The February 26, 2011, edition of the Detroit Free Press includes a feature on the new book Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.

The women were drawn to different places in the Deep South in the 1960s, but they shared a passion and commitment that helped them weather daily dangers. Each one says their involvement not only changed the country, it shaped who they became and it created a bond that connects them still.

“What we did changed the course of American history,” says [Denise] Nicholas, who also was a U-M student in 1964 when she decided to go to Mississippi. She took a series of trains alone from Ann Arbor and signed up to help on the just-beginning Free Southern Theater project, an effort to entertain, educate and reflect the Southern condition. She offered to help read and critique scripts, but the group said it needed her to act.