Matt Jackson St. Mark’s Chapel Remarks Honoring Black History Month February 2004

Last year, I spoke to you about many of the important historical Black figures in our nation’s history: doctors, scientists, inventors, sports figures, and yes, even teachers. Important men and women, who have shaped the course of history, provided us with research, medical advancements, inventions and world records.

February is designated as Black History Month. Americans have recognized black history annually since 1926, first as "Negro History Week" and later as "Black History Month." Today, I would like to speak to you about a pivotal figure in African American history, and this man has an important place in history and what is equally important, is that he’s not African American. His name is Mickey Schwerner.

Michael Schwerner, Mickey, to his friends, was born in New York City on November 6th, 1939. He attended Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, NY. After graduating from Cornell University in 1961, Schwerner worked as a social worker in Manhattan. He married Rita Levant in June 1962, and in 1964, they left for Mississippi to help organize efforts to register black voters and teach black children during the of 1964, a project of the Council of Federated Organization (COFO). COFO was a coalition of some of the most active organizations in the , including Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress for Racial Equality, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The coalition’s peaceful cause was like a declaration of war to the White Establishment in the south.

In January of 1964, the Schwerners became CORE field-workers in Meridian, Mississippi, in preparation for Freedom Summer. On June 21, 1964, Schwerner and two of his friends, and Andrew Goodman, went to Longdale to visit Mt. Zion Methodist Church, a building that had been fire-bombed by the because it was going to be used as a Freedom School. On the way back to the CORE office in Meridian, the three men were arrested by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price of Neshoba County Mississippi. Later that evening, they were released from the Neshoba jail only to be stopped again on a rural road where a white mob shot them and buried them in an earthen dam.

When Attorney General Robert Kennedy heard that the men were missing, he arranged for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to go to Mississippi to discover what has happened. On August 4th, 1964, FBI agents found the bodies in an earthen dam on Old Jolly Farm.

On 13th October, Ku Klux Klan member, James Jordon, confessed to FBI agents that he witnessed the murders and agreed to co-operate with the investigation. Eventually, nineteen men are arrested and charged with violating Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman’s civil rights. This indictment included Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price.

You might be wondering why I chose to speak about Mickey Schwerner. Well, Mickey Schwerner was my mother’s high school classmate. She began to tell me about “Freedom Summer” when I was just about your age. She told me of a time in our nation’s history when blacks and whites could not eat together, play together or learn together. She told me of a young man who treated everyone as an equal. Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney, and thousands of others actively took part in shaping our country’s future. These young men and women truly embodied President Kennedy’s words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Rita Schwerner states, “My husband, , did not die in vain. If he and Andrew Goodman had been Negroes, the world would have taken little notice of their deaths. After all, the slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm had been sounded.”

Sue Brown, a young African American student who worked with Michael Schwerner in Meridian, Mississippi, during 1964 had this to say about Mickey: “More than any white person I have ever known, he could put a colored person at ease. To a group of young Negroes, he didn't seem like a preacher, or a do-gooder, or a social worker, or somebody who was out slumming, or a reporter who had come to learn about Negroes. He was the only white man I have ever known that you could associate with and forget he was white. He didn't talk down or up to you, he just talked to you. He made you feel he was interested in you, not because you were a Negro, but because you were folks, too. He never pretended that he knew what was best for you.” Nat Schwerner says of his son: “It is clear in retrospect that my son was not a random victim of racist hatred, he was on a list. They knew who he was, without question,” said Schwerner, a retired lawyer who also was involved in civil rights work. “He (Mickey) had been called everything during his months in south: a red bearded communists, a Bolshevik, and a Jew bastard…..but he didn’t express his fears, he didn’t want us to be unduly disturbed.”

On the 25th anniversary of Freedom Summer, Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and civil rights leader spoke at my high school. He said, “The deaths of the three civil rights workers galvanized the civil rights movement in the eyes of the American people, far more than the protests, the sit-ins, and far more than the images of fire-hoses and attack dogs. Pelham Memorial High School annually bestows The Michael Schwerner Memorial award to the young man or woman who exemplifies the giving heart and generous spirit of Mickey Schwerner.

There is a hauntingly beautiful poem by Dudley Randall which spoke of a dark time in our nation’s history – the firebombing of black churches in the south. On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.

"Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?" "No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren't good for a little child." "But, mother, I won't be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free." "No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children's choir." She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet. The mother smiled to know that her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face. For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child. She clawed through bits of glass and brick, Then lifted out a shoe. "O, here's the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?

I would like to leave you with this final thought. Do all you can for one another! Do all you can for one another! If you see someone is having trouble, stop and try to assist them. Far too often we put sour blinders on and focus only on ourselves and our own problems, forgetting the world around us. I challenge you to start today to remember history’s lessons and to continue to do all you can do for one another. Thank you.