Civil Rights in the long, hot summer of 1964: 56 years ago today in Mississippi
"On June 21, 1964, three young men disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael (Mickey) Schwerner and James Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in nearby Meridian; Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of college students from across the country who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and Civil Rights as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project."
In Mississippi (a state with a growing membership in the racist Ku Klux Klan), Summer Project workers knew that making sure African-Americans were registered to vote was a key component in the push to protect their civil rights. Voting was crucial for making change in the South, as the best way to be sure everyone's civil rights are respected and enforced is by letting everyone decide who will represent them in court and in everyday life concerning such matters as getting a speeding ticket, which led to these three workers' deaths.
The article "Murder in Mississippi" details how Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were arrested near Philadelphia, Mississippi, for alleged speeding; they were jailed, allowed to pay a fine without having a Justice of the Peace hear their case, and told to get out of town.
These three men were never again seen alive. Soon their disappearance was a national story. Their dead bodies were found, but the investigation stalled before anyone was found guilty of their murder. Finally, in 2005, the case was reopened, and one man was convicted and sentenced in the case.
I was 14 that summer and could not comprehend that people would be murdered so crudely for simply helping people exercise the right to vote. It was becoming increasingly hard for me to reconcile this kind of behavior with the freedom, equality, and justice that the US claimed for itself.
You can read the entire article to understand the complexity, injustices and deceit of this terrible event.
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