Martin Luther King Jr. Holds Up a Poster of Chaney Goodman and Schwerner on Live Television. Image Courtesy of Andrewgoodman.org.
Missing Poster of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. Image courtesy of PBS.
Civil Rights Workers Go Missing in Mississippi
On June 21st, 1964, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, went missing in Mississippi after being picked up, arrested, and released by local police. They were civil rights workers from the Congress of Racial Equality and were doing volunteer work to increase voter registration and education among African-Americans.
Klu Klux Klan members. Image courtesy of numero.com
At this time, the Klu Klux Klan was extremely active in the South, especially in Mississippi. They would burn down black churches, set wooden crosses on fire, and lynch African-Americans along with others involved in the civil rights movement.
Coverage of the Investigation
The fact that two of the three victims were white northerners led to the story quickly becoming national news. Television news icon Walter Cronkite covered the story on CBS Evening News with millions of viewers watching. The mounting pressure of the highly covered investigation led to increased resources and personnel sent by the FBI to find the men.
CBS News with Walter Cronkite. Image courtesy of CBS.
News segment interrupting The Lieutenant in 1964. Video courtesy of Youtube.
After 44 days of federal investigation and national news coverage, the bodies of the 3 men were found in a dam after an informant tipped off law enforcement. Local police in Mississippi had worked with the KKK to target and kill the 3 men. News networks interrupted scheduled entertainment programs to break the story, garnering it even more viewership.
Bodies of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. Image courtesy of PBS.
Abandoned car that belonged to the men. Image courtesy of PBS.