James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner - Cherry Hill, NJ
N 39° 55.617 W 075° 03.526
18S E 494978 N 4419651
This dedicated tree is a tribute to these three people who died in the struggle for equality during the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties.
Waymark Code: WMGNM2
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 03/24/2013
Views: 2
Although this particular site does not hold any significant meaning for the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s (and still today), it is an appropriate place for this tree and tribute to the people who died in the struggle for equality. This site is called Memorial Grove and there are many monuments here which pay tribute to ordinary citizen who did remarkable things for others and died because of their selfless acts. The marker is at the base of the tree and reads:
"This memorial grove grows in memory of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who were murdered in the fight for civil rights in "Freedom Summer," Mississippi, 1964.
May their selfless example inspire us today in our continued struggle to obtain Human Rights and Justice for all.
-June 1989"
The Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders involved the lynching of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner by white Mississippians during the American Civil Rights Movement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred to this investigation as Mississippi Burning. On the night of June 21–22, 1964, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were threatened, intimidated, beaten, shot, and buried by members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County's Sheriff Office and the Philadelphia Police Department located in Philadelphia, Mississippi. After the largest and most televised search at the time, their bodies were found 44 days later in an earthen dam near the murder site. On January 6, 2005, a Neshoba County grand jury indicted Edgar Ray Killen on three counts of murder. SOURCE