Mississippi Freedom Summer Remembered

By David Pitts
Washington File Staff Writer

(Plaque honors three civil rights martyrs)

Philadelphia, Mississippi -- It is not really a memorial, just a small plaque on the grounds of the Mt. Zion Methodist Church, located a few miles outside this small town. The young men it honors are largely forgotten now. But 37 years ago, their names were front page news across the nation -- civil rights heroes who had mysteriously disappeared while helping African Americans to register to vote.

The case was a subject of frequent comment at a conference titled "International Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Intercultural Relations," held April 18-22 on the campus of the University of Mississippi. It was the most important of a number of civil rights cases that conference attendees discussed.

James Chaney, who was black, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, both of whom were white, were in Neshoba County during what became known as Mississippi Freedom Summer -- the summer of 1964. They were part of a large contingent of volunteers determined to break the back of segregation -- and in particular the state's intimidation of potential black voters. Neshoba County had a reputation as one of the most segregated jurisdictions in the state.

On June 17, Mt. Zion Church was burned to the ground, one of 20 black churches to be firebombed across the state during that Freedom Summer. The federal government's law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), began a massive inquiry into the bombings, codenamed "MIBURN" -- for Mississippi Burning. President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General Robert Kennedy became personally involved in the case, urging FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to aggressively pursue every lead.

But the FBI soon had an even more serious matter on its hands. On June 21, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner drove to the site of the burned church outside Philadelphia to investigate the situation and express sympathy with the congregation. On the way back, they disappeared. The FBI interviewed more than 1,000 Mississippians in an effort to locate the young men before their bodies were eventually found on August 4. It was later determined that the civil rights workers had been murdered as a result of a conspiracy between elements of Neshoba County law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan.

But if segregationists in Mississippi had hoped to intimidate the civil rights movement, they were mistaken. The crime spurred renewed efforts in the state to register African Americans to vote and national indignation over the murders helped President Johnson pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act which, together with the Voting Rights Act passed the following year, ended legally mandated segregation in Mississippi and throughout the South. Seven persons were eventually convicted of federal civil rights charges relating to the murders and served prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years.

Driving into Philadelphia on this cool, spring day, there are no visible signs of the violent struggle that took place here almost four decades ago. But evidence of the change that was wrought here is everywhere. On a city street, a black law enforcement officer drives by in a patrol car -- unthinkable during segregation. At the county courthouse, black and white employees seem to mix easily in a way that would not have been possible in the old Mississippi.

And at the city library, black and white schoolchildren read attentively beside a stand carrying books about African American role models -- everyone from movie star Denzel Washington to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Both the librarians on duty on this day are African American. Everyone asked in Philadelphia knows about the three civil rights workers and what happened in Neshoba County during Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Most, however -- both black and white -- seem reluctant to talk about it, as if it would open up old wounds. They would rather talk about Neshoba County and Mississippi today. Mississippi now has more elected black officials than any other state in the nation, testimony to the wrenching change that occurred here just a few generations ago, although African Americans will tell you that there is still much to be done.

"Change is difficult," remarked one elderly white man. "But what happened right here in Neshoba County changed Mississippi, changed the South forever." That change did come is due to the myriad of civil rights NGOs that were active here, to the determination of the federal government and courts to end legally mandated segregation throughout the South, and to the educative role played by independent media.

But it also is due to courageous individuals like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The plaque dedicated to their memory, next to a rebuilt Mt. Zion Methodist Church, says:

"On June 21, 1964, voting rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who had come here to investigate the burning of Mr. Zion Church, were murdered. Victims of a Klan conspiracy, their deaths provoked national outrage and led to the first successful prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi."