In June 1964, an orientation and training in nonviolence techniques was held on the campus of Western College for Women for volunteers heading south to Mississippi for Freedom Summer.

While training at Western was still on-going, Mickey Schwerner, a veteran civil rights worker who had come to Oxford to help train the new recruits, received word that one of the churches that had agreed to host Freedom Summer activities had been attacked and burned.

Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, a new volunteer, left Oxford immediately to head back to Mississippi.

Within days, Schwerner and Goodman, along with James Chaney, a native Mississippian and voting rights activist, were reported missing in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

A memorial to the Freedom Summer activists was dedicated in 2000 on the Western College campus.