Collaboration With Others: Freedom Summer Mobile App
How I Collaborated With Fellow Designers To Bring Freedom Summer Discussions to miami university
About our Freedom Summer Project
What is this project?
This project started as a classroom design project and grew to expand outside of classroom walls. It’s main focus is to connect current Miami University students to the local history and legacy of Freedom Summer, with the end-goal of an interactive storytelling website.
What is Freedom Summer?
Also known as the Mississippi Summer Project, Freedom Summer was a 1964 civil rights campaign aimed at increasing voter registration among African Americans in Mississippi, a state plagued with prevalent racism and discriminatory practices (e.g. literacy tests, intimidation against Black voter participation, etc.).
Who worked on this project?
Myself and my good friends, JoJo Peregrina and David Shuppert, from the 2025 Communication Design cohort at Miami University, under the guidance of Zack Tucker.
Why is this project important?
Oxford Ohio, where once stood the Western College for Women and now stands the campus of Miami University, has a rich civil rights history, including the Freedom Summer training. However, awareness of this on campus is limited. We want to grow awareness, and as a result, empower Miami University students to apply their learning of Freedom Summer to contemporary issues and happenings.
Where is this project now?
Our project is still in progress, to be finished by May of 2025! Our team is currently in a deep research and funding phase, preparing for next semester where we will design and code our project into a reality.
Progress So Far
Classroom
Empathize
Our professor, Zack Tucker, took us to the Freedom Summer memorial site located on Miami University’s campus. This was my first time hearing about it.
Define
Our assignment officially began. I joined a group with David Shuppert and JoJo Peregrina and we decided we’d come up with a design solution that uses ‘Interaction’.
Prototype
Our team dived into research to create a mobile website prototype that utilizes primary documents from the Miami University archives and storytelling techniques to tell Miami University students about Freedom Summer.
Poster
To summarize our work and end the class, our team created a poster to display our work, research and process.
Undergrad Research Forum
Undergraduate Research Forum
The Undergraduate Research Forum was an extended study where my peers and I worked with our professor, Zack Tucker, outside of class to further our project.
Interview
During the Undergraduate Research Forum, we had a great opportunity to participate in an interview about our project and our experience with the Undergraduate Research Forum. It was a great opportunity to practice speaking about our work.
National Civil Rights Conference Application
Part of our Undergraduate Research Forum work was applying to present at the National Civil Rights Conference. Our application was accepted.
Showcase
We refined our previous poster and presented our mobile website prototype at an end-of-the-year showcase.
National Civil Rights Conference
National Civil Rights Conference
JoJo Peregrina, David Shuppert, and I traveled to Huntsville, Alabama with the assistance of our professor, Zack Tucker, to present our work. We had some great conversations and it was a great experience.
The Legacy Museum
As we were in Alabama, we took the time to go visit the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. It was a wonderful experience and very inspiring.
Present Day
Currently…
We are doing additional research, meeting once a week to work on our project together, and searching for funding to help us with future steps of our project.
More Still To Come!
As we continue to work on our project, this page will continue to be updated. Don’t forget to check back and see our mobile website in May of 2025!