During the early to mid-1960s, Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Itta Bena, under the leadership of Rev. G.W. Hollins, became the center of local civil rights activity tied to SNCC's voter registration project in Leflore County. The broader effort began in the summer of 1962 under Robert Moses and Greenwood-based SNCC field secretaries Samuel Block and Willie Peacock, and William H. "Bud" McGee was assigned to work in Itta Bena in early 1963 amid tensions that included the cutoff of federal food aid to 22,000 county residents during the winter of 1962-1963 and the non-fatal shooting of SNCC field worker Jimmie Travis in February 1963. By April 1963, local ministers including Hollins had joined the effort, and the church began hosting Citizen Workshops for adults and youth; a class on May 3 was interrupted by a smoke bomb. On June 18, 1963, a meeting at the church was disrupted by a tear gas attack, and as attendees peacefully walked away to seek help, police detained them; forty-five people, including teenagers and women in their 70s, were convicted of breach of peace, jailed in Itta Bena and Greenwood, fined, and imprisoned at the Leflore County Penal Farm. After work and hunger protests in early July, twenty-three inmates, including some arrested in Greenwood, were sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman and subjected to harsh punishment, while the remaining activists at the County Farm were released on August 16 after the National Council of Churches posted their bonds and arranged releases from Parchman as well. Voting registration work continued from the church throughout these events, and 150 attempted registrants cast affidavit ballots there in the August 6, 1963 gubernatorial primary, but all were rejected by state authorities. The church also remained central during Freedom Summer in 1964, including recruitment for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. On June 25, 1964, Freedom Summer volunteers John Paul and Roy Torkington arrived in Itta Bena and, while canvassing with Bud McGee, were marched downtown by armed white men and forced to leave, but at a meeting that evening local people urged them to stay and continue. The next morning, as the FBI searched for missing workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Meridian, agents arrested three local white men on charges of interfering with voter registration work, and local activist Willie Esther Baxter-McGee later recalled that these arrests emboldened the protesters based at the church.
