60 years ago, three young activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) disappeared in the state of Mississippi, United States.
The African American Mississippian James Chaney (21) and New Yorkers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner They went to speak with members of a church in the town of Longdale.
A few weeks earlier, Chaney and Schwerner had been there, encouraging the congregation to register to vote, one of the rights they were regularly denied by white locals.
“You have been slaves for a long time; “We can help them help themselves,” Schwerner had said.
Shortly after, the White Knights of the racist group Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which at that time enjoyed great popularity for its rejection of social integration policies, They destroyed and burned the church, and attacked the faithful.
On June 21, 1964, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner went to investigate what happened. Then they vanished.
The next day, the FBI received information about a car burning near a highway.
Then-director John Edgar Hoover ordered a search, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, brother of the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy and a staunch supporter of civil rights, sent 150 more agents from New Orleans.
After finding the car still smoking, the investigation continued as there was no trace of the passengers. It took six weeks to confirm what was feared.
Their bodies were eventually discovered after an informant tipped off that they had been buried in local farmland.
The case, which the FBI named “Mississippi Burning“ (“Missisipi Burns” or “Missisipi on Fire”) shocked the United States.
And, in a twist that white supremacists never anticipated, helped win the fight for civil rights.
But, what is the families’ experience of an event like this?
Andrew Goodman’s brother David told his story to the BBC.
“It was his nature”
“Andrew was a very popular boy and he liked to laugh, go to parties and dance. He was not aggressive or loud, but rather a very calm person.”
“He was handsome and strong, and I really believed in what you and I and most people would call justice.so if there was a bully hitting a smaller child, he would intervene. It was the nature of him.”
Andrew’s sense of justice came from his middle-class New York family who had always been politically active.
“He was the middle child, and the most interested in social issues.
“Every once in a while, there are people who want to do something practical. I think that is a key in Andy’s case: he wanted to contribute to change, even if it was with a grain of sand on the proverbial beach of life.
“That is a very important concept in our family..
“’Ordinary people doing extraordinary things,’ my grandfather liked to say about getting up in the morning and doing something; “It didn’t have to be the biggest thing in the world, just something positive.”
Andrew Goodman’s chance to do something positive came that June 1964.
In what became known as the Freedom Summer, white college students traveled from the north to help register black voters in the South.
His parents, despite being aware that it was dangerous Because of the Ku Klux Klan’s fury over the federal policy in favor of racial integration, they decided to let him go.
“They felt that everything they had taught us was to serve the public interest and they could not say that they did not want it to be because it was in the public interest that people had the right to vote and did so.
“But they were very troubled, as I think all parents were.”
Just one day after arriving in Mississippi, Andrew disappeared with his two colleagues. When the car they were traveling in was found burned, the Goodman family remained hopeful.
“It was like, ‘We have to find him.’ It didn’t occur to us that he was dead. It turns out that he was killed on June 21, but was not found until August 4. It was 44 days. Your mind keeps you away from the horror of probable reality. It was there, but it was very, very, very in the back of your mind. Nobody mentioned it, except certain newspapers and we read them and we just didn’t believe them.”
What the president understood
Press interest was on a scale not seen in previous attacks on civil rights workers.
“It was huge. “There were news reporters camped in front of our building and the police were there 24 hours a day just to control the crowds.”
The reason, in David Goodman’s opinion, was that two of the missing men were white.
“It shocked white people in the US, because the feeling was: ‘How could this happen to two young white men?’. This is a part of the story that is not told as often.
“When the majority see that their own people are being attacked, they go off on alert and say, ‘Wow, this could happen to my children or me,’ and it makes people, I think, more aware. That creates an atmosphere for change. And that was a sensitivity that the president understood.”
“He was a shrewd politician, and he used it to get the Civil Rights Act passed. It’s kind of a miracle that it was approved. But but it happened, and it changed our country“.
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, while Andrew Goodman and his two companions remained missing.
A month later, he received a call from FBI Deputy Director Cartha DeLoach:
DeLoach – “Mr. Hoover wanted me to call him right away and tell him that The FBI has found three bodies 6 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Mississippi. “A group of search agents found the bodies about 15 minutes ago while digging in the forest and undergrowth (…).”
President – “When are they going to make the announcement.”
DeLoach – “In 10 minutes, sir, if that’s okay.”
President – “If you can, wait about 15 minutes. I have to notify the families“.
“August 4 was the eve of my father’s 50th birthday, so my parents went out to a concert – they liked music – and I was alone at home.
“The phone rang, I picked it up and the voice on the other end said:
President: ‘Who am I speaking to?’
David: ‘With David Goodman.’
President: ‘Oh, you’re Andy’s brother, right?’
David: ‘Yes.’
President: ‘Where are your parents? I would like to talk to them. I am President Johnson.’
David: ‘They’re out.’
“And there was a pause on the phone.
Then he said: ‘I have bad news for you. We found your brother’s body“.
The pain was deep.
“There were 44 days of suspense. I was 17 years old. I was two weeks away from starting university. And my father died two weeks before I graduated. He tore it apart.”
What happened
The FBI arrested 18 Mississippi residents for the murders: members of the Ku Klux Klan, who carried them out, and the local police, who set a trap.
The van in which the activists were traveling was known as one of CORE’s vehicles, and Schwerner was being targeted.
Through confessions it was learned that They had been arrested for allegedly speeding.while driving through Neshoba County
The Philadelphia sheriff held them in jail while he called Edgar Ray Killen, one of the local KKK leaders, and gave him time to arrange for two carloads of members of the group to arrive in the neighborhood.
Once everything was ready, he released the activists from jail, ordered them to leave the city, and joined the chase.
When they caught up with them, they forced them to get into their cars, and They took them to another place to shoot them dead..
Those responsible were brought to justice, but due to local resistance, they were only tried on minor charges, and it took until 2005 for Killen, accused of orchestrating the murders, to be finally convicted.
As for Andrew Goodman, he became a hero of the civil rights movement, and his brother David believes he remains an example of moral courage.
“It was a story of horror and of deep-rooted evil in our country. There is nothing we can do to change the past, but there are things we can do today and learn from the past in all of our countries.
“I think it’s a story that resonates around the world all the time.and if you are one of those who think that all people are equal, at some point you may be called as a citizen to fight for what you believe in.”
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