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Andrew Goodman
Goodman in 1964
Born	(1943-11-23)November 23, 1943 New York City, U.S.
Died	June 21, 1964(1964-06-21) (aged 20) Philadelphia, Mississippi, U.S.
Cause of death	Murder
Education	Walden School University of Wisconsin-Madison Queens College, New York City
Occupation(s)	Social worker, Civil rights activist
Mother	Carolyn Goodman
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (Posthumous; 2014)

Andrew Goodman (November 23, 1943 – June 21, 1964) was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Goodman and two fellow activists, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were volunteers for the Freedom Summer campaign that sought to register African-Americans to vote in Mississippi and to set up Freedom Schools for black Southerners.

Early life and beginnings of activism

Andrew Goodman was born on November 23, 1943, in New York City, the second of three boys born to Robert, a writer and civil engineer, and Carolyn Goodman, a psychologist and social activist. He grew up in the city's Upper East Side. Goodman was Jewish, like fellow civil rights activist Michael Schwerner, alongside whom Goodman would be murdered. Goodman's neighborhood was a racially-mixed community of white, black, and Hispanic families.

The Goodman family was involved in intellectual and socially progressive activism and were devoted to social justice. His mother Carolyn was a lifelong labor activist. In her youth, she helped farm workers to organize and was active in community efforts to support the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

Andrew followed his parents' activist bent from a young age. At the age of 14, Goodman traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools. During the march, approximately 10,000 high school age students promoted the desegregation of American public schools after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education landmark decision in 1954 struck down the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The next year, Goodman and a friend went to West Virginia to live in a coal mining town and sought to advocate to the governor over the poor working conditions there. At 17, Goodman traveled to Western Europe to understand the impact of largescale agribusiness on small farmers. Goodman also participated in a 1960 protest at a New York Woolworth's as part of the sit-in movement protesting the segregationist policies of the five-and-dime store.

In 1961, Goodman graduated high school from the progressive Walden School, where he had attended from the age of 3. At Walden, he was involved in the theater program. He also arranged for Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson, a neighbor of his and the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, to speak at the school. After Walden, Goodman enrolled the Honors Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and considered a drama major, but withdrew after one semester after falling ill with pneumonia. He returned to New York City to improve his health and was selected for a role in the Off-Broadway play The Chief Thing by Russian dramatist Nikolaí Evreninov.

Goodman then enrolled at Queens College, New York City, and majored in anthropology. At Queens, he was a friend and classmate of Paul Simon. He developed an interest in poetry. One of his poems, "A Corollary to a Poem by A. E. Housman," was posthumously discovered by his college professor Mary Doyle Curran and published in the Massachusetts Review and the New York Times. With Goodman's brief acting experience, he originally planned to study drama but switched to anthropology. Goodman's growing interest in anthropology seemed to parallel his increasing political seriousness. Throughout college, Goodman acted with an Off-Broadway repertory company.

Participation in Freedom Summer

The senators could not persist in this polite debate over the future dignity of a human race if the white Northerners were not so shockingly apathetic.

— Andrew Goodman, in a 1964 school paper

In the spring of 1964, his junior year at Queens College, Goodman attended a talk by Mississippi civil rights activists Aaron Henry, head of the state's NAACP branch, and Fannie Lou Hamer. Henry and Hamer were recruiting students under the age of 21, who with the permission of their parents, would participate in the Freedom Summer project to help register African-Americans to vote in Mississippi and to set up Freedom Schools.

In June 1964, Goodman left New York to teach at a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) training session for Freedom Summer volunteers at the Western College for Women (now part of Miami University) in Oxford, Ohio. In Ohio, Goodman met fellow New Yorker 24 year old Michael Schwerner, an experienced volunteer with CORE, and 21 year old James Chaney, a CORE activist in Mississippi. The three trained hundreds of Freedom Summer volunteers, mostly students, how to navigate the racism and violence they would encounter in Mississippi. At the training, Schwerner learned that one of the Freedom Schools in Mississippi that he had helped to organize at the Mount Zion Methodist Church in Philadelphia had been burned down by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). To investigate, the three men left Ohio for Mississippi by car on June 20.

Arrest and murder

On June 21, their first full day in the state, the trio drove from their home base of Meridian for Philadelphia, a community about an hour from Meridian, to visit the church ruins and meet with church members. When they were driving back to Meridian, they were pulled over by Neshoba County, Mississippi Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price (a KKK member), for allegedly driving 65 miles-per-hour in a 30-mile-per-hour speed limit zone. Price arrested the three men and took them to the Neshoba County jail, where Chaney was booked for speeding, while Schwerner and Goodman were booked "for investigation". Chaney was charged a $20 fine and the three men were released around 10:30pm on and instructed to leave the county. However, while Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were in custody, Price contacted local KKK leader and minister Edgar Ray Killen and informed him of the three activists in custody. According to a subsequent U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Killen then gathered other KKK members and devised a plot to attack the three as they left the jail.

Price followed them in his patrol car. At 10:25, Price sped to catch up with the station wagon before it crossed the border into the relative safety of Lauderdale County. Price ordered the three out of their car and into his. He drove them to a deserted area on Rock Cut Road while followed by two cars filled with other Klansmen. Price turned the trio over to the Klansmen who, after beating Chaney, shot and killed Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. An autopsy of Goodman, showing fragments of red clay in his lungs and grasped in his fists, suggests he was probably buried alive alongside the already dead Chaney and Schwerner.

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was strongly opposed to integration and civil rights. It paid spies to identify citizens suspected of activism, especially people from the North and West who entered the state. The records opened by court order in 1998 also revealed the state's deep complicity in the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, because its investigator A. L. Hopkins passed on to the Commission information about the workers, including the car license number of a new civil rights worker. Records showed the Commission, in turn, passed the information on to the Neshoba County Sheriff, who was implicated in the murders.

Investigation and trial

The murders changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement:

Willie Blue, a surviving participant in the Freedom Summer movement said: "Goodman's richer than whipped cream. He wasn't supposed to die in Vietnam; he sure wasn't supposed to die in Mississippi. When America's brightest are murdered for doing something fundamentally American, suddenly the world knows about Mississippi. It was another nail in the segregated coffin." The FBI entered the case after the men disappeared. They helped find them buried in an earthen dam. The US government prosecuted the case under the Enforcement Act of 1870. The Neshoba County deputy sheriff and six conspirators were convicted by Federal prosecutors of civil rights violations but were not convicted of murder. Two defendants were acquitted because the jury deadlocked.

Reinvestigation

Journalist Jerry Mitchell, an award-winning investigative reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, had written extensively about the case for many years. Mitchell, who had already earned fame for helping secure convictions in several other high-profile civil rights era murder cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and the murder of Vernon Dahmer in Mississippi, developed new evidence, found new witnesses and pressured the state to take action. Barry Bradford, an Illinois high-school teacher later famous for helping clear the name of civil rights martyr Clyde Kennard, and three students, Allison Nichols, Sarah Siegel, and Brittany Saltiel, joined Mitchell's efforts.

Bradford and his students' documentary, produced for the National History Day contest, presented important new evidence and compelling reasons for reopening the Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner case. They also obtained an interview with Edgar Ray Killen, which helped persuade the state to open the case for investigation. Mitchell was able to determine the identity of "Mr. X", the mystery informer who had helped the FBI discover the bodies and smash the conspiracy of the Klan in 1964, in part using evidence developed by Bradford and the students.

On January 7, 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was arrested. He was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter – not murder – on June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years to the day after the murders. He was sentenced to sixty years in prison—twenty years for each count, to be served consecutively. He appealed the verdict, but the sentence was upheld on April 12, 2007, by the Supreme Court of Mississippi. He died in prison on January 11, 2018, at age 92.

On June 20, 2016, just one day ahead of the 52nd anniversary of the murders, Attorney General Hood announced an end to the federal and state investigations into the 'Mississippi Murders', officially closing the case.

Legacy and honors

In 1966, Andrew's parents, Robert and Carolyn Goodman started The Andrew Goodman Foundation to carry on the spirit and purpose of their son's life. After the death of Robert Goodman in 1969, Carolyn continued the work of the Foundation, focusing on projects like a reverse march to Mississippi and a 25th Anniversary Memorial. The memorial, which took place at St. John The Divine Church in NYC, was attended by 10,000 people and was presided by Governor Mario Cuomo, Maya Angelou, Pete Seeger, Aaron Henry, Harry Belafonte, and others closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement. After Carolyn's death in August 2007, David Goodman, Andrew's younger brother, and Sylvia Golbin Goodman, David's wife, took up the work of the Foundation.

For nearly 50 years, the organization was a private foundation acting in the public interest. With their eyes set on the future, the Board of Trustees of The Andrew Goodman Foundation elected to turn the organization into a public charity in 2012. In 2014, on the fiftieth anniversary of the murders, the Foundation officially launched Vote Everywhere program designed to support college students who are continuing the work of Freedom Summer.

Goodman

• In 2002, a 2,176-foot peak in the Adirondack Mountains town of Tupper Lake, New York, was officially named Goodman Mountain in Goodman's memory. Goodman's family had spent summers there for 30 years.
• The Walden School, in Manhattan, named its middle and upper school building in Goodman's memory. The Trevor Day School now occupies the building and has maintained the building's name as the "Andrew Goodman Building".
• Goodman, along with Chaney and Schwerner, received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014.
• The Chaney-Goodman-Schwerner Clock Tower of Rosenthal Library, is named in honor of James, Andrew, and Mickey on the CUNY Queens College Campus in New York City.
• The song "He Was My Brother", released in 1964 by Simon & Garfunkel, is a dedication to Goodman along with two other civil rights activists.

Cultural references

See also

• Biography

References

1. ^ "Historical Archives". Andrew Goodman Foundation. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
2. ^ "Andrew Goodman Biography". Biography.com. A&E Television Networks. Archived from the original on October 27, 2018. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
3. ^ Staff writers (November 12, 2014). "Murdered Jewish Civil Rights Workers to Receive Presidential Medal". Haaretz.
4. ^ Goodman, Carolyn. "Biography of Andrew Goodman (1943-1964)" (PDF). Andrew Goodman Foundation. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
5. Rosenbaum, Judith (August 4, 2009). "Remembering Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
6. "'What Disaster . . .'". The New York Times. December 28, 1964.
7. ^ "Andrew Goodman". Frontline. PBS. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
8. Kaleem, Jaweed (June 21, 2016). "They dared to register blacks to vote, and the KKK killed them: A 52-year-old case is closed — unsolved". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
9. Linder, Douglas (August 2000). "The "Mississippi Burning" Trial (U. S. vs. Price et al.)". JURIST. JURIST: The Legal Education Network. Archived from the original on June 17, 2010. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
10. "A Mississippi Freedom Summer Pilgrimage: An Atrocity We Must Never Forget". The Huffington Post. July 25, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2015.
11. AP (March 18, 1998). "Mississippi Commission's Files a Treasure Trove of Innuendo". MDCBowen.org. Retrieved May 9, 2008.
12. Hannah-Jones, Nikole (July 12, 2014). "Dispatches From Freedom Summer: The Ghosts of Greenwood". TheRoot.com. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
13. Mitchell, Jerry. "AG Jim Hood: 'Mississippi Burning' case closed". www.ClarionLedger.com. The Clarion-Ledger. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
14. "A Sacrifice in Mississippi Remembered on a New York Mountain". The New York Times. October 6, 2002.
15. "Trevor Day School NYC | Manhattan Private School Tour". www.trevor.org. Retrieved April 18, 2017.
16. "President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom". whitehouse.gov. November 10, 2014.
17. "Simon & Garfunkel – He Was My Brother".

Further reading

• My Mantelpiece: A Memoir of Survival and Social Justice by Carolyn Goodman with Brad Herzog, Why Not Books, ISBN 978-0-9849919-4-5. Memoir by Andrew Goodman's mother.

External links

• "Long, Hot Summer '64; Episode 9," 1964-08-06, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, D.C., accessed June 7, 2021.
• The movement that helped reopen the case
• The Andrew Goodman Foundation
• Biography of Andrew Goodman
• An interview with Dr. Carolyn Goodman, 89, mother of Andrew Goodman (September 2005)
• The gravestone of Andrew Goodman at the Mount Judah Cemetery, Queens, NY

v t e Civil rights movement (1954–1968)
Events (timeline)	Prior to 1954 Journey of Reconciliation Executive Order 9981 Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore Sweatt v. Painter (1950) McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) Baton Rouge bus boycott 1954–1959 Brown v. Board of Education Bolling v. Sharpe Briggs v. Elliott Davis v. Prince Edward County Gebhart v. Belton Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company Emmett Till Montgomery bus boycott Browder v. Gayle Tallahassee bus boycott Mansfield school desegregation 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom "Give Us the Ballot" Royal Ice Cream sit-in Little Rock Nine Cooper v. Aaron Civil Rights Act of 1957 Ministers' Manifesto Katz Drug Store sit-in Kissing Case Biloxi wade-ins 1960–1963 New Year's Day March Sit-in movement Greensboro sit-ins Nashville sit-ins Sibley Commission Atlanta sit-ins Savannah Protest Movement Greenville Eight Civil Rights Act of 1960 Ax Handle Saturday Gomillion v. Lightfoot Boynton v. Virginia University of Georgia desegregation riot Rock Hill sit-ins Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address Freedom Rides Anniston bombing Birmingham attack Garner v. Louisiana Albany Movement Cambridge movement University of Chicago sit-ins "Second Emancipation Proclamation" Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot Atlanta's Berlin Wall "Segregation now, segregation forever" Stand in the Schoolhouse Door 1963 Birmingham campaign Letter from Birmingham Jail Children's Crusade Birmingham riot 16th Street Baptist Church bombing John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights Detroit Walk to Freedom March on Washington "I Have a Dream" Big Six St. Augustine movement 1964–1968 Twenty-fourth Amendment Chester school protests Bloody Tuesday 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests Freedom Summer workers' murders Civil Rights Act of 1964 Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States Katzenbach v. McClung 1964–1965 Scripto strike 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches "How Long, Not Long" Voting Rights Act of 1965 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections March Against Fear White House Conference on Civil Rights Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement Loving v. Virginia Memphis sanitation strike King assassination funeral riots Civil Rights Act of 1968 Poor People's Campaign Green v. County School Board of New Kent County Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. 1968 Olympics Black Power salute
Activist groups	Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Atlanta Negro Voters League Atlanta Student Movement Black Panther Party Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Committee for Freedom Now Committee on Appeal for Human Rights An Appeal for Human Rights Council for United Civil Rights Leadership Council of Federated Organizations Dallas County Voters League Deacons for Defense and Justice Georgia Council on Human Relations Highlander Folk School Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lowndes County Freedom Organization Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Montgomery Improvement Association NAACP Youth Council Nashville Student Movement Nation of Islam Northern Student Movement National Council of Negro Women National Urban League Operation Breadbasket Regional Council of Negro Leadership Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Southern Regional Council Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) The Freedom Singers United Auto Workers (UAW) Wednesdays in Mississippi Women's Political Council
Activists	Ralph Abernathy Victoria Gray Adams Zev Aelony Mathew Ahmann Muhammad Ali William G. Anderson Gwendolyn Armstrong Arnold Aronson Ella Baker James Baldwin Marion Barry Daisy Bates Harry Belafonte James Bevel Claude Black Gloria Blackwell Randolph Blackwell Unita Blackwell Ezell Blair Jr. Joanne Bland Julian Bond Joseph E. Boone William Holmes Borders Amelia Boynton Bruce Boynton Raylawni Branch Stanley Branche Ruby Bridges Aurelia Browder H. Rap Brown Ralph Bunche John H. Calhoun Guy Carawan Stokely Carmichael Johnnie Carr James Chaney J. L. Chestnut Shirley Chisholm Colia Lafayette Clark Ramsey Clark Septima Clark Xernona Clayton Eldridge Cleaver Kathleen Cleaver Josephine Dobbs Clement Charles E. Cobb Jr. Annie Lee Cooper Dorothy Cotton Claudette Colvin Vernon Dahmer Jonathan Daniels Abraham Lincoln Davis Angela Davis Joseph DeLaine Dave Dennis Annie Bell Robinson Devine John Wesley Dobbs Patricia Stephens Due Joseph Ellwanger Charles Evers Medgar Evers Myrlie Evers-Williams Chuck Fager James Farmer Walter Fauntroy James Forman Marie Foster Golden Frinks Andrew Goodman Robert Graetz Fred Gray Jack Greenberg Dick Gregory Lawrence Guyot Prathia Hall Fannie Lou Hamer Fred Hampton William E. Harbour Vincent Harding Dorothy Height Audrey Faye Hendricks Lola Hendricks Aaron Henry Oliver Hill Donald L. Hollowell James Hood Myles Horton Zilphia Horton T. R. M. Howard Ruby Hurley Cecil Ivory Jesse Jackson Jimmie Lee Jackson Richie Jean Jackson T. J. Jemison Esau Jenkins Barbara Rose Johns Vernon Johns Frank Minis Johnson Clarence Jones J. Charles Jones Matthew Jones Vernon Jordan Tom Kahn Clyde Kennard A. D. King C.B. King Coretta Scott King Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Sr. Bernard Lafayette James Lawson Bernard Lee Sanford R. Leigh Jim Letherer Stanley Levison John Lewis Viola Liuzzo Z. Alexander Looby Joseph Lowery Clara Luper Danny Lyon Malcolm X Mae Mallory Vivian Malone Bob Mants Thurgood Marshall Benjamin Mays Franklin McCain Charles McDew Ralph McGill Floyd McKissick Joseph McNeil James Meredith William Ming Jack Minnis Amzie Moore Cecil B. Moore Douglas E. Moore Harriette Moore Harry T. Moore Queen Mother Moore William Lewis Moore Irene Morgan Bob Moses William Moyer Elijah Muhammad Diane Nash Charles Neblett Huey P. Newton Edgar Nixon Jack O'Dell James Orange Rosa Parks James Peck Charles Person Homer Plessy Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Fay Bellamy Powell Rodney N. Powell Al Raby Lincoln Ragsdale A. Philip Randolph George Raymond George Raymond Jr. Bernice Johnson Reagon Cordell Reagon James Reeb Frederick D. Reese Walter Reuther Gloria Richardson David Richmond Bernice Robinson Jo Ann Robinson Angela Russell Bayard Rustin Bernie Sanders Michael Schwerner Bobby Seale Pete Seeger Cleveland Sellers Charles Sherrod Alexander D. Shimkin Fred Shuttlesworth Modjeska Monteith Simkins Glenn E. Smiley A. Maceo Smith Kelly Miller Smith Mary Louise Smith Maxine Smith Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson Charles Kenzie Steele Hank Thomas Dorothy Tillman A. P. Tureaud Hartman Turnbow Albert Turner C. T. Vivian A. T. Walden Wyatt Tee Walker Hollis Watkins Walter Francis White Roy Wilkins Hosea Williams Kale Williams Robert F. Williams Q. V. Williamson Andrew Young Whitney Young Sammy Younge Jr. Bob Zellner James Zwerg
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Movement songs	"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round" "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus" "Kumbaya" "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" "Oh, Freedom" "This Little Light of Mine" "We Shall Not Be Moved" "We Shall Overcome" "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
Influences	Nonviolence Padayatra Sermon on the Mount Mahatma Gandhi Ahimsa Satyagraha The Kingdom of God Is Within You Frederick Douglass W. E. B. Du Bois Mary McLeod Bethune
Related	Jim Crow laws Lynching in the United States Plessy v. Ferguson Separate but equal Buchanan v. Warley Hocutt v. Wilson Sweatt v. Painter Hernandez v. Texas Loving v. Virginia African-American women in the movement Jews in the civil rights movement Fifth Circuit Four 16th Street Baptist Church Kelly Ingram Park A.G. Gaston Motel Bethel Baptist Church Brown Chapel Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Holt Street Baptist Church Edmund Pettus Bridge March on Washington Movement African-American churches attacked List of lynching victims in the United States Freedom Schools Freedom songs Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" Voter Education Project 1960s counterculture African American founding fathers of the United States Eyes on the Prize
Legacy	In popular culture Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument Civil Rights Memorial Civil Rights Movement Archive Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument Freedom Rides Museum Freedom Riders National Monument King Center for Nonviolent Social Change Martin Luther King Jr. Day Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial other King memorials Mississippi Civil Rights Museum National Civil Rights Museum National Voting Rights Museum St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument Olympic Black Power Statue
Noted historians	Taylor Branch Clayborne Carson John Dittmer Michael Eric Dyson Chuck Fager Adam Fairclough David Garrow David Halberstam Vincent Harding Steven F. Lawson Doug McAdam Diane McWhorter Charles M. Payne Thomas E. Ricks Timothy Tyson Akinyele Umoja Movement photographers
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