On this week 60 years ago, the bodies of three civil rights workers were found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were part of the 1964 campaign known as Freedom Summer that brought hundreds of college age volunteers to Mississippi to work on registering Black voters as well as establishing Freedom Schools and community centers in underserved Black communities. On June 21, the first day of Freedom Summer, the three young men (one black and two white) went to investigate the bombing of a Black church where a voter registration meeting recently occurred. While driving together, they were pulled over and arrested by local deputies. After spending a day in jail, they were released only to be abducted and murdered by KKK members with the complicity of local law enforcement. It took over forty days until their bodies were found on August 4. During the search for the missing men, many in the local white community claimed that their disappearance was part of a hoax set up by the civil rights workers themselves. While searchers combed through nearby rivers, they discovered nine bodies of Black people assumed to be the victims of racial violence but whose murders were ignored by local authorities. When interviewed about her husband’s murder, Rita Schwerner did not just focus on her own grief. She pointed out the injustice that the deaths of Black people, including James Chaney, were largely ignored while the deaths of the two white men received major public attention. The witness of Rita Schwerner still speaks to us today. The Black Lives Matter movement emerged to lift up the unjust devaluation of Black lives in general and the race based murders of Black people in particular. This is not a political ideology but a call to uphold the inherent value and dignity of Black people. The widespread misunderstanding, defensiveness, and resistance to the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is a symptom of our nation’s ongoing need to face up to our racial history and continue the work of racial justice until our words and actions truly show that all lives matter.
The videos posted below provide more information and insight into the deaths of the three civil rights workers. Please pay special attention to the words of Andrew Goodman’s brother and Rita Schwerner as they reflect on the the larger context of the deaths of their loved ones.