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Republicans Poised to Erase and Rewrite History
In 1964, three men travelled from New York City to help the late John Lewis mobilize black voters in Philadelphia, Mississippi. They were brutally murdered by the KKK in coordination with the local police.
Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Schwerner were civil rights activists committed to rebuffing restrictive conditions set forth by the US government intended to suppress voting in minority communities.
The project, brought to life by the Council of Federated Organizations, was called Freedom Summer. In spite of years of violent resistance across the south in response to the denial of civil rights for Black Americans, leadership figures rose up to meet the moment and change the course of the future. Although the war against the confederacy had long been won, this new war- where the US was asked to acknowledge, not just the freedom of Black people, but their integration into the institutions of democracy, came at a great cost. Countless people were killed by white supremacists. Some of those murderers weren’t simply random men in white hoods, they were local and state police authorities, city council members, members of Congress and Senate, Federal Judges, and even a Supreme Court Justice. In coordination, these powerful people gave cover to the most hostile and dangerous figures among us.
