These are the phrases that ring again and again through the literature on Wednesdays in Mississippi. In 1964 the NCNW (working with the National Council of Catholic Women, the National Council of Jewish Women, Church Women United, the YWCA, the League of Women Voters, and the American Association for University Women) brought teams of northern women to Mississippi to help the Freedom Schools founded by COFO.

The black women from the north visited with black women from the south; the white women from the north reached out to white women in the south. The women from the north went home with a fresh commitment to social and racial justice. The women in the south felt a breath of fresh air and the support of national women's organizations. In 1965 they came again, this time on a more professional level, speaking teacher to teacher and social worker to social worker.

In 1966 WIMS became Workshops in Mississippi, an ongoing effort to help black women and families, and poor white women and families, achieve economic self-betterment. The National Council of Negro Women remains an active force for social welfare in Mississippi today, forty years after the inauguration of WIMS.

• October 16,2002: Interview with Dorothy I. Height
  Dorothy I. Height talks about the original goals of WIMS in 1964.
• WIMS Annual Report, 1964 (page 29)
  How do you build communications on a foundation of fear and mutual suspicion? WIMS tried to reach out to women in both the white and black communities. They opened and extended contacts. They strove to quiet rumors and dampen fears.
• "Wednesdays in Mississippi" by Polly Cowan
  When the summer ended, Cowan wrote a report summarizing the goals and accomplishments of that first summer. This is an excerpt from that report.