Michael Henry Schwerner (November 6, 1939 – June 21, 1964), was one of three
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in rural
Neshoba County, Mississippi
Neshoba County is located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,087. Its county seat is Philadelphia. It was named after ''Nashoba'', a Choctaw chief. His name means "wolf" in the ...
, by members of the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
. Schwerner and two co-workers,
James Chaney and
Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
work, which included promoting voting registration among
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890.
Early life and education
Born and raised in a family of Jewish heritage, Schwerner attended
Pelham Memorial High School
The Pelham Memorial High School is the only high school within the town of Pelham, New York, United States. It is part of the Pelham Union Free School District.
A small portion of land that is between Pelham and Pelham Bay Park, with a total ...
in
Pelham, New York. He was called Mickey by his friends. His mother, Anne Siegel (May 1, 1912 – November 29, 1996), was a science teacher at nearby
New Rochelle High School, and his father, Nathan Schwerner (June 19, 1909 – March 6, 1991), was a businessman. Schwerner attended
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
, originally intending to become a
veterinarian
A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...
. He transferred to
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
and switched his major to rural
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
. While an undergraduate at Cornell, he was initiated into the school's chapter of
Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He entered graduate school at the School of
Social Work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
As a boy, Schwerner befriended
Robert Reich, who later became
U.S. Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the United States Department of Labor, controls the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all ot ...
. Schwerner helped protect Reich, who was smaller, from bullies.
Civil rights activism
In the early 1960s Schwerner became active in working for civil rights for African Americans; he led a local
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) group on the
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
of Manhattan, called "Downtown CORE." He participated in a 1963 effort to desegregate
Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland. As activism increased in the South, Schwerner, recruited by
John Lewis, and his wife,
Rita Schwerner Bender, volunteered to work for National CORE in Mississippi, under the tutelage of
Dave Dennis, the CORE state director.
Bob Moses Robert Moses (1888–1981) was an American city planner.
Robert Moses may also refer to:
* Bob Moses (activist) (1935–2021), American educator and civil rights activist
* Bob Moses, American football player in the 1962 Cotton Bowl Classic
* Bob M ...
assigned the Schwerners to organize the community center and activities in
Meridian
Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to
Science
* Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon
* ...
.
James Chaney was a local youth who started working with them there. The Schwerners were the first whites to be assigned by CORE permanently outside the state capital of
Jackson. In the summer of 1964 CORE intended to hold classes and drives to register African Americans to vote in the state, what they called "Freedom Summer". Many volunteers, mostly college students and young adults, had been recruited from local communities and northern/western states to work on this project.
Civil rights activists were resented and held under suspicion by white Mississippians. Spies paid by the
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the Sov-Com) was a state agency in Mississippi from 1956 to 1977 tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. T ...
, a taxpayer-funded agency, kept track of all northerners and suspected activists. The Commission conducted economic boycotts and intimidation against activists. In 1998 its records were opened by court order, revealing the state's deep complicity in the 1964 murders of three civil right workers because its investigator, A. L. Hopkins, passed on information about the workers, including their car license number, to the Commission. Records showed the Commission passed the information on to the Sheriff of
Neshoba County
Neshoba County is located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,087. Its county seat is Philadelphia. It was named after ''Nashoba'', a Choctaw chief. His name means "wolf" in the ...
, who was implicated in the murders.
The
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
targeted Schwerner after he and his wife, Rita, had taken over the Meridian CORE field office, where they established a community center for blacks as part of grassroots organizing. Schwerner tried to establish contact with white working-class citizens of Meridian and went door-to-door to speak with them. He also organized a black boycott of a popular variety store until it hired its first
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, under the principle of "don't shop where you can't work".
Murder
James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered near the town of
Philadelphia, Mississippi. They were investigating the burning of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, which had been a site of a CORE
Freedom School, in a nearby community. Parishioners had been beaten in the wake of Schwerner and Chaney's voter registration rallies for CORE. The Sheriff's Deputy,
Cecil Price
Cecil Ray Price (April 15, 1938 – May 6, 2001) was accused of the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964. At the time of the murders, he was 26 years old and a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi. He was a member of the W ...
, had been accused by parishioners of stopping their caravan and forcing the deacons to kneel in the headlights of their own cars, while they were beaten with rifle butts. That same group of white men was identified as having burned the church.
Deputy Sheriff
Cecil Price
Cecil Ray Price (April 15, 1938 – May 6, 2001) was accused of the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964. At the time of the murders, he was 26 years old and a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi. He was a member of the W ...
arrested Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner for an alleged traffic violation and took them to the jail in
Neshoba County
Neshoba County is located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,087. Its county seat is Philadelphia. It was named after ''Nashoba'', a Choctaw chief. His name means "wolf" in the ...
. They were released that evening, without being allowed to telephone anyone. On the way back to Meridian, they were stopped by patrol lights and two carloads of KKK members on Highway 19, then taken in Price's car to another remote rural road. The
KKK
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
men shot and killed Schwerner, then Goodman, and finally Chaney, after chain-whipping and castrating him.
The men's bodies remained undiscovered for 44 days. In the meantime, the case of the missing civil-rights workers became a major national story, especially coming on top of other events during
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...
. The federal government quickly assigned the FBI to a full investigation and called in
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
sailors and other forces to aid in the search.
Schwerner's widow Rita, who also worked for CORE in Meridian, expressed indignation publicly at the way the story was handled. She said she believed that if only Chaney (who was black) was missing and the two white men from New York had not been killed along with him, the case would not have received nearly as much national attention, as other black civil rights workers had earlier been killed in the South.
First trial
The US government prosecuted the case under the
Enforcement Act of 1870. Seven men, including Deputy Sheriff Price, were convicted. Three strongly implicated defendants were acquitted because of a
jury deadlock.
Reinvestigation
Journalist
Jerry Mitchell
Jerry Mitchell is an American theatre director and choreographer.
Early life and education
Born in Paw Paw, Michigan, Mitchell later moved to St. Louis where he pursued his acting, dancing and directing career in theatre. Although he did not g ...
, an award-winning investigative reporter for the ''Jackson Clarion-Ledger'' had written extensively about the case for many years in the late 20th century. Mitchell had earned renown for helping secure convictions by his investigation of several other high-profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of
Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the 1963
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynam ...
in Birmingham, and the murder of
Vernon Dahmer in his Mississippi home. Mitchell developed new evidence, found new witnesses, and pressured the State to take action. Barry Bradford, an Illinois high school teacher, and three students: Allison Nichols, Sarah Siegel, and Brittany Saltiel, joined Mitchell's efforts. Their documentary, produced for the
National History Day contest, presented important new evidence and compelling reasons for reopening the case. Bradford also obtained an interview with
Edgar Ray Killen, which helped convince the State to reinvestigate. Mitchell was able to determine the identity of "Mr. X", the mystery informer who had helped the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
discover the bodies and smash the conspiracy of the
Klan in 1964. He relied in part on evidence developed by Bradford.
On January 7, 2005,
Edgar Ray Killen, an outspoken
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
nicknamed "Preacher," pleaded "Not Guilty" to state charges of the murders of the three men. The jury found him guilty of three counts of
manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...
on June 21, 2005. He was sentenced to sixty years in prison—twenty years for each count, served consecutively.
Personality
Schwerner "was described by family and friends as friendly, good-natured, gentle, mischievous, and 'full of life and ideas'. He believed all people were essentially good. He loved sports, animals, poker,
W.C. Fields
WC or wc may refer to:
* Water closet or flush toilet
Arts and entertainment
* ''W.C.'' (film), an Irish feature film
* WC (band), a Polish punk rock band
* WC (rapper), a rapper from Los Angeles, California
* Westside Connection, former hi ...
, and
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
."
Robert Reich, the American political commentator, professor, and author who served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, says that as a child, he was bullied, and sought out the protection of older boys; one of them was Michael Schwerner. Reich cites this event as an inspiration to "fight the bullies, to protect the powerless, to make sure that the people without a voice have a voice."
Legacy and honors
Schwerner
*In 2008, his hometown of
Pelham, New York, renamed a section of Harmon Avenue as "Michael Schwerner Way" in his honor.
*Schwerner, along with Goodman and Chaney, received a posthumous
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...
from President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
in 2014.
In popular culture
See also
*
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
References
External links
“Long, Hot Summer '64; Episode 9,”1964-08-06, WGBH,
American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
The True Story Of How The Mississippi Burning Case Was Reopened from
University of Missouri–Kansas City Law School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwerner, Michael
1939 births
1964 deaths
1964 murders in the United States
Activists for African-American civil rights
Cornell University alumni
Columbia University School of Social Work alumni
Place of birth missing
Ku Klux Klan crimes in Mississippi
Murdered American Jews
Assassinated American civil rights activists
People murdered in Mississippi
Male murder victims
Deaths by firearm in Mississippi
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
American murder victims
20th-century American people