Volunteers began training for the Freedom Summer Project in Oxford, OH, on June 13, 1964. Almost 800 young people – many of them students, most of them white – trained during the two week-long sessions on the campus of the Western College for Women to prepare themselves for their work in Mississippi. While much of their training consisted of lectures on Mississippi history, geography and politics, volunteers also trained for how to peacefully respond to the threat of violence. On the grass outside Clawson Hall and other Western College buildings, staff from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) taught the volunteers how to respond to beatings and physical intimidation without retaliation.