Blacks, Jews join to re-enact 1960s ‘freedom rides’

WASHINGTON -- To the outside world, they seemed an unlikely trio: a black Catholic from Mississippi and two Jews from New York.

But their fates were drawn together in the summer of 1964 by a common commitment to the struggle for equality and social justice.

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were among hundreds of students who volunteered to work on the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, aiding voter-registration campaigns and desegregation efforts.

They disappeared on June 21, 1964, after traveling to Neshoba County, Miss., to investigate the burning of a black church. Their disappearance prompted national search and a wave of outrage that helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam. They'd been shot and savagely beaten by the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Now, 35 years after their deaths, civil rights activists are seeking to honor their memories and celebrate the progress that has been made in the struggle for social justice by re-enacting the freedom rides of the early 1960s.

The commemoration, slated to begin next week, is being organized by the Chaney Goodman Schwerner Unity Coalition, which includes the Chaney Foundation, an array of civil rights groups, religious leaders, academics and lawmakers.

"Freedom Ride 1999," as it has been dubbed, will begin in New York City with an ecumenical service on Tuesday and a send-off ceremony hosted by the Museum of Jewish Heritage -- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust on Wednesday.

It will include stops at predominantly black universities and sites such as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala.

The caravan will gather riders along the way, many of them black and Jewish college students.

Four or five busloads carrying more than 200 people are expected to arrive at Chaney's gravesite in Philadelphia, Miss., on June 21 -- 35 years to the day after he and his two companions were murdered.

Along the way, the activists are planning to discuss legislative proposals crafted by the organizing coalition aimed at turning the symbolic journey into a call for concrete action.

At the conclusion of the trip, a contingent is slated to head to Washington to lobby on such issues as police brutality, sentencing disparity, voter participation, health care, affirmative action, hate-crime prevention and the disproportionate use of the death penalty against African Americans.

By focusing on the sacrifice blacks and Jews made together to advance the cause of freedom, activists are also hoping to recapture a bit of the spirit of "Freedom Summer" and rebuild the historically strong ties between the two communities.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and Julian Bond, chairman of the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, are serving as co-chairs of the coalition.

Jay Greenfield, a retired Jewish attorney from New York, was at the forefront of that battle during Freedom Summer.

He sees this month's freedom ride re-enactment as commemorating not only a significant event in American history, but a significant event in American Jewish history.

Greenfield, now 66, was a young civil rights lawyer who volunteered to work in Louisiana following the workers' disappearance in 1964. That summer, seeking to integrate a rural Louisiana restaurant, he obtained the first civil injunction in a private case under the Civil Rights Act.

He sees the fight for freedom "as a logical extension of the Exodus," he said, adding that "I don't think Jewish Americans have ever fully appreciated the extent to which that is so."

Ben Chaney, brother of the late James Chaney, said galvanizing young people to continue working at the grass-roots level to promote civil rights and black-Jewish understanding remains an overriding goal.

While there may still be strong ties between black and Jewish leaders, "on the basic grass-roots level, young people are overwhelmed with stereotypes about each group," Chaney said. "I think this is an opportunity to create a dialogue for young people on a one-on-one basis."