Freedom Summer Of 1964: The Civil Rights Movement

In the summer of 1964, a movement called freedom summer took place which was an activist movement to get African Americans in the southern states to vote. The movement was led by an activist group called Congress on Racial Equality or CORE. Three civil rights workers were killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

On June 21,1964, the three activist movements were declared deceased. The three civil rights worker was: two white males, Michael Schwerner, a 24 year old from Brooklyn, New York, and Andrew Goodman, a 20 year old from New York, New York and an African American James Chaney, a 21 year old from Meridian, Mississippi. These men were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to give aid to the African Americans in the southern state of Mississippi, where the KKK was very active in. Michael Schwerner was working around Neshoba County in Mississippi to register black voters, open freedom schools, and boycott business owned by white people. The clan didn’t take lightly of this and the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights, Sam Bowers gave orders to activate plan 4, which was the

The klan caught word of this and decided to organize in attempts of capturing Michael. After 10 P.M, the Mount Zion Congregation meeting had finished. Ten people, seven men and three women, were faced with thirty KKK men armed with shotguns and rifles. Expecting Michael to return from a business meeting, the clan realized they were misinformed and that Michael was actually in Oxford, Ohio attending a three day CORE seminar. Frustrated, they beat the ten people and with ten gallons of diesel fuel, they burned the church of Mount Zion as a warning. After hearing about the incident, Michael went to the investigate on June 20 in a blue CORE owned Ford station wagon. Michael left the CORE seminar with James and a Queen’s college student named Andrew