Freedom Summer Mississippi 1964

“Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney had only just begun working on the Freedom Summer campaign to register black Mississippians to vote when they suddenly disappeared.

Schwerner and Goodman were two Jewish men from New York—they had been there less than a week—and Chaney was a local black activist. They had just finished investigating the bombing of a nearby church when they were taken into custody under false pretenses, and never again seen by their fellow volunteers.

The disappearance of these three men sparked national outrage, and the FBI converged on Mississippi to investigate. They discovered that on June 21, 1964, immediately upon being released from custody, the young activists had been brutally beaten and murdered by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob.” — NAACP

21 June 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the day of this continuation of the brutal and racist declaration of war against Afrikan civil and human rights.

9 years prior to this, the murder of Emmett Louis Till in Money, Mississippi on 24 August 1955 had galvanized the civil and human rights movements in the U.S.http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515#awesm=~oHSMNVfa8eY3WR

Watch for the play by the Oakland based Tavia Percia Theatre Company – Emmett Till: American Hero http://sfbayview.com/2014/our-people-our-evolution-emmett-till-an-american-hero/ written, produced and directed by Tavia Percia, 21 year old veteran of the African-American Shakespeare Company.

The play, which has been endorsed by the Emmett Till Foundation in Chicago, is beginning a national tour.

The brutality and rampant racism against African people in the U.S. continues to this day.