Miami students create interactive website about Freedom Summer civil rights campaign
Interactive website transports viewers to 1964 to experience Freedom Summer
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Published
Kylee Halter, Jojo Peregrina, and David Shuppert stand with their poster during the 2025 Undergraduate Research Forum.
Miami students create interactive website about Freedom Summer civil rights campaign
•
Published
Three Miami University Communication Design students have created an interactive website about the legacy of Freedom Summer that will go live next year, allowing current and future students to experience the civil rights campaign through immersive storytelling.
David Shuppert '25, Kylee Halter '25, and Jojo Peregrina '25 developed “Bridging Generations: Exploring Freedom Summer Through an Immersive Storytelling Website” using documents and photographs from Miami University’s digital archives, along with prototype tests and community feedback. A computer science class is set to code the mobile-friendly site in an XJS web framework this fall for hosting under the Miami University Libraries' website.
The website uses second-person storytelling to transport viewers to 1964 during Freedom Summer (then called the Mississippi Summer Project), allowing them to make choices and interact with history in an experience that textbooks cannot provide.
A challenge of the project, Shuppert said, was that many primary sources on Freedom Summer were spread across different libraries and special collections. Bringing all archival materials together into a centralized digital space and presented in an innovative way makes the information more accessible to audiences.
Freedom Summer of 1964 was a voter registration program sponsored by civil rights organizations to increase Black voter registration in Mississippi, and has a direct connection to Miami University: the volunteers received training at the Western College for Women, now part of Miami's Western Campus in Oxford. The program trained almost 800 volunteers to help Black Americans register to vote; set up Freedom Schools, community centers, and libraries; and peacefully resist any violence they encountered in the South. Miami’s Freedom Summer Memorial honors three civil rights workers who trained during Freedom Summer ‘64 — James Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 20; and Michael Schwerner, 24 — who were murdered in Mississippi while registering Black voters.
The team designed the website to inspire modern activism by connecting Freedom Summer to the Civil Rights Movement and Oxford's local history. The storytelling experience emphasizes ongoing efforts against discrimination and encourages viewers to champion causes within their own communities.
"We were really inspired by [Freedom Summer], because the trainees were our age, we're just separated by time," Shuppert said.
Halter added that being the same age as the volunteers "reminds us that we have the power to act. We can place ourselves in the shoes of those who volunteered and participated and realize that we also have that same power.”
For Peregrina, learning about Freedom Summer and its impact allows people to see the importance of voting as politics for change.
The team’s senior capstone project has been a work in progress for two years, including presentations at the Undergraduate Research Forum (URF) in 2024 and 2025, the 2024 National Civil Rights Conference in Alabama, and funding through the Undergraduate Research Award (URA) Program. Assistant professor of Communication Design, Zack Tucker, served as a faculty mentor for the team and accompanied them to the National Civil Rights Conference to collect feedback on the prototype.
David Shuppert '25, Kylee Halter '25, and Jojo Peregrina '25 developed “Bridging Generations: Exploring Freedom Summer Through an Immersive Storytelling Website” using documents and photographs from Miami University’s digital archives, along with prototype tests and community feedback. A computer science class is set to code the mobile-friendly site in an XJS web framework this fall for hosting under the Miami University Libraries' website.
The website uses second-person storytelling to transport viewers to 1964 during Freedom Summer (then called the Mississippi Summer Project), allowing them to make choices and interact with history in an experience that textbooks cannot provide.
A challenge of the project, Shuppert said, was that many primary sources on Freedom Summer were spread across different libraries and special collections. Bringing all archival materials together into a centralized digital space and presented in an innovative way makes the information more accessible to audiences.
Freedom Summer of 1964 was a voter registration program sponsored by civil rights organizations to increase Black voter registration in Mississippi, and has a direct connection to Miami University: the volunteers received training at the Western College for Women, now part of Miami's Western Campus in Oxford. The program trained almost 800 volunteers to help Black Americans register to vote; set up Freedom Schools, community centers, and libraries; and peacefully resist any violence they encountered in the South. Miami’s Freedom Summer Memorial honors three civil rights workers who trained during Freedom Summer ‘64 — James Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 20; and Michael Schwerner, 24 — who were murdered in Mississippi while registering Black voters.
The team designed the website to inspire modern activism by connecting Freedom Summer to the Civil Rights Movement and Oxford's local history. The storytelling experience emphasizes ongoing efforts against discrimination and encourages viewers to champion causes within their own communities.
"We were really inspired by [Freedom Summer], because the trainees were our age, we're just separated by time," Shuppert said.
Halter added that being the same age as the volunteers "reminds us that we have the power to act. We can place ourselves in the shoes of those who volunteered and participated and realize that we also have that same power.”
For Peregrina, learning about Freedom Summer and its impact allows people to see the importance of voting as politics for change.
The team’s senior capstone project has been a work in progress for two years, including presentations at the Undergraduate Research Forum (URF) in 2024 and 2025, the 2024 National Civil Rights Conference in Alabama, and funding through the Undergraduate Research Award (URA) Program. Assistant professor of Communication Design, Zack Tucker, served as a faculty mentor for the team and accompanied them to the National Civil Rights Conference to collect feedback on the prototype.
Established in 1809, Miami University is located in Oxford, Ohio, with regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown, a learning center in West Chester, and a European study center in Luxembourg. Interested in learning more about Freedom Summer? Visit the website for more information.
