Movement

Victoria Gray Adams and citizenship education

How Victoria Gray Adams used SCLC's citizenship school model in Hattiesburg to teach adults to read, register and organize, and why that teaching model mattered.

By the FLH Info Editorial Team · Updated November 6, 2026 · 2 min read

In short

Victoria Gray Adams trained with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's citizenship education program in 1963 and taught citizenship classes in Hattiesburg, first in her own church. The model, developed by Septima Clark, Esau Jenkins and Bernice Robinson on the South Carolina Sea Islands, taught adults to read and write using the documents they needed: the registration form, the state constitution and everyday forms. Local teachers like Gray made the model work in Mississippi.

Program: SCLC Citizenship Education Program
Origins: Johns Island, South Carolina, 1957
Founders: Septima Clark, Esau Jenkins, Bernice Robinson
Gray's base: St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church, Palmer's Crossing
Method: Local teachers, adult literacy through civic documents

Black-and-white survey photograph of a brick church building with a columned porch in Ruleville — Ruleville Methodist Church, from the church survey photographs of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. This is a different church from William Chapel. Photo: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, No restrictions, via Mississippi Department of Archives and History via Wikimedia Commons.

Where did the citizenship school model come from?

The model grew out of workshops Septima Clark led at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and the first citizenship school on Johns Island, South Carolina, started in 1957 with local leader Esau Jenkins and beautician Bernice Robinson to help Black islanders pass the literacy test. The King Institute at Stanford says that when Tennessee forced Highlander to close in 1961, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference set up its Citizenship Education Program on Clark's model, with Clark as director of education, and took over the program and trained teachers from across the South, often at the Dorchester Center in McIntosh, Georgia, and in sessions in South Carolina.

The method was simple: teachers came from the community, classes met in familiar places, and lessons used real documents. Students learned to sign their names, read the registration form and copy sections of the state constitution, the same task Mississippi registrars set.

How did Victoria Gray Adams use it?

After SCLC training in 1963, she taught citizenship classes in Hattiesburg and recruited others to teach. The SNCC Digital Gateway records that she persuaded her minister at St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church in Palmer's Crossing to host classes. The Mississippi Encyclopedia describes her operating classes that taught literacy to help people pass the registration test. The classes became the base for Hattiesburg's voter registration drive and its Freedom Day in January 1964.

Why was this approach effective?

It treated adults who had been kept from schooling as capable learners and turned the classroom into a place to organize. People who learned to read the registration form also learned who the registrar was, how the county was run and which neighbors were ready to go to the courthouse. Gray, a churchwoman well known in her community, was the kind of local teacher the model relied on.

How does this connect to Fannie Lou Hamer?

Hamer trained in the same program in June 1963, and it was on the bus home from that training that she was beaten in Winona. See Winona, 1963. Teachers today can use the citizenship school approach, close reading of the documents that shape people's lives, in the lesson plan on this site.

Why is this page called adams_model.html?

This address comes from an earlier site on this domain. We kept it so links still work and used it for the teaching model Victoria Gray Adams practiced.

Questions readers ask

What was a citizenship school?

A class for adults, usually in a church or home, that taught reading and writing through the materials people needed to become voters, such as the registration form and the state constitution, along with lessons on rights and local government.

Did Fannie Lou Hamer attend citizenship training?

Yes. In June 1963 she attended an SCLC citizenship training workshop in South Carolina and was arrested in Winona on the way home.

Sources

Victoria Gray AdamsSNCC Digital Gateway
Victoria Gray AdamsMississippi Encyclopedia
Beatings in Winona jailSNCC Digital Gateway
Septima Poinsette ClarkMartin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University

We checked every date and name on this page against the sources above. If you find an error, write to contact@fannielouhamer.info.