The Stain on Our Meridian

Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman

Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman, American civil-rights workers in the South during the 1960s. Michael Schwerner (b. 1939) and Andrew Goodman (b. 1943), both white New Yorkers, went to Mississippi in 1964 as volunteers to aid in the registration of African-American voters as part of the Mississippi Summer Project. They and fellow volunteer James Earl Chaney (b. 1943), an African American from Mississippi, disappeared on the evening of June 21, 1964. The FBI recovered their bodies, which had been buried in an earthen dam, 44 days later. The Neshoba County deputy sheriff and 17 others, all Ku Klux Klan members, were indicted for the crime; seven were convicted in 1967 and an eighth in 2005.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

In depth review of the trial and key people involved