[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 22, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       FREEDOM SUMMER REMEMBERED

                                 ______


                               speech of

                           HON. MAXINE WATERS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 21, 1994

  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to three martyrs 
of the American civil rights movement--Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, 
and Mickey Schwerner.
  Thirty years ago today, these three young men were arrested by 
authorities in the State of Mississippi, released, and then chased down 
on a lonely highway by a group of men and murdered. Goodman and 
Schwerner were white and from New York. James Chaney was an African-
American and a Mississippian.
  These young men were part of a nonviolent army of faith and love 
known as the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Young people--black and white, 
men and women, Northerners and Southerners--came to the State of 
Mississippi in the summer of 1964 in order to organize black 
Mississippians to register and vote.
  The Emancipation Proclamation was 101 years old when Schwerner, 
Chaney, and Goodman began their work that summer. Yet African-Americans 
were still effectively enslaved by a system that refused them the right 
to vote for the public officials who represented them. The powers-that-
be used intimidation, violence, and threats to keep black 
Mississippians down and to deny them their rights.
  On their last day on Earth, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman traveled 
to a black church that had been burned by racist night riders. The 
church had been the site of a black voter registration meeting.
  The racists sought to silence the voices of democracy and truth when 
they dragged Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman from their car and shot 
them.
  Instead, this unspeakable act galvanized the conscience of a Nation 
throughout the summer of 1964. Young people sprang to take their place. 
Voter registration continued. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 
led by Fanny Lou Hamer, sent an integrated delegation to that summer's 
Democratic convention in Atlantic City, challenging the segregationist 
delegates. A landmark civil rights bill passed the Congress and was 
signed into law on July 2, 1964, as President Johnson himself declared 
``we shall overcome.''
  Just recently, we paid tribute to those who served and who fell 50 
years ago on the Normandy beaches of D-day, fighting for liberty and 
democracy. Like those heroes, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman are 
martyrs to the cause of freedom. It is worth remembering that freedom's 
battles are not always fought on foreign shores or against other 
armies. Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman gave their lives so that this 
country might live up to its ideals of democracy and opportunity for 
all.
  Thirty years have passed. Some issues may be different. But the work 
continues and will continue so long as we remember the courage and the 
commitment of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman.

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