Michael Schwerner


Portrait of Schwerner

Born: Michael Henry Schwerner; November 6, 1939; Pelham, New York, U.S.
Died: June 21, 1964 (aged 24); Philadelphia, Mississippi, U.S.
Cause of death: Murder
Other names: Mickey Schwerner
Spouse: Rita Levant ​{m. 1962}
Awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom, (Posthumous; 2014)

Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner (November 6, 1939 – June 21, 1964) was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers murdered in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among African Americans, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890.

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Civil rights activism

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The Ku Klux Klan 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, under the principle of "don't shop where you can't work".

Murder
Main article: Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner


Missing persons poster created by the FBI in 1964, shows the photographs
of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner.

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, 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 arrested Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner for an alleged traffic violation and took them to the jail in Neshoba County. 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 with members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan on Highway 19, then taken in Price's car to another remote rural road. One of the Klansmen, Alton Wayne Roberts, reportedly pulled Schwerner out of the car, pointed a gun at his chest, and asked "Are you that nigger lover?" Schwerner replied "Sir, I know just how you feel," before Roberts shot him in the heart. Goodman was killed by Roberts in the same manner, while Chaney was killed by either Roberts or James Jordan after being beaten, chain-whipped, and castrated.

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. The federal government quickly assigned the FBI to a full investigation and called in Navy 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.

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