community, much more risky than the black rural area where the movement started. Left to right: Reverend Seym

The Holmes County Courthouse in Lexington played a strong role in the Holmes County civil rights movement. The First Fourteen tried to “redish” (register) at this courthouse in April 1963. More than five hundred people marched for civil rights here in 1965, and Willie Ricks from SNCC gave a rousing

Henry Lorenzi worked and relaxed in the rough Balance Due shack. We moved to Lexington to staff the county Freedom Democratic Party office, living first in Balance Due and later in Pecan Grove. Behind Henry are SNCC posters: the man and child is by Earl Newman, and the photograph on the top right is

Singing was essential to building the movement and inspired people in the struggle. Every meeting, including this Countywide Meeting at the community center at Mileston, began and ended with song.

Alec Shimkin, a northern college student and outside worker, takes a break at the Lorenzis' Balance Due shack. Shimkin focused on 1967 elections work with Edgar Love.

Reverend Willie B. Davis waits across from the 1967 Holmes Freedom Democratic Party Campaign Office on Beale Street.

Etha Ree Rule, a woman with an infectious smile, volunteered daily in the Lexington campaign office.

Robert G. Clark was the first to fully use the new campaign office. Besides this desk in the meeting room, Clark had his own desk in a smaller, backroom office.