Dem
47
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Today, a piece about a different, and very important, struggle courtesy of reader M.R. in La Jolla, CA:
The veterans' stories have been very moving. Just a thought... could we mention the veterans and martyrs of another war—the war for civil rights?
Many people know about the story of the three men killed during Freedom Summer in 1964. Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality in Mississippi. Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of college students from across the country who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and Civil Rights as part of Freedom Summer.
Scholars estimate that at least half of the white people who came down south as volunteers that summer were Jews. To be honest, most of the northern synagogues kept quiet about the issue of civil rights; the young Jews who took the journey did so not because they were encouraged, but simply of their own initiative.
This past Sunday was the civil yahrzeit (death anniversary) of the three men killed by a racist mob, fighting for the rights of every American.
An additional note: It's fairly clear that the case drew national attention because, though Jews, Schwerner and Goodman were white. Mickey Schwerner's wife Rita, also a CORE worker, refused to offer a teary plea to find her husband. Instead, she said in an interview with reporters on the scene, "It is tragic, as far as I am concerned, that white Northerners have to be caught up in the machinery of injustice and indifference in the South, before the American people register concern. I personally suspect that if Mr. Chaney, who is a native Mississippian Negro, had been alone at the time of the disappearance that this case, like so many others that have come before, would have been completely unnoticed."
Rita is still alive. I hope nobody is insulted if you include the memories of the activists who put their lives on the line as part of this series.
Thanks, M.R., and we are sure nobody will be insulted. (Z)