- Person
- Michael Schwerner
- Lived
- 1939–1964
- Field
- Civil rights
- From
- American
The story
Michael "Mickey" Schwerner was born in Pelham, New York, on 6 November 1939 to a Jewish family. His mother, Anne Siegel, taught science at New Rochelle High School, and his father, Nathan Schwerner, was a businessman. He lived in New York City until he was eight, when the family moved to Westchester County, and he went to Pelham Memorial High School.
Friends and family described him as friendly, gentle, mischievous and "full of life and ideas". He believed that all people were essentially good. He loved sports, animals, poker, W. C. Fields and rock music, and he named his cocker spaniel after Gandhi.
He began at Michigan State University, intending to become a veterinarian, then after a year transferred to Cornell University in Ithaca, where he switched his major to rural sociology. At Cornell he was initiated into the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. While a member he campaigned successfully to have a Black student accepted as a pledge.
It was a small but telling act. The campaign asked his fraternity brothers to judge a fellow student on who he was rather than on the colour of his skin. It showed the same mix of conviction and good humour that later made Schwerner an effective organiser.
After Cornell he went on to graduate study at Columbia University and then to social work in a housing project on New York's Lower East Side, where he led a local branch of the Congress of Racial Equality. In January 1964 he moved to Mississippi to work for voting rights, and he was murdered there by members of the Ku Klux Klan in June of that year, aged 24.
Cornell has kept his memory close. In 1991 a stained glass window depicting Schwerner and his fellow activists James Chaney and Andrew Goodman was placed in the university's Sage Chapel, a reminder to new generations of students that a life of public service can begin with one decision on campus.
Why it matters
Schwerner's campus campaign showed the instinct for fairness that later took him to Mississippi to fight for Black Americans' right to vote.
About Michael Schwerner
New York social worker who organised Black voter registration in Mississippi for CORE and was murdered by the Klan with James Chaney and Andrew Goodman in 1964.
More about Michael Schwerner
- Michael Schwerner went to Mississippi for $9.80 a weekIn January 1964 Michael Schwerner became the first white civil rights worker based permanently outside Jackson, Mississippi, working for CORE in Meridian for $9.80 a week.
- Michael Schwerner helped integrate Gwynn Oak ParkIn 1963 Michael Schwerner took part in the campaign to desegregate Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland, which had kept a whites-only admissions policy for decades.
- Michael Schwerner's boycott won a store's first Black hireIn Meridian, Michael Schwerner organised a boycott of a variety store that sold mostly to Black customers until it hired its first African American employee.
- Michael Schwerner planned a Freedom School at Mount ZionOn Memorial Day 1964 Michael Schwerner and James Chaney asked Mount Zion church in Longdale, Mississippi, to host a Freedom School and urged its members to register to vote.
- Michael Schwerner helped win the Voting Rights ActNational outrage at the 1964 killing of Michael Schwerner and fellow activists James Chaney and Andrew Goodman helped Congress pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Michael Schwerner built a community centre in MeridianMichael and Rita Schwerner took over CORE's Meridian field office in 1964 and set up a community centre for Black residents as a base for grassroots organising.
- Michael Schwerner protected a bullied boy, Robert ReichAs a boy Michael Schwerner protected the young Robert Reich from bullies; Reich, later US Secretary of Labor, said it inspired him to protect the powerless.
- Michael Schwerner worked with youth on the Lower East SideMichael Schwerner left graduate school to work as a social worker in a Lower East Side housing project, where he was known for his special rapport with teenagers.
Sources
- Michael Schwerner Famous Trials, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law (archived)
- Michael Schwerner Wikipedia
- Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.