Find The Cost of Freedom
Memorial Day, 1964.
The Beatles are at the top of the charts with their new single “Love Me Do.” Other top songs that week are “Chapel of Love” by The Dixie Cups and “Hello Dolly” by Louis Armstrong. If you wanted to see a movie you might check out Black Like Me. A film in which a journalist disguises himself as a Black man in the South in 1959. Though you might have skipped the heavy stuff and gone to see the new Elvis flick Viva, Las Vegas
In Mississippi, on Memorial Day, a young Jewish grad student from New York named Mickey Schwerner is speaking at a Black church in Mississippi. He tells them "you have been slaves too long, we can help you help yourselves." The Local Klan hears about it and they attack the church, assaulting the congregation and burning down the church. They missed the speaker. They would catch up to him a few weeks later.
June 21, 1964
The radio is on. “Chapel of Love” has made it to the top of the charts. The Beach Boys have just finished their #3 song “I Get Around.” In places like Los Angeles the film adaptation of the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown is entertaining movie goers. In New York people are still enjoying the new hit musicals like Funny Girl and Hello Dolly. In Mississippi there is no theater and the blue laws means no movies either on a Sunday night. The night is dark. Mickey Schwemer’s wife is in Jackson. He is out in the heart of Mississippi with another Jewish college student named Andrew Goodman, and a young black Civil Rights worker named James Cheney. They are pulled over by a Sheriff’s car and told to follow him. The Deputy stops at a secluded intersection. When the three young men get out of the car they are surrounded by at least 10 men. The full number is never known. One of them, a dishonorably discharged Marine sneered at Mickey Schwemer “You a nigger lover boy?” Schwemer looked him in the eye and said “Well sir, I know exactly how you feel.” This angered the man who raised his pistol and shot Schwemer point blank in the heart. Killing him instantly. James Jordan, a 38-year-old member of the Klan then shot Andrew Goodman in the chest, point blank. Killing him. The two men along with others started beating James Chaney. They pulled off his pants, castrated him, and shot him in the stomach. Only then did Jordan finally put a bullet in the young man’s head.
“Murders in Mississippi” by Norman Rockwell
Next, they drove the bodies out to a dam owned by one of the lynch mob. They buried the bodies in the dam. They disposed of the car and returned to their homes. Their wives and kids. Once the boys were known to be missing the FBI went to work looking for the young men. Dive teams found two missing b
lack men who had been beaten, chained to a cement block, and tossed into the Mississippi River. They found the body of a missing 14 year-old Black boy, murdered by the Klan. Other searchers found 5 other black men who were never identified, also victims of murder. It took two months and an informant before they found the bodies. The FBI also had two confessions before it was over.
But it wasn’t over because this was Mississippi and it was still 1964. The local DA declined to press charges. The Attorney General for the State of Mississippi declined to press charges. Finally, the Federal government charged the men with violations of civil rights. The Federal judge, a notorious segregationist threw out the charges. It took two years and a ruling by a higher court to finally get the murderers to trial. Jordan had confessed to the killings, but he was so rattled by death threats he was receiving from the Klan and others that he kept cracking up under pressure. The case finally ended and seven of the defendants were found guilty. Jordan had already plead guilty. Two were acquitted. E.G. Barnett, a candidate for sheriff, and Edgar Ray Killen, a local minister. Even though Killen, a local Baptist preacher, was the man who actually organized the whole affair one of the jurors said that she just couldn’t convict a preacher. The men were sentenced to three to seven years. None of them spent more than six years in prison.
In 2005, the State of Mississippi reopened the case against Edgar Ray Killen. He was 80 years old. They convicted him of three counts of murder. He was sentenced to three 20 year consecutive terms in jail. He died in prison in 2018 at the age of 93.
When it comes time to vote don’t say that it is hard. Don’t say that you don’t have the time. You owe it to Mickey Schwemer, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney, and the scores of other men and women who lost their lives trying to gain that vote. Don’t say that it’s too hard, the line is too long, it’s not fun. You owe so much more to those who went before and to those who are still to come.
Pete Seeger’s classic song about these young men “Those Three Are On My Mind.”