Here’s the description by Fr. Grant Gallup of his two summers at Saint Augustine’s-

 “For two summers, it turned out, I worked with Kim and other members of the 

summer staffs--flying squads of students like myself --and the devoted people 

and their priests in the exciting ambience of the Lower East Side of New York City.  

We lived a common life--sharing Eucharist and our other meals each day, 

had rooms in the old settlement house that was St. C's.  

As a member of the summer staff  I learned and taught  handicrafts to children 

and youth from poor families in the housing projects nearby, took them on 

outings and educational tours, and learned first hand from Father Myers, 

Father Wendt,  and other priests there the style and elements of liberation 

theology that were never then taught in classrooms.  Most of the summer 

staff were white students, but we worked  and prayed and partied and danced 

with our Black and Latino counterparts in the neighborhood and learned of 

liberation from them.”

During the 60’s at the Advocate young people came from parishes all over the country each summer to help in the summer day camp.  They also found themselves registering voters, picketing for better schools, and teaching Black history.

In 1964 there was the Mississippi Summer Project, what later was called 

Freedom Summer. This was a civil rights effort to expand black voter 

registration, organize a "Freedom Democratic Party" that would challenge 

the whites-only Mississippi Democratic party, establish "freedom schools" to 

teach reading and math to black children, and open community centers 

where indigent blacks could obtain legal and medical assistance. In 

June James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who 

were part of that work were missing and after a 44 days search their 

bodies found. Pam Parker (now Chude Allen) one of the college students 

at the Advocate in the summer of 1963 was now going to join the project 

knowing that the three civil rights workers were dead. 

The connections between what was happening in Philadelphia, 

Mississippi and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania felt exceptionally strong during 

those few months. The Sanctus of the Mass in which we proclaimed the 

connectedness of all things took on a new sacramental meaning for 

many of us. Just recently I came across material on the web that Pam 

had written about her summer in Mississippi.