Jewish community members are invited to attend a community-wide memorial service for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the three “Freedom Riders,” who were killed on the night of June 21, 1964.
Their murders became a rallying point for the Civil Rights movement, especially within the Jewish community as Goodman and Schwerner were Jews from New York, who had been working closely with Chaney, a Mississippi African-American. The three volunteers had been advocating for voting rights for African-Americans when they went to investigate the burning of a local black church in Neshoba County. They were arrested by police on spurious charges before being released to Ku Klux Klan members in the middle of the night. The three were murdered by KKK members near Philadelphia, Mississippi and buried in a shallow grave.
Their bodies were later discovered and charges were eventually pressed by the federal government in the wake of the refusal of local or Mississippi state courts to try the perpetrators on what they described as “a lack of evidence.” Six of 18 people charged at the federal level were convicted of depriving the three of their civil rights. None ever served more than six years and no one was convicted on a charge of murder.
The story was used as the background for the action in the Academy Award wining movie “Mississippi Burning.”
The memorial service will be held this Monday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cabrini Bridge that crosses Bayou St. John at Moss Street. In the event of inclement weather, the memorial service will be held at the Popp Bandstand in City Park.
Their murders became a rallying point for the Civil Rights movement, especially within the Jewish community as Goodman and Schwerner were Jews from New York, who had been working closely with Chaney, a Mississippi African-American. The three volunteers had been advocating for voting rights for African-Americans when they went to investigate the burning of a local black church in Neshoba County. They were arrested by police on spurious charges before being released to Ku Klux Klan members in the middle of the night. The three were murdered by KKK members near Philadelphia, Mississippi and buried in a shallow grave.