In the late spring of 1964, Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women and Polly Cowan, WIMS project director, along with the WIMS staff prepared the Wednesdays team members to go south. They put together packets of background information, some of which is shown here.

• Mississippi Glossary
  WIMS provided this document to its northern visitors and lists each type of civil rights organization working in Mississippi along with a synopsis of the purpose and goals of each.
• General Background Material
  This document provides detailed statistics on the imbalance of opportunities between blacks and whites related to education, employment, and economics.
• Median of School Completed by Adults in 1960 per MS County: Whites, Non-Whites
  A comparison of the education by average white and non-white Mississippians reveals that the state-wide average of whites who had completed their education was almost double that of non-whites.
• White Women Supporters
  When the summer was over, the WIMS staff put together a report that recorded their major activities, accomplishments, and findings. The report talked about the reaction of the white women who were asked to house the white WIMS women. This was no small task since the white women of Mississippi faced possible retribution: being ostracized by their friends; being punished by their husbands; and worst of all, being responsible for their husbands losing their jobs.