NATCHEZ — Mentioning the words “freedom summer” in Mississippi might take people’s minds to the summer of 1964 during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

But Saturday in Natchez, reenactors and historians gave a glimpse into the Freedom Summer of 1863 at the Black and Blue Civil War Living History Program at Historic Jefferson College.

The program featured the stories of Harrison Winfield, Samuel Chase Thomas Turner and Nelson Finley Woodville, slaves who formed a network, or a “grapevine,” to communicate the latest happenings of the war and to tell other slaves that “freedom was coming.”

Enslaved people “rose up” during the Freedom Summer of 1863, Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-C.M. Boxley said.

“They ran away, hid in forests, some of them killed their masters trying to get away and escaped up and down the Mississippi River,” he said. “

Frederick Douglass reenactor Michael E. Crutcher Sr. performed “The Spirit of Frederick Douglass.”

As a response to Douglass’ call of African descendants to arms and Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas Sr. being sent to the Mississippi Valley in April 1863 to recruit runaway slaves into the Union Army, thousands of able-bodied African descendant males joined the Union Army as freedom fighting soldiers.

Other African men, women and children served as spies, scouts, nurses, cooks, blacksmiths, builders and did other jobs for the Union Army.

When slaves fled to freedom, they not only helped themselves, Boxley said, many of them played important roles in the fight against the Confederacy.

“They made it possible for the defeat of the Confederate Army and subsequently the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments,” Boxley said. “Their actions right here in the Mississippi Valley.”

Black and Blue also featured “Stories from da Dirt” actors and singers portraying enslaved women and their journeys on the Underground Railroad.

Artistic Director Dr. Nancy Dawson portrayed her great-grandmother Elizabeth Thompson, a runaway slave from Liberty, Mo., who settled in Quindaro, Kansas.

At one point during Stories from da Dirt, Dawson’s character and another enslaved woman argue about the burden of a baby that was brought along on their journey.

“If you had a baby, what would you have done with it?” Dawson said after the re-enactment. “I wanted to tell the stories of women and show them from a real perspective.”

Boxley said keeping the stories of the Freedom Summer of 1863 alive through Black and Blue is crucial to teaching black people today about their ancestors’ fight for freedom.

“We must know what our great-great-grandparents did to free themselves and to make us free today,” Boxley said.

“As the Natchez pageant here told white people today and visitors from all over the world what the slavemasters were all about and made them proud, what shall we tell our young black people to make them proud?”