Three Missing Volunteers | Freedom Summer | American Experience | PBS

Volunteer Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons recalls hearing that fellow volunteers James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were missing.
Learn more about FREEDOM SUMMER including where to watch the documentary: www.pbs.org/wg...
In 1964, less than 7% of Mississippi’s African Americans were registered to vote, compared to between 50 and 70% in other southern states. In many rural counties, African Americans made up the majority of the population and the segregationist white establishment was prepared to use any means necessary to keep them away from the polls and out of elected office.
For years, local civil rights workers had tried unsuccessfully to increase voter registration amongst African Americans. Those who wished to vote had to face the local registrar, an all-powerful white functionary who would often publish their names in the paper and pass the word on to their employers and bankers. And if loss of jobs and the threat of violence wasn’t enough to dissuade them, the complex and arcane testing policies were certain to keep them off the rolls.
In 1964, a new plan was hatched by Bob Moses, a local secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. For ten weeks, white students from the North would join activists on the ground for a massive effort that would do what had been impossible so far: force the media and the country to take notice of the shocking violence and massive injustice taking place in Mississippi.

[@AntajuanGrady]

I love what the black lady activist says at 2:22 because I'm pretty sure a lot of them thought that too.

[@bleh3039]

I am so grateful for these activists, these people who risked their lives to fight for my rights as a brown woman so that I may stand equal to whites and that I may vote.

[@xqueenlasiax3833]

Bless you sister 🤍

[@AntajuanGrady]

well said. I like that young people still see these videos; we need to remember this wasn't that long ago; 58 years may seem long but it's not when you realize a lot of people's grandparents were already born by 1964

[@msspi764]

Thanks to people like Fannie Lou Hamer, David Dennis, Vernon Dahmer, Bob Moses, and the thousands of people who marched, and demonstrated and boycotted and did a million small acts that moved the nation forward. Don't stop.

[@aprilcraddock169]

Brave people at Brave times. God bless them in eternity 🙏❤

[@frankmiller95]

Andrew Goodman graduated HS in the spring, from Walden, the same school l entered JHS in the fall of the same year. The first event on the first day of school in the auditorium was a memorial to him, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. ln the intervening years my respect, admiration and recognition of the bravery and sacrifice of those three young men, really, still almost boys, has only grown, along with a visceral, undying and murderous hatred of those who killed them, along with every other bigot, living, dead and yet to be born. l hope never to be faced with the opportunity and means to act upon my impulses.
By some strange, or maybe not so strange coincidence, l attended first and second grade with Stanley Nelson, the producer, director and writer of "Freedom Summer" which includes the story of the murders in grim detail. Stanley and l were in the same class and we had a "big fight" as five or six year old little boys and have been friends ever since. By yet another coincidence, the pathologist with the grim task of voluntarily identifying the remains of the victims was Doctor David Spain, a longtime, casual family friend. This event and the mindless, monstrous stupidity and barbarity of those responsible for this atrocity and others like them seems to only grow with the passing of the years will haunt me to my last breath.

[@jessestewart169]

A real wild time in History. Nearly 60 years ago now. Wow.

[@jaimeeiswriting]

0 dislikes, now that's how it's supposed to be

[@StephenLuke]

RIP
Andrew Goodman
(1943-1964)
James Chaney
(1943-1964)
and
Michael Schwerner
(1939-1964)

[@mommyshark1124]

🙏🏼💔

[@StephenLuke]

@@mommyshark1124 One African American and two Jewish men didn't deserve this. 😢💔

[@m.layfette6249]

Humanity tends to hate what they fear, and we fear what we dare not to understand. That is fuel that ignites the fire of hate, racism, indifference and prejudice in this and every country around the world.

[@anibalcesarnishizk2205]

August 1964 was a moment when two red flags were waved:The murder of the three Civil Rights workers and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

[@Kobalts_Haven]

I'm here for a history thing, and as soon as it said missing people, my true crime brain went into overdrive

[@carydavidhoffson6014]

They did not like that they were helping each other to help black people that it did not matter they were all killed just the same reason

[@samanthab1923]

Love that the media & FBI got right on it.

[@slappy0077]

"three of our members, two of whom were white...." 🎶 I'm Not White, I'm JEWISH 🧐

[@StephenLuke]

I see.

[@baina4388]

Why so much hate?!! 🙄🙄

[@AntajuanGrady]

they hated the change taking place in society

[@edwardswessonjr1241]

WICKED EVIL IGNORANCE!

[@lizzapaolia959]

What a mess 😁🤢

[@jessestewart169]

I'm going down to Mississippi

[@jonathanblack99]

😢