Ep 127 – The Freedom Summer Murders

James Chaney and Michael Schwerner spent the first six months of 1964 working together to increase voter registration among Black residents in Mississippi. This was a major goal of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) — which they both worked for — and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. That year, they organized a voter registration hub at the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Mississippi, but the KKK burnt the church down in response. On June 21, 1964, James, Michael, and Andy Goodman — a new CORE volunteer — visited the site of the burnt church, but did not return to Meridian that evening. 

In this episode, we discuss how the lives, disappearances, and deaths of these three CORE workers — James Chaney, Andy Goodman, and Michael Schwerner — garnered national support for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. We also discuss the decades-long legal fight for justice that ensued.

But first, Zoey starts the episode off with a Something Spooky segment: a BuzzFeed Halloween movie quiz.

Sources: https://hauntedhospitality.wordpress.com/2023/09/05/ep-127-the-freedom-summer-murders

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