Remembering Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner
...and perhaps drawing some inspiration from them
Earlier this week my blog post -- Juneteenth, and Other History We Never Learned, Redux – lamented , and condemned, the whitewashing of history that kept my generation, and certainly subsequent generations, from learning some very troubling aspects of American history. The point of the post was to stress that we need to know this history, so we can learn from our mistakes, and better understand the antecedents of some of today’s knotty problems.
The post also warned that while there are recent initiatives to pull back that veil, “conservatives” are fighting tooth and nail to EXPAND it. Part of the post read:
I was almost fourteen when three young people, including two white northerners, were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, who colluded with a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi with the help of “law enforcement,” for helping to register black folk to vote. So it was contemporary history, and the textbooks couldn’t hide that from me.
More than a decade later the symbolism was not lost on me when Ronald Reagan launched his Presidential campaign with a speech touting “states rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a stone’s throw from the earthen dam where the KKK assassins had buried those kids.
Friday was the 60th anniversary of that horrific event and the Washington Post commemorated it with some extraordinary reporting by Susan Levine in the Washington Post. I want to share it with you and hope you that will read it.
The Post’s introduction to the story reads:
Even in a decade marked by hatred and violence, what happened in Philadelphia, Miss., on a sultry June night 60 years ago shocked the nation for its brazenness.
Amid Freedom Summer, a daring effort to register Black Mississippians to vote, three young civil rights workers came to town. It was a perilous time. Black churches were being torched throughout the South. Segregationists remained defiant.
The three activists had arrived to check on the latest church burning. But before the sun rose the next morning, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman would all be dead, ambushed by the Ku Klux Klan as they were heading out of Neshoba County.
It took a massive FBI mobilization 44 days to find the brutalized bodies. It took years for even a modicum of justice.
The atrocity became a seminal moment in the civil rights movement. Yet on the murders’ 60th anniversary, which was Friday, some people here worry that the country is forgetting what was learned along the way. Others wonder what the past is owed — and for how long.
The reporting is detailed, and a lengthy read, but certainly worth it (you can also listen to the author’s reading of the article). Read it by clicking the link here: In 1964, the Klan killed three young activists and shocked the nation .
Some excerpts from a variety of characters:
We had the old raggedy buses, we got all the raggedy books. We never got new books — they were always somebody’s name in them. When the new books come in, they gave them to the White kids.
My mother told us to be nice and civil to everybody. Say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am,’ ‘yes, sir’ and all that. She said you need to be courteous whether they’re White or Black or whatever. But she said, you’re going to find out in life that you’re not going to have the same privileges as the Whites will have.
I was a freshman or sophomore at Ole Miss when ‘Mississippi Burning’ came out. I was just so ashamed that I didn’t know much about [the murders…Everybody is, let’s look ahead to the future, let’s don’t dwell on the past. But I think every kid in this town should know what happened. And personally, I think they should be taught by someone who was on the right side of things. That’s what this generation owes the generation that brought light to it and the generation that went through it. To make sure people know what those boys were fighting for and how terrible it was in this community that they lost their lives here for that particular reason — registering Blacks to vote. That is so important because I know so many young people who don’t vote, and I don’t think anyone’s encouraging them to do so.
The Klan, they were terrorists. They were hatemongers, extremists who were burning down churches and beating up congregants. The feeling around [now] feels like that sometimes, that feeling of anger and hate. My God, can we not move forward while still talking and understanding what happened in the past?”
It was like you grew up in a time when people had all this voluntary amnesia and just would not talk about what was going on.
When we started the coalition in 2004, that’s what came up. That was the first time Black folks started hearing stories and that White folk was hearing about what it was like for them, too. Many of them talked about not knowing; we had a whole generation that grew up that didn’t know. I mean, prior to the movie ‘Mississippi Burning’ coming out, the kids around here couldn’t have named not one of those guys who had come into town.
So we were trying to plan this 40th anniversary and everybody was saying how much Philadelphia had changed. But how can we really say we’ve changed when we’ve never acknowledged our past? We’ve never as a community ever acknowledged that this happened here. For 39 years, Mount Zion had carried this burden by themselves.
This is what I tell the young people: You need to know this story. In Mississippi, it is taught very little. Most of the tours that I do with student groups are from out of the state. I think it’s word of mouth; if I advertised, that would be my full-time job.
How many tours from Neshoba? Zero. Zero tours from the school districts here. You know, you got this big push about history and all the controversy around it. I think some of the teachers are just nervous about exposing their kids to it. But other communities embrace it. Other states embrace it. I’ve got a group come from Portland, [Oregon]. They come twice a year.
It immediately takes me back to that night — as a Black man, as a Black person. I can see that how dark it was out there at night. I can see the faces of those young boys standing out there with these men, not knowing what to expect.
When I’m down on my knees, and I’m telling the story, it’s like I can feel Michael there holding his friend, James, in his arms.
I always say to young people: I’m going to tell you what happened. But I want y’all, more importantly, to understand why those things were happening. What was the environment that allowed those things to happen. And then at the end, we always talk about what are things that they can do, that they can continue to do, to ensure that things like this never happen here again.
The biggest impact was us going to the exact place where the three men were murdered… It was emotional. It’s probably not what everyone wanted to hear. But we need to hear it because they're not going to tell us about it in school.
The freedom to vote is not a big issue. Going to vote is the issue. So the power of the vote, it’s not stifled by threat anymore. It’s stifled by setting up barriers that are rooted under the guise of being fair and equal.
When I decided to come back to Philadelphia, my prayer was, Lord, if you could help me be able to get back to my hometown, spend time with my family and with my grandparents. If there is a part in this community that I can play a part in to better my community, put me in that path. Does that mean making sure that I learn about the past? Making sure I learn about the true story, good or bad? Yes.”
…Then you look at what’s going on even today. Voting rights is having an issue even today. The three civil rights workers have given their life. I think that they knew that they were taking a chance. So they made a sacrifice. And even after that story and other stories that have been told, we’re still dealing with voting rights?
Looking back at these events I was sobered by how quickly those years have passed…and both saddened and angered by how little we have progressed since then.
I plan to turn that anger into activism in this coming election, and at any opportunity to insist on fairness.
I hope you will too.