Qualla: Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Billy Hathorn (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. "Sir, I know just how you feel." Those were Michael Schwerner's last words, spoken to the man holding the gun. It was the night of June 21, 1964, on a dark stretch of County Road 515 in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Schwerner, 24, from New York City; Andrew Goodman, 20, also from New York; and James Chaney, 21, from Meridian, Mississippi, had been pulled over, arrested on a false speeding charge, held for hours, then released into the waiting hands of a Ku Klux Klan mob that included the deputy sheriff who had arrested them. Within minutes all three were dead. Their bodies would not be found for 44 days. The search for them, and the long pursuit of justice that followed, reshaped the civil rights landscape of America.

Image: Billy Hathorn (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: Freedom Summer's Front Line

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jon Doe, CC BY-SA 4.0. The three men were workers for the Congress of Racial Equality, part of the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign to register Black voters across Mississippi. Chaney was African American; Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish. Schwerner and Chaney had been working together for months, trying ...

Image: Jon Doe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: The Longest Night

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain. Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price arrested the three men on Highway 19 near Philadelphia, Mississippi, on a pretext of speeding. He held them in the Neshoba County jail until roughly 10:30 that evening, then released them. Price followed them south in his patrol car. Behind him came two...

Image: Federal Bureau of Investigation | Public domain

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: Forty-Four Days of Searching

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Federal Buearu of Investigation Workers, Public domain. The disappearance became national news within days. President Lyndon Johnson pressured FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover into action. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered 150 federal agents to Mississippi. Four hundred Navy sailors from Naval Air Station Meridian combed the swam...

Image: Federal Buearu of Investigation Workers | Public domain

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: Justice Delayed, Not Denied

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eoliver naacp, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mississippi refused to prosecute the killers for murder. The federal government charged 18 men with conspiracy to deprive the victims of their civil rights. The case, United States v. Cecil Price, et al., went to trial in October 1967 before Judge William Harold Cox, an ardent se...

Image: Eoliver naacp | CC BY-SA 4.0

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: What Remains

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cornellrockey04, CC BY-SA 3.0. The murders helped propel passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2014, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Historical markers stand at the murder site and near the burned Mount Zion church in ...

Image: Cornellrockey04 | CC BY-SA 3.0