Freedom Summer Tragedy: How Three Young Boys Deaths Spurred the President, the FBI, the Media, and the American People to Notice the Civil Rights Movement

Freedom Summer Tragedy: How Three Young Boys Deaths Spurred the President, the FBI, the Media, and the American People to Notice the Civil Rights Movement By Kelly Sinnott Had 21-year-old James Earl Chaney been driving by himself that June evening in 1964 on lonely Highway 19 in the heart of Neshoba County, Mississippi, perhaps the events following the tragedy would be radically different. Had Chaney been all alone that evening, what is about to be discussed would likely have never made enough of a splash to ever be analyzed or critiqued. The FBI would likely not have investigated the murder; President Johnson surely would not have been involved; the national media might not have clamored to cover the story; the trials of 18 Klansmen would not have been carried out, and the Oscar-nominated film Mississippi Burning probably would have never been made. Fortunately for the civil rights movement and future history classes, Chaney was not alone that night. He was with two other men: 24-year-old Michael Schwerner, and 20-year-old Andrew Goodman. What difference did it make that these two men were in the 1963 blue Ford Fairlane station wagon with Chaney that night? It was quite simple: Schwerner and Goodman were white, upper class, New Yorkers, and Chaney was black and from Meridian, Mississippi. In ardently racist Neshoba County, Mississippi, that simple fact made all the difference. Schwerner’s wife Rita made the following statement shortly after her husband’s death, My husband, Michael Schwerner, 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.1 Harsh as the statement may sound, in 1964 it rang true. During the subsequent investigation into the murders of the three boys, several other bodies of black lynching victims were found, and yet none of them received the same amount of coverage or thorough investigations. Because the trio’s killings did receive so much media coverage, they became a jumping-off point for the civil rights movement, and a chance for the Justice Department’s John Doar to win the first-ever conviction in a civil rights case in Mississippi. This case made it impossible for white citizens to ignore what was going on. It convinced them of the importance of the civil rights movement, and the reality that it affected whites, as well as blacks. Using Mississippi newspaper articles from both 1964 and present day (including The Neshoba Democrat and The Clarion-Ledger), gives insight as to what the community was like, and the feelings and thoughts of Mississippians about the disappearances and the unearthing of the bodies. Online historical archives of civil rights organizations and governmental offices provide background about Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Summer Project. The secret White House tapes of President Lyndon Johnson and a biography of LBJ/Martin Luther King are used for crucial details about what happened shortly after the boys’ disappearance. Douglas Linder’s extensive research on the subsequent trial provides much of the legal framework. Other various resources, including accounts from Northern journalists, records from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, and interviews with those close to the victims fill in the holes, and add some personal insights by those who lived through the ordeal. By taking a look back at what was happening in Mississippi that summer, how the President and the FBI got involved, the way the investigation proceeded, and how the media covered the case, we can come to understand the importance of the three young boys tragic 1 deaths, how it impacted civil rights during the summer of 1964, and the lingering impact still felt today as one of the men involved in the slaying is finally put to trial. Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Summer Project The summer of 1964 was to be known as Freedom Summer to the volunteers of the Mississippi Summer Project, a voter registration drive coordinated by various civil rights groups to improve the rights of African-Americans in Mississippi. Over 1,000 volunteers worked from various civil rights organizations such as the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This was the first time a large number of whites became involved in civil rights organizations. Robert Moses, director of the Mississippi Summer Project, had brought hundreds of white students to the program over the objections of many black staffers. His motives for involving the white students were loud and clear; he wanted, “…to produce a confrontation between federal and state authorities that could not be ignored, precipitating a crisis that finally would force the federal government to protect civil rights and Mississippi’s black citizens who were trying to register to vote.”2 The white students involved felt the cause to be just as important to them as the black volunteers. The Mississippi Summer Project was certainly no ordinary summer vacation, or for the faint of heart. Before going to Mississippi, the students had to raise $500 bail money, list their next of kin, and be photographed with an identification number across their chest (so they may be identified, in case of death).3 Some used money from graduation or vacation money to fund their trip. One volunteer even arrived on what was to be her wedding day, she had left the groom-to-be at the altar after finding his views on civil rights were not exactly matched with her own.4 A white girl who was a senior at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale volunteered 2 because, “I feel segregation is morally wrong. I believe that if we don’t help to right the wrong, our democracy may wither away.”5 Before leaving, Andrew Goodman told his mother he wanted to go to Mississippi, “…because it’s the most important thing going on in the country.”6 The program was aimed at registering voters in Mississippi, where the African American population exceeded 45%, and only 6% were actually registered to vote.7 African-Americans that at least tried to register risked not only their jobs, but their lives. Many were intimidated by menacing phone calls made in the middle of the night promising to either kill, or severely harm anyone who tried to register, and their family as well. Due to the state’s lack of care for these types of cases or the desire to prosecute and convict anyone, the reign of terror established by the whites in the state worked exceptionally well. It was the desire of the Project volunteers to assist blacks wanting to register in any way they could; but their resources could not provide protection for those willing to try. Another goal of the Project was to establish hundreds of summer schools in Mississippi to try and counteract the state's unequally-funded school system. With no compulsory education laws, the average black child only attended school for six years, and cost the state less than half of what it spends to educate a white child.8 Named “freedom schools”, volunteers taught the curriculum, which included black history and the philosophy of the civil rights movement. One student of a “freedom school” said he had, “…learned more about Negro history in two days than he had in 11 years of public schools.”9 Students ranged in age from six to seventy-five years old, and traveled from all over the counties of Mississippi to soak up the knowledge the “freedom schools” offered to anyone willing to listen. For some, it was the first time they had ever attended any schooling, and others had partial college educations, yet all were eager to learn. 3 The young idealists of the Mississippi Summer Project were determined to make a difference in one of the country’s most racially divided states, but the mounting tensions at the time were culminating to an inevitable major act of violence, such as the killings of the three civil rights workers. The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a now defunct state-run spy agency, monitored activists throughout the state and worked in conjunction with the White Citizens Council to keep black citizens at the bottom of Mississippi society through economic threats and intimidation.10 Between 1956 and 1977, the agency collected information and details on many Klan murders and contained about 87,000 names in their records.11 Three months before Schwerner’s death, the agency began surveillance on the Schwerners at their home in Meridian. They knew where he lived, where he worked, what he drove, who he talked with and when.12 One of the Commission's agents even informed the Commission of the details of Schwerner’s fateful June 21st trip, including arrival information, license plate number, route, and destination.13 The information was given to local law enforcement officers in Neshoba County and members of the Klan. The Ku Klux Klan had regained power in the southern half of Mississippi recently, primarily because of the Klan’s close ties to local law enforcement. With over 10,000 Klan members in Mississippi in 1964, the KKK fragrantly displayed its power with 61 simultaneous cross burnings across the state on April 24.14 More than 16 murders fueled by racial motives occurred in the state during 1964.15 The sheriff of Neshoba County, Lawrence Rainey, had won his position on the campaign slogan, ''The man who can cope with the situations that might arise," which was a flimsily veiled threat to the ''racial agitators" planning to invade the state in 1964.16 The Klan of Neshoba County, which included Sheriff Rainey and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, had initiated a fear campaign against the blacks of Mississippi and anyone willing to help 4 the blacks.

Load more