From left to right
Top Row: Lawrence A. Rainey, Bernard L. Akin, Other "Otha" N. Burkes, Olen L. Burrage, Edgar Ray Killen.
Bottom Row: Frank J. Herndon, James T. Harris, Oliver R. Warner, Herman Tucker, and Samuel H. Bowers.
Top Row: Lawrence A. Rainey, Bernard L. Akin, Other "Otha" N. Burkes, Olen L. Burrage, Edgar Ray Killen.
Bottom Row: Frank J. Herndon, James T. Harris, Oliver R. Warner, Herman Tucker, and Samuel H. Bowers.
The men on the left were the people murdered. From top to bottom are James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Henry Schwerner.
James Chaney, an African American native to Meridian, was one of Schwerner's friends who was murdered. Chaney was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement as a high school student. He and his friends attended NAACP meetings and wore paper NAACP badges to school to prove their support. The school principal saw their actions in a negative way, and suspended the boys for a week when they refused his orders to remove their badges. In 1963, twenty-year-old Chaney had been expelled from high school, rejected by the U.S. Army (he had Asthma), and was living at home with his mother and four siblings. A friend introduced him to Matt Suarez, a CORE staff member who had been assigned to start up a local movement. Suarez introduced Chaney to the Schwerners, and he started working from day one as the Schwerners moved to Meridian. As a black man, he could easily gain the trust of the other black men whom Schwerner wanted to reach.
Andrew Goodman, a white Jew, met Schwerner and Chaney during the first phase of the Mississippi Summer Project, a program held in Ohio. Later in the week of the summer project, word of the beatings at Mount Zion Church reached Schwerner in Ohio. Schwerner was more determined than ever to establish the freedom school in order to prove the KKK could not scare him off. He approached Goodman one final time about going with Chaney and Schwerner to Mount Zion Church, and he accepted. Early the next morning, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman piled into the blue CORE station wagon and set off to Mississippi.
Michael Schwerner, or Mickey as his friends called him, was a Jewish white CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) field worker. He was born on November 6st, 1939 and was killed at the age of 24. He and his wife Rita had moved to Mississippi from Pelham, New York. As he got settled in Mississippi, he had worked to integrate segregated churches, encourage blacks to vote, and take “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs off from public facilities. His most noticeable project was a boycott of three five-and-ten stores that did business in black communities, but refused to hire black employees. After about a month from the beginning of the boycott, the stores hired a black woman. To the KKK and law enforcement officers, Mickey Schwerner was the most hated man in Mississippi. Sam Bowers was the imperial wizard of the Mississippi Knights of the KKK at that time, and in the second week of May, he gave the order for Schwerner’s murder.
James Chaney, an African American native to Meridian, was one of Schwerner's friends who was murdered. Chaney was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement as a high school student. He and his friends attended NAACP meetings and wore paper NAACP badges to school to prove their support. The school principal saw their actions in a negative way, and suspended the boys for a week when they refused his orders to remove their badges. In 1963, twenty-year-old Chaney had been expelled from high school, rejected by the U.S. Army (he had Asthma), and was living at home with his mother and four siblings. A friend introduced him to Matt Suarez, a CORE staff member who had been assigned to start up a local movement. Suarez introduced Chaney to the Schwerners, and he started working from day one as the Schwerners moved to Meridian. As a black man, he could easily gain the trust of the other black men whom Schwerner wanted to reach.
Andrew Goodman, a white Jew, met Schwerner and Chaney during the first phase of the Mississippi Summer Project, a program held in Ohio. Later in the week of the summer project, word of the beatings at Mount Zion Church reached Schwerner in Ohio. Schwerner was more determined than ever to establish the freedom school in order to prove the KKK could not scare him off. He approached Goodman one final time about going with Chaney and Schwerner to Mount Zion Church, and he accepted. Early the next morning, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman piled into the blue CORE station wagon and set off to Mississippi.
Michael Schwerner, or Mickey as his friends called him, was a Jewish white CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) field worker. He was born on November 6st, 1939 and was killed at the age of 24. He and his wife Rita had moved to Mississippi from Pelham, New York. As he got settled in Mississippi, he had worked to integrate segregated churches, encourage blacks to vote, and take “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs off from public facilities. His most noticeable project was a boycott of three five-and-ten stores that did business in black communities, but refused to hire black employees. After about a month from the beginning of the boycott, the stores hired a black woman. To the KKK and law enforcement officers, Mickey Schwerner was the most hated man in Mississippi. Sam Bowers was the imperial wizard of the Mississippi Knights of the KKK at that time, and in the second week of May, he gave the order for Schwerner’s murder.