Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality CORE is a civil rights group Founded in 1942 it had an important role in the civil rights movement CORE was one of the main civil rights groups of the 1960s along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP 6 young African-American civil rights activist from Mississippi The three men were part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project a nonviolent effort by civil rights activists to bring African Americans and whites together in Mississippi’s segregated political system The project would later be known as Freedom Summer It was a grassroots movement During the summer of 1964 hundreds of student volunteers from around the United States joined civil rights organizers and local African Americans in
Mississippi At the time Mississippi was one of the country’s most racist and segregated states Together students and activists worked to stop Mississippi’s whites from blocking African Americans from voting They helped African Americans register to vote They taught residents in special freedom schools They provided legal and medical help at community centers And they formed a new political party that was open to all people the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party MFDP They hoped to achieve equality and justice for all Americans The Ku Klux Klan a white supremacy group was very active in Mississippi Klan members threatened to harm and kill African Americans and civil rights workers Arrested On that morning of June 21 Schwerner Goodman and Chaney drove to Philadelphia Mississippi They visited Mount Zion Methodist Church A few days earlier Klan members had burned it down As they 7
8 drove home local police stopped the station wagon They arrested the three men The police charged Chaney with speeding a violation often used by Mississippi Freedom Summer Map The Mississippi Freedom Summer project involved hundreds of volunteers across Mississippi The goals of the project included voter registration and education through freedom schools and community centers This map shows the planned locations of several projects Why do you think volunteers focused on these cities MISSISSIPPI GULF OF MEXICO Louisiana Jackson Vicksburg Greenville Philadelphia HOLMES COUNTY BOLIVAR COUNTY SHARKEY COUNTY ISSAQUENA COUNTYMADISON COUNTY Columbus West Point Greenwood Canton Ruleville ClarksdaleBatesville Holly Springs Hattiesburg Laurel Meridian Carthage Gulfport Pascagoula Moss Point Freedom Schools Voter Registration Planned Community Centers Arkansas Tennessee A l a b a m a
9 the police to stop civil rights workers They held Schwerner and Goodman for investigation While in the Neshoba County Jail the men were not allowed to call anyone Meanwhile CORE staff members worried The three men had not checked in Later that night the police released the men They told them to leave Neshoba County Schwerner Goodman and Chaney got into the station wagon They were never seen alive again Missing That night word spread that the three men were missing Local activists searched the woods for any trace of the men and their station wagon Two days later on June 23 a team of Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI investigators arrived Throughout the summer investigators searched for the missing men Six weeks into the search investigators received a tip from a citizen The tip led investigators to a dam on a farm in nearby
